This is all absolutely disgusting, the machines don't work when you get them, you pay for a working machine and now you have to pay again to get them to a state they should have been in when you first paid your hard earned cash? No wonder Eyetech haven't got any good deals going down, other companies can see what they are doing to everyone and yes it IS their fault if the H/W doesn't work, what the heck happened to the Quality Assurance they were talking about in order to be Certified an Amiga? if this is quality then that doesn't bode well for the future.

I want the Amiga to be a success in a big way, but for godsake Eyetech, start treating Amigans properly, paying for shipping and handling is one thing, but being forced to pay again just to get the board working is just nasty. You sell the hardware / develop it, make sure it works or the reputation the Amiga is going to have is going to be dire.

Chris

Quote:

I don't see anything in your post which actually has anything to do with what i wrote but that's ok. The only point i was making: don't blame it on the dealers. End of story.

some dealers are not doing the "support" job like they should, plain and simple.

Blame is the the question, support of the platform and getting fixes done, is the point.

couple of slides regarding what Alan said at Bath.

http://webring.amigaworld.net/bath2003/bath22.jpg

http://webring.amigaworld.net/bath2003/bath23.jpg

Last edited by L8-X on 22-Feb-2005 at 10:54 AM.

_________________
"The system no longer works " -- Young Anakin Skywalker

@Georg
I have already used the warranty to have my first XE replaced after it was found to be defective. I sent the board in for analysis and it was deemed covered.

These XE fixes (Ethernet vs UDMA and USB debounce) are not covered under warranty and neither was the non-writeable Flash ROM. I paid for the Flash ROM replacement and my dealer covered the cost of the fixes as a favour.

When I actually needed the warranty it was there for me. As an actual XE owner I'm certainly not confused as to what is covered or not. Then again, I'm not here just trying to stir up trouble either.

_________________
ExecSG Team Lead

Quote:
Problem is that some dealers "forgot" to mention this detail to customers in order to attract as many sales as possible.

Quote:
A bit of a cheap shot if you ask me. You should be grateful to the dealers that they wanted to sell this buggy hardware in the first place. I don't think they got much joy and / or money out of them anyway... And is has been your only source of income regarding OS4 so far.



Very well put z5.

I don't know what his problem is but he sure has a passion for slagging off dealers, I've been an avid supporter of Hyperions products but it sure doesn't instill any confidence in supporting stuff when all he does is attack dealers constantly.
Yes some of us have had problems, some have worked those problems out and some maybe not ........................ the AmigaOne / OS4 project has cost me a fortune in money, sleepless nights and health problems ........................ but hey I'm hanging in there.

Regs
Doug

anythingamiga:

For me it seems like some people think they gain something from by trying to jump on someone else

Gunne

@AnythingAmiga

Quote:

Yes some of us have had problems, some have worked those problems out and some maybe not ........................ the AmigaOne / OS4 project has cost me a fortune in money, sleepless nights and health problems ........................ but hey I'm hanging in there.

It's worse than that for you mate, you've also had to put up with inane telephone calls from me too!

Anyway, for the record: Doug at AnythingAmiga told me several times before I placed my order about the following:
1. The AmigaOne system was then in a beta-testing stage, therefore bugs and so on were almost inevitable at that early stage of development.
2. OS4 was still quite some time away from being released.
3. Actual delivery of my board would take some time, first estimated at 6 to 8 weeks.

With all of those points repeated to me I went into this with both eyes wide open, and ordered a G3SE system. I was shortly thereafter given a free upgrade to a G3XE system due to ongoing production difficulties with the SE boards, and that there would be an additional delay in getting my system to me.

At all times I was given updates as to how my order was progressing (it took significantly longer than the original estimate, but I didn't complain (much)), and at every step was made to feel like a valued customer.

In my opinion there's precious little room for dodgy Amiga dealers to hide any more, and Doug Moir certainly has no reason to hide.



Doug (the other one - no relation).

P.S - Doug (AnythingAmiga), what's the verdict on that SIL0680/USB/Firewire combo card you were going to look at?

_________________
logicalheart wrote:
You know that pretty sound you play when the computer starts?
You need another one to play when the computer is actually ready to use.
Maybe add more for malfunctions and then we'll have music all day.

Warranties only last so long. I believe that the menufacturer has an obligation to
help those of us that are no longer covered by a warranty to fix our systems. All they have
to do for me is to publish what parts have to be replaced, which traces have to be cut, etc.
I'm an electronics engineer & I know how to use a soldering iron. JUST PUBLISH
THE INFORMATION ALREADY!!. Those of you that aren't qualified to fix your
system are probably still SOL, but allow those of us that can to fix our PCs ourselves.
All the repair shops in Europe don't do me any good in the middle of the USA.
Jim Steichen

_________________

Back when the boards became available for the 1st time, I contacted Eyetech and was told that the Amiga One was not mature enough for my needs - I wanted a machine to get me through uni. They advised I buy a cheap PC instead. They told me that in time the platform will mature - but that the Amiga One was very much a hobbyist/developer machine.

