@DrBombcrater

I agree.

*edit* What I am trying to say is concentrate on tommorows PPC's, and not yesterdays G4's.

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Still reckon the choice in platforms should be opened up a bit as I can't see any other way of OS4 selling more than 10,000.

As usual, people that feel that way fail to come up with a few more interesting points. Like, who is going to do it, and, eh, what "choice"? Apple? Yeah, like "Hey, Mr Jobs, we want to make a competiting OS that will run on your hardware. Won't you give us the specs of your hardware?"...

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Seriously, if you want to contact me do not bother sending me a PM here. Write me a mail

@Rogue

I figure, why don't you guys do it? As a gift for all the deserters who left the Amiga for wintel years ago and have no intention of ever returning. Like, "hey, thanks for supporting the Amiga fifteen years ago and dropping it like a stone when the going got rough. As a token of our gratitude, here's a real OS for your wanting platform, no charge!"

Of course, on a bit more serious note (hey, everything's relative, right?), it would be kinda cool to run it on a future xbox or playstation. Not that it'd be all that useful, maybe, just plain cool..

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A1G4XE, OS4-pre

@CodeSmith
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From http://www.mai.com/news&events/PressRelease122103.html

Press releases are easy. Real working products are much harder. Since only one of the four North Bridges Mai has annouced has actually become a reality excuse me if I don't hold my breath for the Articia I.

@tonyw
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Do IBM actually have a PPC Northbridge available, or is it merely mooted?

I'm told the CPC925 is currently available in limited quantities, with full production in Q3.

@vortexau
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There is also the Articia Sa which seems to be positioned inbetween the S and the P when it comes to performance and capability!

The Articia Sa is currenty vaporware, just like the Articia P. Even when (if) it ever arrives it's advantages over the Articia S of slightly better performance and cheaper ram may not be worth doing a whole new board design for.

The next AmigaOne design should be nothing less than a 970, IMHO, even if keeping the price down means using slow-clocked 'reject' 970s that IBM can't sell elsewhere. I'd much rather have a 1.1GHz 970 system than a 1.4GHz G4. Especially since the IBM CPC970 North Bridge has a hypertransport bus and so be used with a wide range of support chips, while the Articia Sa and P are PCI based and would be chained to the VIA686B.

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Who do you serve, and who do you trust? - Galen

@DrBombCrater

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even if keeping the price down means using slow-clocked 'reject' 970s that IBM can't sell elsewhere

Sheesh, can you imagine what the forums would look like if they did this and word leaked out?

In any case, it's a fool's errand - x86 variants will provide much better bang for buck for the foreseeable future. An Opteron system (single, dual or quad) will wipe the floor with any PPC solution in the same price range. You don't buy PPC systems to use on computationally intensive tasks, at least not at this point in time.

@CodeSmith
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Sheesh, can you imagine what the forums would look like if they did this and word leaked out?

It's easy enough to spin this (and with more than a grain of truth) as using slower clocked processors to reduce power consumption and cooling noise.

Quote:

In any case, it's a fool's errand - x86 variants will provide much better bang for buck for the foreseeable future. An Opteron system (single, dual or quad) will wipe the floor with any PPC solution in the same price range. You don't buy PPC systems to use on computationally intensive tasks, at least not at this point in time.

Part of the reasoning behind adpoting the 970 is to make it possible to buy an A1 for CPU-intensive stuff. Yes it'll cost a fortune, but they do already. The other and more important reason is Hypertransport. As soon as you have an HT link a whole pile of support chips become available: south bridges, AGP controllers, PCI-X, PCI Express, and a lot more.

Despite the increased cost of the CPU a 970 board may actually work out cheaper to build than a 'second generation' G3/G4 board, and it would certaintly have a longer lifespan over which to spread the development costs.

