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hardware OS4 : 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech |
| posted by Mikey_C on 6-Jun-2005 9:33:06 (98929 reads) |
Amigaworld is pleased to announce that the 20 Answers to the 20 Questions as asked by our members are now available to Read...
(Warning Not for the faint hearted)
Before answering these questions I think it is worth having a quick resume about how we all arrived at this point.
At the WoA show in Kensington, London in July 1999 Jim Collas announced a wonderful revival for the Amiga in which existing platform supporters, such as us, were meant to become very closely involved. Less than a month later he was sacked, and by the following New Year the Amiga IP had once again changed hands. In the summer of 2000 Bill & Fleecy with still some vestige of their original venture capital left, were focussing on their DE vision. That left the existing dealers such as us with no 'real' Amiga product to sell in the foreseeable future, and therefore the need to explore other, non-Amiga, avenues.
The following September Fleecy visited me and asked if we would consider project managing and funding the development/manufacture of a new PPC-based Amiga. Amiga Inc themselves were to develop - or fund the development of - a port of Amiga OS 3.9 to run on this new platform. This really was not our type of business, but as nobody else was prepared to do anything I (probably foolishly in retrospect) took up the challenge in order to prevent the Amiga as we know it from fizzling out. We spent money with Escena to produce an A1200/PPC hybrid but that in the end proved technically too complex for Escena to implement. We subsequently came to a licencing arrangement with MAI logic to use a board design that they had commissioned as an Articia development system as the basis of the new AmigaOne platform. We hold all the schematics and build files and (obviously) the licence to continue to build existing A1 products using the board manufacturer of our choice.
Amiga Inc ran out of money and so couldn't fund OS4. Ben, Fleecy and I brokered a deal whereby Hyperion ported OS4 at no charge to Amiga Inc and, in return, Hyperion would keep the subsequent sales revenues for OS4 on the AmigaOne platform. In the end this turned out to be a much, much bigger task than Hyperion had reckoned on, and several times the project came very close to folding. We had to step in on more than one occasion to keep it afloat. Please make no mistake, without Eyetech putting its money on the line there would not just have been no AmigaOne, there would have been no OS4 either.
The fact that new hardware was delivered, together with a functional version of OS4 is against all odds. And the fact that Hyperion and we ever decided to make it happen defies all commercial logic. What has been delivered is not perfect, but is absolutely remarkable given the pitifully small potential market to support the product. This is a product by enthusiasts for enthusiasts, not some mass volume high street product. It was conceived for delivery in the forgiving optimism of the Amiga community that was the defacto mood around the new millennium, and before the blue/red troll wars poisoned all genuine initiatives on both sides.
The bottom line is that we got very low volume, new (and therefore defacto not mass tested) PPC hardware into peoples hands when nobody else would do anything. We did that on the basis that we would keep the costs as low as possible for those early adopters who were prepared to share some of the risk. The alternative would have been to price the boards to cover that risk (in consumer terms) making the boards at least three times as expensive to end users. (And prices must be based on manufacturing costs for these small volumes, and not the sales prices of bare, mass-produced PC boards). More realistically this would almost certainly have represented a level of risk too far, with the result that there would have been no AmigaOnes and no OS4. After all anyone could have bought essentially the same product (without UBoot or OS4, but with full support) direct from from MAI Logic for $3900.
In fact as it stands today it would have been far cheaper for us to have given all current board owners $500 each not to buy a board and walked away from the whole Amiga scene in early 2001. We didn't - we stuck with it. In this context you can understand it is hard to feel anything but frustration when the forums are full of armchair lawyers, designers, hardware experts and business analysts who all claim to be able to do better but seem curiously reluctant to take the same risks, exposure and initiative that we have.
So in the light of this I have attempted, as always, to answer the questions as honestly as I can as of the time of writing. Also as always, things may arise in the future which are not known now, just as we now have more knowledge now than we did 2 or 3 years ago. Please note however that I am not interested in playing retrospective word games with professional point scorers and will limit my responses accordingly.