I took their advice, and I am glad I did. Likewise when the infamous Emike ruined his AmigaOne by ripping out the ROM - before hand Eyetech had sent an engineer round to set it up properly for him. They even warned him that it may not be for him before they sold it to him.

Quote:

Warranties only last so long. I believe that the menufacturer has an obligation to help those of us that are no longer covered by a warranty to fix our systems. All they have to do for me is to publish what parts have to be replaced, which traces have to be cut, etc. I'm an electronics engineer & I know how to use a soldering iron. JUST PUBLISH THE INFORMATION ALREADY!!. Those of you that aren't qualified to fix your system are probably still SOL, but allow those of us that can to fix our PCs ourselves. All the repair shops in Europe don't do me any good in the middle of the USA.

Trouble is - I imagine that fix will be under NDA.

Quote:

his is all absolutely disgusting, the machines don't work when you get them,

My XE works great, it is my best Amiga buy. Do you own an A1? No? The majority of A1 users are enjoying thier A1 and OS4 since months. I think you often over react.
Ps: i have a quite a new PC modo (it was a gift, mb is marked Nove 2004), it has fault usb fault ethernet and the bios is already at revision 10 in few months.
MicroA1 dosn't have problems, XE work great after fixing it, or if you don't need these it is anyway a giant step in Amiga history. I blame Eyetech for poor marketing, poor comunications, but Eyetech itself warned custumers and users about Earlybirds. SE is a problem not XE.

_________________
ikir

Quote:

All the repair shops in Europe don't do me any good in the middle of the USA.

AFAIK, the US dealers also have this information, so I would hope they'd be getting together to organise something similar for you downtrodden colonials
The same would apply to Oz and NZ.

@Oxygenet
Quote:

the machines don't work when you get them

Ah, libel.

@Bobsonsirjonny

Quote:

Trouble is - I imagine that fix will be under NDA.

Some people would like to fix it themself. But I also think that the information will NEVER be given to an individual.

As you can see from all the reactions people don't have much confidence in Eyetech anymore. The silence for once is a killer. And the warranty: some countries have rules that state it has to be fixed without any costs. And there are a few more of those things. But the bottom line is that the way they acted caused all this trouble. Some communication towards the users would have changed a lot. Maybe then users would have understood it and accepted it but if you put up a smoking screen and with this kind of results it is no wonder users will attack the method. And I don't think there is much left they could do to change it around. I guess the 3 strikes and your out have come and gone already.

Coder

_________________
Can't get enough of me?
The Bucket Diary Blog
The Bucket Diary Twitter Account

Quote:

@Oxygenet Quote: the machines don't work when you get them Ah, libel.

Well, firstly we need to define "working". Do they boot? yes. So they work as intended? No.

Were people informed of the risk? Yes and No. This entire situation has been compounded by a lack of comunication and cross wires: miss-information which ppl genuinly believed to be correct/fact. As a result customers feel like they are out on their own, and left in the dark.

Quote:

The fact is that there are now fully working Micro-A1 boards with DMA using the exact same Articia S chips, effectively proving that Hyperion was right in that respect all along.

And the Micro-A1s with this exact same Articia S chips are said to be able to run Linux unmodified. How did they manage to do that if the Articia S as one of it's special features ("yes it is a feature") has no hw cache coherency but requires sw cache coherency? And Linux when run unmodified relies on hw cache coherency.

So the Micro-A1 does have hw cache coherency?

When run on Micro-A1 does AOS4 use hw cache coherency? Or does it use sw cache coherency like in the earlier A1 boards? If the later, is it planned to change that in future versions of OS4?

My random wild guess/theory (which can of course be terribly wrong) would be that the Articia since the beginning was supposed to have hw cache coherency, but for some reason it did not work (or not quite work correctly) in the earlier A1 boards. Maybe not necessarily the fault (alone?) of the chip itself, but how it's connected on the board or something?

@ Hyperionmp, Bobsonsirjonny, anarchic_teapot, et al

1) The AmigaOne XE has never been sold as a "beta" hardware (whatever that is). Beta hardware is perhaps something a motherboard developer produces in their labs to try things out. Not many of the AmigaOne owners qualify under the definition "motherboard developers", and there is a limit to how much *anyone* can modify on a finished built motherboard even if they were.

2) When sales started, it was mentioned that further refinement from a software/firmware pont of view would be needed before being able to consider the AmigaOne XE as a true consumer product. That is something normal, and firmware upgrades are easy and painless to everyone. No problem there! However, neither soldering jobs on the PCB, neither adding extra hardware qualifies under the "software refinement" term IMHO.

3) As you can see from elwood's quote earlier in this thread, the "Early Bird" tag described the OS/firmware situation (mainly the state of OS4, and Linux as a temporary replacement), nothing less, nothing more.


@ ssolie

4) The AmigaOne XE was from the start sold as a fully tested, quality assured product, *with warranty*. Alan Redhouse, Sat Dec 21, 2002 10:52 am:

Quote:

End-user warranty will be 12 months from date of customer invoice, except in Europe (EC), where the statutory warranty is 24 months.The European price will be adjusted to reflect the higher cost of warranty provision for the extended period. Warranty will be on a return-to-base basis (ie each party carries the cost of their outward carriage) and will exclude any damage caused by overclocking, use of non-recommended hardware, cpu fan failure, self attempted repairs etc. Where repairs are fond to be non warranty items (eg no fault found or user caused damage) full carriage costs plus an engineering and handling cost will be charged.

