As promised, Amiga Inc. has released the specifications of the low end Amiga machine which will be available this summer. It will have the Flex-ATX form factor, with a Freescale PC8349E SoC (400MHz to 667MHz depending on requirements and price target), one DDR2 DIMM slot for a maximum of 1GB of memory, and more. It will cost USD 489. Manufacturing partner and final ship schedule will be following soon. The device is supposed to run AmigaOS 4, but the recent developments may interfere with that.
… that this comes out. Windows hasn’t had competition in years; this is good news for both Amiga fans and Windows fans.
Unfortunately, I can’t find any information about this motherboard. Google only finds one hit (three if you only search for the serial number, not the item name), and Freescale doesn’t even list the motherboard on their site. This leads me to be rather less optimistic than I could be.
Since Freescale is a chipmaker not a board manufacturer, no mentioning of this board is hardly supprising.
At a quick clance, the whole thing looks a little strange to me. Kind of odd choice of processor to base the design on. Somewhat faster I think, but featurewise the PC8349E looks comparable to a Xscale chip. Like the one used in the Linksys NSLU2. But using a propriotary Freescale core(Not 100% sure, it may be Arm based too. Freescales webpages are a mess), oposed to the Xscale using a more common Arm based one.
Anyway, it will be interresting to see how it goes. But I don’t think I’ll buy one, baring getting it increadibly cheap. And that only becouse of my facination with odd devices, and perhaps as a interresting target to run uClinux on:-)
Edited 2007-04-30 21:32
But using a propriotary Freescale core(Not 100% sure, it may be Arm based too. Freescales webpages are a mess), oposed to the Xscale using a more common Arm based one.
I believe the Freescale core is PPC, since it can run AmigaOS.
…this is just another expensive Linux PPC box.
I do wonder what this box will run. OS4? MorphOS> PPC Linux?
OS4 if Amiga Inc. can get their hands on the OS4 source code and enough developers to support it. Maybe MorphOS, although it would have to be hacked without any official support from ACK as Amiga Inc. doesn’t like MorphOS and Genesi. Linux, well, everything runs Linux sooner or later.
If they need a PowerPC compatible platform open to new OSes, they don’t need to use that underpowered/obscure boards.
A PS3 is priced at $600, with a full PowerPC compatible processsor ( much faster than this g3/g4 at 600 mhz thingie) and features a good case design and robust (and silent) power unit…plus blue ray, hard drive, 4 USB ports, net, HDMI, video out, digital audio out, and probably some other things I forget.
Plus, the Amiga OS is quite strong rendering the interface without graphic acceleration, so they don’t have a excuse there.
Anyway, I think I will never understand Amiga hardware policies…
PD: Please, don’t start with the missinformation about Cell PowerPC compatibility. Cell is fully PowerPC 32/64 bits compatible, Altivec included (VMX in IBM jargon).
And you think Sony will burn its fingers working with the Amiga “community”? Or talking to a company that is in a deep legal battle over what they have to offer Sony (AOS4)?
They won’t, meaning Amiga Inc. would have to make a stand-alone version of OS4 available for the PS3. Which is, seeing how hard they have tried to keep it tied to their hardware, rather unlikely.
Their hardware? Until now, Amiga has been working with very small companies which manufacture unsupported, nearly-beta-state PowerPC boards. But Amiga never owned the hardware! And they just use a common reference PowerPc platform.
So, if they don’t win any money with the hardware, and they don’t need/want/can afford special hardware, why do they tie their OS to specific hardware vendors? What do they win?
IMO, It would be much more sensible to open a bit their platform. And of course, Sony couldn’t care less about who develops OSes for their machine at this point…unless somedy comes with a REALLY good OS for the ps3. So in the best case, Amiga gets a bit popular again and maybe enters Sony radar for good. In the worst case, they remain a curiosity in OS circles, just like now.
Well, they obviously aren’t going to do that. We’ve been down this road before, with the Macintosh, and they just aren’t willing to port to existing consumer hardware.