Alan Redhouse, Eyetech
1: Paulsamiga What is the current situation regarding the A1-XE & SE fixes and warranty?
There are no 'officially sanctioned' XE UDMA repairs. There is no layout issue with the motherboard as far as the IDE stuff is concerned. IDE UDMA works fine unless the ethernet driver is started. This is either a driver or (more likely IMO) a VIA initialisation issue. All the 'fix' does is to use a hardware trick to give the VIA higher bus priority which, by chance, was found to stop it putting out illegal data on the PCI bus (causing the DMA to hang) when the ethernet is in operation. It may yet turn out to have side effects and is NOT a solution recommended by us.
The XE usb is missing 15k pull down resistors on the data and clock lines due to a misinterpretation of the VIA documents by the board designer. However it works fine unless you are continuously plugging and unplugging usb devices. If you use a ~£3 minihub (or a bay mounted cardreader etc) for those devices you wish to hotswap then that fixes the problem and is cheaper than any other solution, including postage.
Warranty on all products shipped by us is 12 months in the end-user's hands or 15 months from us shipping to the dealer, whichever is the shorter. This excludes damage caused by any kind of fiddling about by the end user (eg overclocking or cpu voltage experiments) and all forms of consequential loss.
We offered generous trade-in terms on the SE boards up to 12 months from purchase, as we had a commercial outlet for the traded-in boards at that time. That opportunity is now long passed, and any purchasers who did not take up this offer will have to live with their (non) decision I'm afraid.
There are no known additional USB faults on the SE boards (over that of the XE boards) and as these have been obsolete since the XE's came out we have no boards, expertise (or budget) to look into this further
2: MetalJoe: There are some concerns from a few people in the community about the chances for new companies wishing to licence hardware for AmigaOS 4. Amiga Inc have stated that any such licence approvals will be made in consultation with their partners (i.e. yourself and Hyperion), so as not to interfere with their business plans. Can you assure people that Eyetech will not hold a monopoly and will welcome other hardware solutions?
It is such a tiny market and the costs of entry are so high that no commercial concern in its right mind would get involved. Without a 'monopoly' this tiny market would be even more fragmented, making for even smaller production volumes and much higher prices.
Part of the deal that Hyperion and we struck with (the Bill and Fleecy) Amiga Inc was that there would be exclusivity on the use of the AmigaOne name for us, and of the Amiga OS4 brand for Hyperion's OS development. This was in order to protect our respective large investments in the A1/OS4 project from sudden changes of mind by Amiga Inc. In particular, as Amiga Inc were desparately short of cash at that time, both Ben and I were concerned that financial pressures may force Amiga Inc to unilaterally decide, for example, to allow MorphOS to be rebranded as OS4 even though much earlier negotiations between Amiga Inc and MorphOS had apparently irretrievably broken down. These safeguards were therefore embedded in our respective agreements, as is normal, sensible business practice.
This exclusivity is in itself no big deal. Competition only has any significant effect on prices when the market is large and unrestricted and volumes reaches mass-production (500,000+ per year) proportions. Selling at a loss to try to gain market share in a tiny, finite market is obviously unsustainable for any company that tries it (there have been examples) and is not actually in the long term interests of end users either.
3: Jahc: What details can you give us on upcoming CPU upgrade modules? Speed, price, estimated date of availability, etc..
These are being developed by third parties and are dependant largely on the price/volume of cpu's and MegArray parts. The general feeling is that the cpu prices on offer are too high to allow the developers to sell the minimum order quantities of cpu's, largely because of the current demand being generated by the Mac Mini. We expect the prices of low power consumption G4 cpus to fall later this year which will hopefully make this a viable option for those third parties.
4: Toaks: we need more developers , why not consider a renting service for AmigaOne's to potential developers?