-Totally public link to the quote above-

Those are pretty standard and fair conditions IMHO. A warranty towards consumers covers *everything* - all aspects of the hardware - and does not selectively/randomly/arbitrary exclude certain components *afterwards*.

Anyone in the EC that bought their AmigaOne XE after February the 23:rd 2003 should still be covered by the warranty today. And since Eyetech apparently *does not* recommend the use of this "hardware fix" to dealers, but instead the use of *extra hardware* as a way to solve the AmigaOne problems, that extra hardware should be sent out - free of charge (on the "return-to-base" basis) - to end users.

And this shouldn't be pushed over to the dealers, nor to MAI or the motherboard designer. It is *Eyetech* that markets these motherboards as "Amigas" towards end-users on this market (be it through resellers or directly, it doesn't really matter), so bottom line it will be *their* responsibility.

And wouldn't the most decent thing be if *they* made the initiative to do this?

Quote:

The fact is that there are now fully working Micro-A1 boards with DMA using the exact same Articia S chips, effectively proving that Hyperion was right in that respect all along.

Sorry, no it doesn't proove anything......

The existance of the April-patch prooved that one can actually fix the prob in HW.

The rather lacking linux-support for the A1-SE/XE compared to the Peg1 prooves that there actually is a problem, no matter wether you call it a bug, a feature or just "incompetent NB design".

It maybe that the MikroA1 can run "normal" Linux kernels (the issue wether it's that or if someone just made better "special" kernels is still a bit foggy), but that just means that MAI has intregrated something that has a similar effect as April.

It may be that this is inside of the chip, and it it may even be that it works better than April, but none of this changes that fact that the Articia used in Peg1,A1-SE and XE have serious problem, which made them unsuitable for broader use outside this community.

It also doen't change that the sales towards this community are nowhere near to be enough to keep a company like MAI afloat, not even speaking about financing new designs.

The MikroA1 may actually work o.k, but thats more than 2 years after "April", and with everything onboard (except the CPU) being outdated between 3 and 6 years. Gonna be really hard to sell these outside the community.

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@tmhgm

Actually Feb 23rd 2003 means nothing in this case.

The question is when the costumers 1st noticed his dealer about the problem. If this date was within his warranty time he is still covered, not matter how long ago that was.

If a problem was there from the start, and if the object is therefore limited in it's use one could even claim that Eyetech never done their part of the deal (which is a whole differnt cake than warranty).

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

Actually applying EC/EU wide rulings be it on statute or not when it comes to warranty periods is unrealistic.

Quote:

The existance of the April-patch prooved that one can actually fix the prob in HW.

The Peg1 used a different revision of the ArticiaS than the A1XE and later.

Quote:

The rather lacking linux-support for the A1-SE/XE compared to the Peg1 prooves that there actually is a problem, no matter wether you call it a bug, a feature or just "incompetent NB design".

Actually it proves nothing of the sort. All it proves is that Linux support on the A1-XE/SE
is of secondary interest and has had a backseat focus.

Given the S/390 works in a totally different way to your average PC does that make its
design a 'problem' or what? You have no idea the work that had to go into getting the Linux
kernel working on the S/390 and how little of its features are actually supported by the
'generic' design that is Linux.

Does increase in porting hassle imply problems? If so, damn Amigas have been full of problems
otherwise we would have OpenOffice by now right?

You are not establishing an exclusive logical path from evidence to conclusion, therefore you
have no proof of what you intend to imply.

Quote:

It maybe that the MikroA1 can run "normal" Linux kernels (the issue wether it's that or if someone just made better "special" kernels is still a bit foggy), but that just means that MAI has intregrated something that has a similar effect as April.

It doesn't just mean anything of the sort. Thats a leap of logic.

Quote:

It may be that this is inside of the chip, and it it may even be that it works better than April, but none of this changes that fact that the Articia used in Peg1,A1-SE and XE have serious problem, which made them unsuitable for broader use outside this community.

Thats not reasoning, rationale. You place something in thin air and then you build
on top of it. I call that specious reasoning.

Quote:

It also doen't change that the sales towards this community are nowhere near to be enough to keep a company like MAI afloat, not even speaking about financing new designs.

Damn, Id better slash my wrists now. So what? Mai does not actually manufacture the boards
all it does in this case is sell volumes of chips. Its up to them if they profit from that
or not. So long as Eyetech, the dealers and the manufacturing line cover their costs
thats all really thats anyones business.

Quote:

The MikroA1 may actually work o.k, but thats more than 2 years after "April",

If you search morphzone the problems encountered on so called 'fixed' Pegasos1 boards
with April. What do you think that proves?

Quote:

and with everything onboard (except the CPU) being outdated between 3 and 6 years. Gonna be really hard to sell these outside the community.

Again wrist slashing time. Man someone give me some uppers.



Dave.