I still think the Mac is an even better choice than the PS3. I have an unused Powerbook sitting right next to me. If all I had to do to make it useful again is plunk down $100 or so for AmigaOS, I would do it in a heartbeat. With the transition to Intel, there is a TON of PPC Mac hardware just sitting there begging for AmigaOS.
But, I’m certainly not going to spend $489 on a motherboard that only has a 400-667Mhz PPC, and PCI graphics. I still have to buy a case, PSU, memory, peripherals, etc. Even though this is pretty cheap by modern Amiga standards, it’s still unreasonable in the general PC marketplace.
Unfortunately, it still looks like AROS is the last, best, hope for Amiga.
(I miss my Commodore Amigas…)
I agree than the old Apple hardware (pre-x86 switch) is still interesting, but they never opened the necesary hardware info. If I remenber correctly, only YDL gained oficial info about Apple’s hardware.
I think I prefer the partial support Sony gives now, than no support at all for old Apple machines.
I know the linux crowd reverse-engineered most of the systems, but I still think that’s not good enough.
I’d happily pay up to $200 for AmigaOS on my PS3, but I won’t pay $500 for an ancient 400MHz PPC as I am not an antique collector.
I can dream of an AROS port to the PS3, that’s my best hope really. Might try to start dabbling with the source myself (not that I will get far with life to deal with… little free time).
Edited 2007-04-30 21:08
I think monitor+FlexATX for $489 is not very expensive. Is cheaper than riscos machine, for example.
That’s because RiscOS machines are darn expensive.
You mean *excluding* monitor.
My Palm is more powerfull than this crap.
I still prefer my A1200.
Thank you Amiga Inc.
Why not use the Genesi Efika instead? Much cheaper, althought not as “complete”, but the old pegasos was more complete in that case so…
But PS3 seems like a “good” idea to.
Because Amiga Inc and Genesi hate eachothers guts. Not that it matters as OS4 is very unlikely to be shipped on *any* platform after the latest developments in the legal mess of Amigaland.
Shame, I would’ve bought just about any piece of “new” Amiga hardware to give OS4 a spin – just for the fun of it. I don’t see it happening though.
Not too surprised they went with the ACK board instead of the SAM board (sam being 10 layer + expensive).
there isnt a lot of difference between this at 400mhz and the 400mhz efika (more or less the same cpu core, 603e). The MPC8349E is a little better off as a SoC than the MPC5200.
at least the ack board has a half decent sound chip on it and gigabit ethernet (be interesting to see how taxing gigabit frames are on its 400mhz). Curiously the 8349 does have an “embedded security engine”.
for those who wish to compare cores;
efika’s MPC5200
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC5…
ACK’s MPC8349E
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC8…
At least the ACK board is memory expandable…
The 8349 might be slightly better than the 5200 but does cost a lot more. Abot twice the price.
In the end an e300 based processor is not suitable for a desktop sytem of today. The efika has a chance because it is compromise less cheap in its design (targe price for teh Efika is 100 US$ once in mass production – and that price *is* attractive then).
This ACK board would be interesting if it was really cheap, but ~500 is quite an ammount.
It will fail.
I agree ujb. As a FYI, Freescale sell the reference board for the ACK design as a NAS board. That alone tells you its ‘upper limit’ for the 400mhz board.
When/if efika hit $100usd I’ll consider it as underpowered as it is. $500 for ack is too expensive. $200 for the ack is more believable.
all these freescale SoC ppc cores are not much more than router/embeddable cores that sacrifice power to run at 1watt.
Yeah but the efika is only like 150 euro or something which is kind of what I would expect anyone being intrested in spending in an amiga platform, 150 euro isn’t much of a deal, 500 dollar is to much for people who don’t give a shit.
Sorry, the specs are seriously dated. Why not just buy Core 2 motherboard and run AROS? That way you at least know the operating system will be continued to be developed in the future.
Amen.