That is something that would have to be done locally (by dealers or enterprising individuals - perhaps yourself?) to fall within specific countries credit regulations, and also to stand a reasonable chance of actually receiving monthly payments and the return of the boards at the end of the rental period.
5: Hondo_DK: Has something been planned for the release of OS4?, special cabinets, marketing, new boards, etc??
No, this would be down to individual dealers.
6: Chunder: Are the previously planned versions of the AmigaOne (e.g. µA1-I, A1-XC, etc.) still going to happen? Have the specifications changed; have the boards been prototyped fully yet? Is there a scheduled production run yet (not necessarily the date, just a
yes/no)?
No new board designs will be made (by us at any rate) specifically for the 'Amiga Enthusiast' market. It just simply is not viable given the tiny potential sales.
Both the µA1-I and A1-XC have been designed and the µA1-I has been prototyped. The final specification for both boards (and other designs/variations) will inevitably be modified before they go into production, if and when this happens. Boards will only go into production when we have volume orders for them from industry.
7: RWO: If/When the AmigaOne XC become a reality will there be a trade-in/exchange for SE/XE motherboards at a lower price (with/without cpu module) ?
No, not from us although individual dealers may devise such schemes. It would not be cost effective to produce/sell incomplete boards or re-test traded in boards or modules.
8: Swoop: Is there a PPC set top box planned based on AmigaOS4 ?
Not by us
9: Gnarly: What (if anything) are you doing about the problems running Linux to its full potential on the AmigaOne boards?
Nothing - that is not a general purpose market that we are addressing. Others can address it if they wish using A1 hardware, but it is difficult to see how a PPC-based general purpose computer can be cost effective against a mass produced and better supported x86 based product. For the 'embedded' (ie limited-range functionality) applications we will use the most cost effective software/firmware solutions for the job in hand (which obviously takes development status and licence fees as well as OS characteristics into account).
10: MetalJoe: What are your plans for the server market? Will you be assisting with LinuxPPC (or even BSD) support for the AmigaOnes?
We have no plans to address this market yet (see linux comments above) and therefore no plans to devote resources to it.
11: Eric_S: If a good business opportunity regarding (selling) non Mai hardware presented itself, would you act on it? Or are you tied in (directly or indirectly) your current business dealing with Mai in such a way that you can only deal/sell their hardware?
Any significant business opportunities for which we have a good prima facie chance of success (ie making an adequate financial return) will be evaluated (as always). The current 'Amiga Enthusiast' ppc board market is not such an opportunity in itself, either with the MAI or alternative northbridge components. However if you have a fully costed, realistic alternative business proposal to put to us then please do so.
BTW MAI do not make hardware (or chips for that matter) - they are a fabless chip design and marketing company.
12: Wegster: RAM seems to be causing issues for many users, going back to both the SE and XE boards, in some cases, RAM purchased from Eyetech even being incompatible. While it may be unreasonable to expect an exchange for older purchases, it remains a problem with the uA1-Cs with their 256MB of RAM and single socket limitation, as many users want to run at least 512MB of RAM to dual boot AOS and Linux. Are there plans to either offer 512MB as a standard configuration so users don't 'throw out' the 256MB they are currently forced to purchase with the uA1-C, or any plans to produce compatible 'guaranteed' RAM at a more reasonable cost?
The only instances that I am aware of where RAM from us was incompatible with the XE/SE boards is in the handful of cases where we ordered Kingston RAM with Infineon chips and were shipped DIMMs with Toshiba chips. A few got sent out before we realised - we contacted those affected and asked for them to be returned at our expense to be replaced by the correct ones. Most did, a few didn't so there may still be the odd incompatible stick out there.
For the µA1 we specified that the boards were to be tested with compatible RAM before shipping to us. We specified 256MB because 512MB would have pushed the price up quite a bit and was on a long leadtime (so there would have been no µA1's for Christmas).