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Who do you serve, and who do you trust? - Galen

@DrBombcrater:

The thing is, we don't need a second generation G4 board. Assuming the Articia P comes out sometime this year or the next one, we'll have a board that will use cheap CPUs (since the G4 is no longer the PPC bleeding edge, I expect prices will plummet), and with PCI-X we'll be able to use high end expansion cards. I hesitate to misquote Bill Gates, but a 1GHz G4 is pretty much all a home user needs, especially if you can plug in fast accelerated gfx and sound (the old amiga principle - the CPU is there to run programs, not draw pictures or play music). As fast as industrial uses are concerned, Alan Redhouse seems quite keen on selling the low power consumption of the boards, so a 5GHz quantum-cooled monster is probably not on the product roadmap just yet

@ DrBombcrater

IBM can't keep up with demand from Apple, what chance do Eyetech have?

The other thing is it's debatable whether slower 970s hold mauch advantage over similar G4s (This is something that has been greatly debated since the first rumours of G5 iMacs hit) I've yet to see any conclusive proof either way, and unless someone builds a slower G5 machine and puts it to the test it'll be hard to convince.

I do see your point though. PPC970 seems to be a big leap over previous PPC generations in terms of competiveness. A 1Ghz AmigaOneG5 XE would have much better overall specs than the current models and will at least have the chance of running much higher clock rates in the future.

@Rogue

There are others apart from Apple / Genesi / Eyetech who sell PPC hardware, and there are more consumer boards in the pipeline. OK, they are mostly targeting the Linux server market, but wouldn't it be a mutual benefit to you / supplier / customer choice if the OS could run on these systems? Would Linux be as popular if it limited itself to just PC-Chips motherboards for example?

I'm not trying to wind anyone up or insult your intelligence. Hyperion have of course have thought how to sell as much copies as possible, with their amount of resources. I'm sure that if there was possible, realistic, commercial reasons for running OS4 on other platforms it would have happened. I now why it is currently tied to Eyetech boards because of anti-piracy reasons, and that this project probably would not have got of the ground without them. What I failed / forgot to say is the OS could run on a wider PPC platform in a few years time, when there should be more variety. Perhaps by then OS5 could even run on non PPC hardware.

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@CodeSmith
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The thing is, we don't need a second generation G4 board

Yes, we do. A modified A1 with the ArticiaP slapped in just isn't going to cut it. Performance will suffer because of the slow FSB and PCI-centric design, and it is still going to be saddled with a PCI based South Bridge. Probably the crappy 686B again.

It would also cost more than a 970 based design as adding features like USB2.0, SATA and Firewire would require adding seperate chips for each function whereas a 970 board could use a moden Hypertransport SB to provide those functions almost for free.

Quote:

I hesitate to misquote Bill Gates, but a 1GHz G4 is pretty much all a home user needs

I always though the Amiga was about doing unusual, interesting and creative things. Not just browsing a few sites and writing a letter to grandma. CPU power is necessary and any new design should have as much as possible without elevating either the price or power consumption of the board beyond the reasonable.

As a 970 system would cost less than a G4/DDR design, I think it's a "no brainer".

Quote:

As fast as industrial uses are concerned, Alan Redhouse seems quite keen on selling the low power consumption of the boards, so a 5GHz quantum-cooled monster is probably not on the product roadmap just yet

The 970 beats the G4 here, too. It consumes a bit more power when working hard, but less than a G4 when idle or partially working and it doesn't have the very restrictive 40C thermal ceiling of the latest G4s.

@Uncharted
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IBM can't keep up with demand from Apple, what chance do Eyetech have?

IBM, like evey other microprocessor manufacturer, produces plenty of chips that can't make the minimum qualification speed (1.4GHz of the PPC970) and usually get tossed away, but would work just fine at 1.1GHz or so. On a mature fab process this is probably less than 2% of total production, but that's way more than the Amiga market could absorb.

Quote:

I do see your point though. PPC970 seems to be a big leap over previous PPC generations in terms of competiveness. A 1Ghz AmigaOneG5 XE would have much better overall specs than the current models and will at least have the chance of running much higher clock rates in the future.

Yes, one of the big benefits is future proofing. A G4 system is a dead end. Even in the unlikely event that Motorola decided to build faster G4s they would be crippled by their slow FSB. A low-clocked 970 system could, if the designers are careful, be upgraded to a 3GHz 970FX when those parts become available, just by dropping in a new CPU card.