We will look at the cost and availability of 512MB - and its effect on the end user pricing - for subsequent production runs - but no promises. Whatever the outcome all boards in a manufacturing run will have the same type/size of SODIMM.
13: Wegster: Alan, you've been fairly quiet in the community lately for some time now, while many try to ascertain the state of their warrantees for fixes of their XEs, as well as owners of the older SEs. Some feel particularly betrayed as XEs were marketed as 'consumer grade,' and the lack of public attention to this has left many users cold. Does Eyetech have any intention of honouring their warrantees, and/or provide a solution for SE owners of any kind? Can you clarify this situation for once and for all?
All these points have been dealt with elsewhere in these 20 questions
14: Argo: There have been discussions on various websites about users rather bad experiences with current dealers in regards to boards in stock, shipping, and service. Even Mr. Hare mentioned difficulty in purchasing an AmigaOne. What is Eyetech doing or planning to do to improve dealer issues?
The dealers are doing their best in the face of the tiny volumes and small overall returns they can get from the 'Amiga Enthusiast' market. Many of them are keeping going because of their love of the platform rather than for any business rationale. All have other revenue streams which dwarf their returns from the Amiga market (or they have day jobs as well) - they must have in order to eat!
Eventually dealers will polarise themselves into those addressing industrial markets and those serving the residual 'Amiga Enthusiast' market
Due to bad experiences with shipping boards to some dealers on credit terms last year we now do not send out any boards without payment clearance before shipping. In every case I have seen (which is not many) where a customer reports that a dealer has told them that they are waiting for us to ship boards, it is because we are waiting for that dealer to pay us.
On the specific issue of Amiga Inc - they asked us to save two boards for a specific dealer to build up into systems for them. We did, but the dealer never sent us the money for the boards, so we never sent the boards to him. I do not know, or wish to know, the particular arrangements that Amiga Inc entered into with the dealer concerned, whether he managed to buy boards from another dealer or even if Amiga Inc bought their systems elsewhere.
15: Zorro: The GX cpu that Eyetech fitted on almost all the µA1 are causing some random issues to the users and, mostly important, to Hyperion and other developers (Ibrowse). If this will take to a hardware fault, do you plan to replace/fix those cpu modules? (this is an end-user board)
These issues are I believe down to software/firmware not being set up correctly to take account of the different cache sizes between the Fx and Gx cpus. In the cases brought to our attention it has been resolved by a UBoot update.
16: RedMelons: Up until Summer 2003, Total Amiga magazine contained the always informative 'Alan Redhouse Column', and full page advertisements for the AmigaOne. Do you intend to re-commence advertising/publicity for the AmigaOne, and hopefully also your column in Total Amiga?
No, for two reasons. Firstly our original support (adverts, my column, our promotion of individual copies and subscriptions to our own customer base) was to help get Total Amiga off the ground to the point that the subscription levels made it a more-or-less a financially viable entity. I believe that this has been achieved.
Secondly the 'Amiga Enthusiast' market does not generate sufficient profit for us to be able to indulge ourselves (in reality myself - all our former 'Amiga' staff and most of me are off doing proper revenue-earning things unconnected with the Amiga Enthusiast market) in non-essential time consuming activities. Even these 20 answers are being typed on my laptop on holiday!
In reality - because I really like the Amiga platform - I personally spend far more time on 'Amiga Enthusiast' activities than can possibly be justified from a business point of view. But we all have to make a living by doing other things (and this includes the dealers) and fit in Amiga stuff when we can.
17: Ktadd: If a large China, or other large, deal doesn't come through, is the current demand for Amiga One boards enough to support continued manufacturing and investment?
No - there never was (or will be) enough demand alone from the 'Amiga Enthusiast' market to support manufacturing and investment, either in the past or in the future. The availability of updated A1 products for the 'Amiga Enthusiast' are entirely determined by our success (or otherwise) in promoting A1/OS4 based solutions into external commercial markets. That is why we have been spending our time working hard for success in these markets, rather than with the day to day goings on in the 'Amiga Enthusiast' market as typified by the AW membership. I cannot overstress the point that it is only success in these commercial markets that will bring more advanced, lower cost A1/OS4 type products to the Amiga Enthusiast market - and not vice versa.