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Who do you serve, and who do you trust? - Galen

Quote:

Quote: Uncharted wrote: I do see your point though. PPC970 seems to be a big leap over previous PPC generations in terms of competiveness. A 1Ghz AmigaOneG5 XE would have much better overall specs than the current models and will at least have the chance of running much higher clock rates in the future. DrBombcrater wrote: Yes, one of the big benefits is future proofing. A G4 system is a dead end. Even in the unlikely event that Motorola decided to build faster G4s they would be crippled by their slow FSB. A low-clocked 970 system could, if the designers are careful, be upgraded to a 3GHz 970FX when those parts become available, just by dropping in a new CPU card.

Hi Uncharted, DrBombcrater,

You are totally on the (boing) ball!

The 970 IS the future, and now is better than THEN (for a new board design), and the 2% cheap CPUs, YEAH!!! We want those, baby!

We MUST move forward!


AmigaOne! AOS4.0! JOIN the movement!!!!!!

@thread

Ok, if someone is willing to give me the millions in capital to start a new venture I would be happy to get a license for OS4 and start distributing it with one of these:

Click here.

Do we have any venture capitalists here? (oh I'm being serious btw!)

Hi Bodie,

Oh goody.

It just gets better and better:

=============
# Package #1 -- Full-Up System -- $6000 --
# ORDER PART NUMBER: 900-075-1

* Dual Processor (1.4GHz) 970 Evaluation Board.
* CoolInnovations heatsinks for both processors and NorthBridge.
* 1GByte DDR SDRAM, PC2700 (upgrades available at whatever we pay for DIMMs - raw cost).
* 400W ATX Power Supply.
* 20GByte IDE Hard Drive.
* CDROM Drive.
* Clear Plexiglass ATX Case.
* Design Package CD (see below).
* Boot images, scripts and busybox file system are pre-burned into the M-Systems disk on chip.
* Hard Drive contains 970 File System.
* Continuing acces to our update server, supporting the latest soft-copy versions of all information included in the 970 Evaluation package.
=============

It appears that ib(u)m has no interest in selling computers to humans.

A 20 Gig HD and 1 Gig of DDR ram for $6000!!!! What more could one want???

I can get a 1 Gig PC133MHz ECC Reg ram DIMM for $325 Can. +14.5% tax, while this system would cost me $8243.08 Can. (plus duty at the border?). How nice!

So, the 2 (1.4 GHz ??!!!!??!!?) CPUs are what, $3,500 dollars each?????


AmigaOne! AOS4.0! 970, maybe 5 or 6 years from now, if we're lucky!


P.S. Monitor, extra?

@atheist

Well, if people want 970s in a terribly small market, expect to pay high prices.

@Atheist

Quote:

So, the 2 (1.4 GHz ??!!!!??!!?) CPUs are what, $3,500 dollars each?????

The Momentum dual 970 motherboard is an evaluation board. These are not intended for volume production and always cost a fortune. The MAI Teron PX eval board (on which the A1-XE is based) costs $3900 for the bare board and a G3 CPU card. Compared to that $4500 for the basic dual 970 board almost seems like a bargain.

With some alterations, such as swapping the dual 1.4GHz chips for a single 1.1GHz one, removing the SMI co-processor, etc, I don't see why this board should cost any more than the A1-XE when produced as an end-user item.

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Who do you serve, and who do you trust? - Galen

@DrBombcrater

The interesting things is, one could easily target it to similar markets where the mac g5s are being targetted, and compete successfully (eg scientific applications etc). OS4 would necessarily be a necessary item for it, initially at least.

why?


AmigaONE isnt a solid platform yet.

you'd be bolting the stable doors before the calf has even been born!

...or as they say in Holland (apparently...blame the Grolsh adverts)

Wait! This AmigaONE isnt ready yet!

tell me about it. we priced up some IBM equipment that would compare to our usual Dells - a few of us wanted PPC architecture in the mix for heterogenous OS spread (security, knowledge etc).

the dual PPC board with dual PSU's, dual gig ethernet etc on board (eg pretty much 2650 territory) was over 10,000 ukp

thats over 3 times the Dell