I have to say that the negative comments about the boards (and Eyetech) posted on AW and elsewhere do not help instil confidence in potential commercial purchasers, even though those comments do not directly relate to the specifications required by those potential customers. In other words the more vociferous the criticism the less likely you are to see new products.
18: Dauber: I have the microA1-C, which is said to be able to handle up to 2 gigabytes of RAM. How is that possible with only one SODIMM slot and with no SODIMMs bigger than 512 megs available?
Clearly the board can support SODIMM sizes up to 2GB if they are/become available. The single SODIMM slot was not a secret suddenly sneaked in to the specification after you bought your board!
19: Billt: How does one apply to become an official and/or approved rework facility for AmigaOne motherboard modifications?
There is no officially approved rework for the AmigaOne - see above.
For people with a provable reputation that they know what they are doing, and who are prepared to accept all the consequences of screwing it up then we can release the USB/UDMA 'fix' information on receipt of a signed NDA/disclaimer.
20: Mikey_C: Where do you see the Amiga platform in the short to medium term and do you hope Eyetech will still be involved?
Into industries/applications where the OS itself is not important, but where there is a major drop in cost of ownership by employing ppc and/or OS4 technology, however invisible to the end user.
We will continue to support the Amiga Enthusiast community provided it continues to be fun and, overall, pays its direct costs. I'm afraid I don't do things that aren't fun any more, other than for relatively short periods of time - life's just too short!
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| Poster | Thread |  falemagn
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 14:25:13
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Super Member
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Joined: 24-Nov-2003
Posts: 1126
From: Italy | | |
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| Quote:
How do I KNOW? Simple! They didn't make enough money (or, have enough left) to PAY some of their loyal workers. They may have been profitable pre-April, but APRIL wasn't gifted to them by a fairygrandmother! Do YOU believe that?
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So, let's get this straight: you don't know the figures of the costs involved, you haven't done any calculation, all you know is that some people haven't been paid - but you don't know why.
From that you draw the conclusion that the peg was sold at a loss?
Ok, fine... whatever 
_________________
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary
system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
~~ Henry Ford
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| | redfox
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 15:05:45
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Elite Member
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Joined: 7-Mar-2003
Posts: 2078
From: Canada | | |
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 15:31:17
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Elite Member
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Joined: 18-Apr-2003
Posts: 3040
From: Yorkshire Dales, United Knigdom | | |
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| @redfox
Quote:
| Quick Gentlemen! There's a spy in our midst. Grab him before he learns too much! |
No need to do that. You're all doing a great job of keeping me completely in the dark. 
Is it a new Game & Watch?
_________________
Sam
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| | dan.hutch
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 15:42:59
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Cult Member
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Joined: 30-Dec-2004
Posts: 530
From: United Kingdom | | |
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| Although I agree with many of Alan's points in this article, I find the response quite unprofessional at times. I think you can give your CUSTOMERS too much information, Alan treds a dangerous line in this article and I feel it will do NO good and only damge the Amig One and OS4 projects.
You know the saying...
Unless you've got something good to say, it's best not said at all. |
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| | Student_K
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 15:47:51
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New Member
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Joined: 29-Jul-2003
Posts: 7
From: Sweden | | |
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| Thank You, Alan!
One of the most honest and actually most positive reports in many years.
It's positive because it shows what life really is about when it comes to developing for something as small as it can't even be called a market. It shows some reality over you. I meant this in a good way. It's rather negative to listen to people who promise things that are not realistic to accomplish. It can actually make the market more healthy to tell the truth.
Continue this path and perhaps we will have fewer of thoose who think that everything possible to say is equally possible to do. The Amiga community has been dreaming for a "little" to long time now and some have been dreaming so hard that they have come to hate reality. 
Cheers!
edit: Thanx Agafaster and Shoe Didn't realize it was my first post here... Last edited by Student_K on 07-Jun-2005 at 06:23 PM.
Last edited by Student_K on 07-Jun-2005 at 06:14 PM.
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| | dan.hutch
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 15:54:55
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Cult Member
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Joined: 30-Dec-2004
Posts: 530
From: United Kingdom | | |
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| @AMIGR
Quote:
And...
Commodore
Gateway
Bill Buck
Mai
Apple
World markets
Granny
the Cylons
Margaret Thatcher
your neighbour with that big hedge
the pet goldfish
...just don't blame us! |
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| | redfox
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 16:02:10
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Elite Member
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Joined: 7-Mar-2003
Posts: 2078
From: Canada | | |
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| @Sam
I'm just kidding. I don't know anything about the "Mystery Device" either.
Honestly, I hope it is not a "red-herring". Last edited by redfox on 07-Jun-2005 at 05:54 PM.
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| | Agafaster
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 16:09:29
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Super Member
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Joined: 10-Mar-2003
Posts: 1413
From: West Midlands, England - sector ZZ9 plural Z alpha | | |
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| @Student_K
_________________
XH558 - the worlds last flying Vulcan.
ok, its actually XL426 in the picture but you know what I mean.
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| | shoe
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 16:17:39
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Super Member
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Joined: 14-Sep-2003
Posts: 1585
From: Gothenburg, Sweden | | |
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| @Student_K,
Yeah! Good to see you here. Maybe you clean this house up..?
(Sorry for beeing OT) |
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| | Jose
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 18:11:21
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Cult Member
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Joined: 10-Mar-2003
Posts: 997
From: Unknown | | |
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| Big thanks to Hyperion and Eyetech for keeping it up even when not economically feasible 
_________________
José
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| | tomazkid
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 18:55:05
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Team Member
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Joined: 31-Jul-2003
Posts: 11694
From: Kristianstad, Sweden | | |
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| | PR
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 21:29:16
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Super Member
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Joined: 1-Sep-2004
Posts: 1962
From: Suomi-Finland | | |
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| There is no interest in A1? I can see a lot of here anyway. Let this be the first quarter of" Enthusiasts" then.
Alan: Thanks for the reply MAN! I appreciate Your risk taking, I've been waiting this for 10 years, someone has not. The board reads Eyetech here, no problems ever with solving some few (sw usually) with local "...Eye" - firm. Very good indeed. and a beta is always a beta. I newer thought it would be better than the old but it is!
I know load's of ppl who actually made me to use an Amiga '85? and they have the old ones somethere in their closets. They could be the future but I think at least half of these have gone "on".. More time went on and now it can
't go any worse from my point of view. Most pc:s had their "run" if not updated. Viruses and all. Why not fast os4?
I am a hard- "enth" and have a few friends that could be if some reall #### happens in the near future. Hope so, and RockForever! |
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| | thedoctor
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 7-Jun-2005 23:45:06
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New Member
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Joined: 19-Jul-2003
Posts: 3
From: Unknown | | |
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| I don't post here often, but I see almost 300 responces in a few hours... And no I have not read all the responces, that will happen during this evening..
I have one further question on the PPC, which should become more available soon, now that Apple has announced the coming change to the x86 chip set.. So the demand for the PPC with decline, thereby making them more available. The cost may decline somewhat. How much extra can be packed into the A1-800 that I purchased..?
I also would point out that apple may have 'shot themselfs in the foot', and we will see some 'osborne' effect on sales of the 'power Mac' in the near future....
And Ibm make reduce efforts to upgrade the chip with the reduced demand for it, call that the 'alpha' syndrome.....
Anyway thanks for the 20 straight forward answers to the questions... |
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| | Teddy
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 8-Jun-2005 4:58:38
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Regular Member
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Joined: 29-Nov-2003
Posts: 395
From: Belgrade, Serbia | | |
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| Well thank you all for this looong thread. Now my eyes are about to pop out of my head. 
I wasn't here for one day and look what happens.
I just have to say thanx to Alan, eyetech and Hyperion for being what they are, dreamers, becouse
withouth dreams and our constant desire to live out those dreams this would be a
very sad and gray world to live in.
And as for my trust in the platform, well as I alredy sad in another thread,
I should get a job soon and as soon as I get that mony I will be happy to be proud owner of A1. Last edited by Teddy on 08-Jun-2005 at 05:02 AM.
_________________
You can crack anything with your head, even the head itself. 
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...proud AOS user since 1993
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| | olegil
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 8-Jun-2005 14:30:31
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Elite Member
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Joined: 22-Aug-2003
Posts: 5895
From: Work | | |
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| @opi
The problem with NOT having a preorder scheme is that there is no way of _ensuring_ there is enough support for another production run without it. You can of course guess, but all guesses are, per definition, wrong. If they weren't wrong, they would be facts, not guesses
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.
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| | Anonymous
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 8-Jun-2005 14:38:35
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| | Sooo....
after reading all the posts, i simply have to add me to the list.
1. Thank you Mr. Redhouse for being honest and hopefully there'll be something
in the future to change your mind regarding NEW A1-models.
2. Many posts (mostly the first 5 sites) would read a very negative story out
of your answers, but thanks to some nice chaps from StarWars, i didn't lost my
faith in OS4 and Amiga.
3. No offence here, but please check your mails regulary (my dealer goes MAD
not reaching you in times) |
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| | wegster
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 9-Jun-2005 3:24:06
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Elite Member
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Joined: 29-Nov-2004
Posts: 8554
From: RTP, NC USA | | |
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| I thought it appropriate to re-post Alan's comment in another forum thread, just to help in clarifying what seems to be a large misunderstanding going on as a result of the QnA:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Eyetech dosen't have a pool of money to get the boards built, the dealers don't have the money to pay for the orders until the credit cards are billed.
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You really have got completely the wrong end of the stick here.
We don't ever take advanced payments from dealers to fund board manufacture. All we ask is that they fax or email an image of their bank transfer instruction (or we run their credit card) immediately before we ship the boards to them. The boards are usually shipped out the same day. We do that because of past broken promises - we have been (and still are) waiting for over 18 months for one dealer to pay his bills!
As far as supply is concerned, yes we are currently out of stock awaiting the next shipment, for which we have mostly paid for on order placement some months ago.
The main reason for the delay has been the availability of cpus at the price IBM originally quoted. Unfortunately IBM are really not interested unless you are buying 100000+ cpu's per year (IMO they have become much harder to deal with since their PS3 & Xbox success), so to a certain extent for the (in their terms) trivial volumes that we currently need we have to take what they will give us and at a time that suits them. We keep being promised delivery, but keep having the delivery times extended.
We can always get cpu's at full retail prices from a distributor, but that would throw the economics of production right out of the window unless we made a big hike in the product price (which would clearly affect out sales volumes, hence production volumes, hence setup costs/board - see below).
In addition at these tiny manufacturing volumes we really need to make each order batch as big as possible - meaning that the production runs are well spaced out, and that we therefore have a risk of running out of boards if the next run gets delayed or sales are greater than expected (as has happened with the µA1-C).
It is probably worth illustrating the importance of batch size as well. When we have a manufacturing run the average assembly facility takes a day to set up, a day to take down and can produce 5000 or more boards a day. Clearly the smaller the order the higher the production cost/board - for example if the set up and take down costs are $100000/run then thats $100/ board if we have 1000 made. On the other hand if we just get, say, 250 made the setup/take down costs add $400/ board (and before anyone starts quoting these numbers out of context they are just for illustration).
Ideally we want a steady stream of orders of 50,000/batch/2 months (say), which reduces the setup costs to a reasonable $2/board. But for this we need volume (niche) sales to industry as unfortunately there are not enough Amiga Enthusiasts left to buy this many.
So at the moment we are out of stock, we have mostly paid for the next batch and the manufacturer has everything lined up for production except the cpu's.
I will post here when we receive them.
Hope this helps a bit
Alan
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Last edited by wegster on 09-Jun-2005 at 05:35 AM.
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Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!
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| | olegil
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 9-Jun-2005 11:00:35
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Elite Member
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Joined: 22-Aug-2003
Posts: 5895
From: Work | | |
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| @SlimJim
Quote:
I don't.
Situation before interview:
Current hardware is on the market. There were rumours about the XC, but nothing substantial. The µA1-I needs a major industrial order to be run into production.
Situation after interview:
Current hardware is on the market. (No change at all). The XC has been confirmed to be designed, but just as with the µA1-I it needs an industrial order to be set into production. (Not so much of a change that it counts).
So basically, people are NOW saying that because Eyetech might NEVER produce an XC, they don't want to buy a µA1-C? Why?
"I'm not going to buy an HP laptop because I don't know how long HP are going to keep producing laptops"?
"I'm not buying that CD because that band is splitting up"?
Sorry, it doesn't make sense. You buy the CURRENT product, you do NOT in ANY way buy a future product NOW.
Holding out on the current products because that manufacturer might not make any OTHER products in the future doesn't make sense.
_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.
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| | ChrisH
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 9-Jun-2005 13:16:14
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Elite Member
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Joined: 30-Jan-2005
Posts: 6679
From: Unknown | | |
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| Thanks for the update Alan, even if it was a little easy for some people to misinterpret things negatively. Nothing you say should be much of a surprise, unless someone has been living in fairy land.
What mainly interested me was that more uA1s will be produced 'soon', which I guess should (Hyperion permitting) be soon enough for the official release of OS4 - if not earlier. Presumably this new batch will fix any little problems found with the original uA1s, while the official OS4.0 will fix any problems remaining with how OS4 handles the uA1. This has got to be good!
Assuming that no-one reports any (real) problems with official OS4.0 running on the new batch of uA1s, I will strongly consider buying one to replace/augment my current Amithlon system. But please make 512MB standard, as it's peanuts compared to the price of a whole system.
For anyone worried about buying a (micro) AmigaOne because of it's unknown future, I say this: If you are happy with the software on your current Amiga system (be it a Classic Amiga, Amithlon, or even UAE), and if your main software is reported to work on OS4 under 68k emulation, then you have nothing to loose by buying an AmigaOne, because that 68k software won't stop working, and neither will your AmigaOne, even in the unlikely event that Hyperion or Eyetech ditch the Amiga. But you have everything to gain, with fairly modern hardware (unlike the Classic), and native OS4 software appearing all the time (particularly on the Aminet).
But I also strongly advise against buying a new AmigaOne on promises of what might be, just as I would for any other computer or PDA system. If an A1/OS4 doesn't do what you want, then wait until it does - or if you can't wait any longer, then go buy something else (without the Amiga label) that does, and hopefully you can return in a year or two when the A1/OS4 does do it.
BTW, I am sure that once OS4 is released, there will be at least as many people buying an A1 as have already bought an "early bird" A1. And that will also signal the time to start convincing ex-Amigans to return (which is potentially a huge market), which should be enough to keep Eyetech happy for a year or two. After that we'd need to really start pushing for truely new users, which would be realistic if we had a decent browser & office suite by then.
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| | xeron
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Re: 20 Answers with Alan Redhouse of Eyetech
Posted on 9-Jun-2005 15:22:53
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Elite Member
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Joined: 22-Jun-2003
Posts: 2440
From: Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, England, UK, Europe, Earth, The Milky Way, The Universe | | |
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| Whee! I get Comment #300!
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