I tend to agree with you. Considering the specs and capabilities of this $489 computer, adding $110 to get yourself a Mac Mini with a 1.66GHz Core Duo and a much more capable OS seems like a nobrainer. Of course, there’s always enthusiast (like myself) that would still be willing to buy it just to get a chance to play with OS 4.
G Man thats a serious waste of cash ,better install Aros on the PC , i bet its far superior in some areas
Those specs are a joke? C’mon, it sounds like a $50 eBay computer.
My three-year-old PocketPC has a faster processor.
Onboard sound sucks. Are there going to be drivers for PCI sound cards?
Only one slot for DDR2? Doesn’t that have to be installed in pairs to have an advantage?
Aren’t AGP and PCIExpress the current standards for graphics? Are there even many PCI graphic cards available, and don’t they cost more?
-Bob
It’ll do just fine as an upgrade for Classic owners, and for use in industrial applications running custom apps – remember that OS4 itself will run fine on the sub-200Mhz 603e processors found on PPC expansion cards. The real test will come when they unveil the $1500 system which, for that price, should be capable of competing with more modern systems.
[q]and for use in industrial applications running custom apps [q]
Was the Amiga used for running indutrial apps? And is it still so? And do you feel they will upgrade to the new Amiga or perhaps use it in new setting?
Was the Amiga used for running indutrial apps? And is it still so? And do you feel they will upgrade to the new Amiga or perhaps use it in new setting?
I didn’t know the answer either, until I read this page last night:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga
Scroll down to “Notable Users” and the section below that.
Regardless of whether or not there are any current commercial users, why would Amiga want to automatically exclude their OS from the possibility? That’s what they’ve done by releasing such limp specs for their ‘new’ computer.
Maybe their higher-end machine will have a better performance/cost ratio. Even if that’s true, they’ve made a huge blunder by not releasing those specs first.
-Bob
I’d rather have a discrete, silent, small computer which runs AOS4 comfortably than a huge fullsize noisy gazillion Mhz beast of a computer which will just waste all its power anyway.
Like most computers are doing these days. It’s sad the number of Mhz and RAM is apparently more important than the fun a computer used to be.
Despite the lawsuit, I appreciate what Amiga Inc. (and Genesi, for that matter) is doing. They at least have the guts to try to be different, instead of the big three (Linux/Win/OSX) who just copy one another without offering anything really new.
Speaking of Genesi… I wonder how their legal team is in regards to getting AmigaOS4 running on the EFIKA.
>I’d rather have a discrete, silent, small computer
>which runs AOS4 comfortably than a huge fullsize
>noisy gazillion Mhz beast of a computer which will
>just waste all its power anyway.
Laptops lowers clockspeed to reduce power, while using less demanding applications.
Ah yes, to be different.
Idi Amin was different too.
Since when is different == good?
“instead of the big three (Linux/Win/OSX) who just copy one another without offering anything really new.”
At least those big 3 has produced real products in the last, oh, 10 years.
I’d rather have a discrete, silent, small computer which runs AOS4 comfortably than a huge fullsize noisy gazillion Mhz beast of a computer which will just waste all its power anyway.
Like most computers are doing these days. It’s sad the number of Mhz and RAM is apparently more important than the fun a computer used to be.
I wouldn’t mind a discrete and small computer with outdated specs either, if it were priced accordingly.
One critical factor that might yet play out in Omiga’s favor, the machine’s aesthetics have yet to be unveiled. Will it be something unique and interesting? Or do they expect people will pay $500 for an obsolete plastic beige box?
Best Wishes,
-Bob
….that $500 is for a complete system with the OS not just the motherboard and CPU
….that $500 is for a complete system with the OS not just the motherboard and CPU
It’s not really a ‘complete’ system since it doesn’t include a monitor. It’s also yet to be announced if the machine will have DVD and CD-RW capabilities, basic stuff on today’s computers. Multi-card reader? Floppy? Speakers?
Too bad Omiga can’t buy up all of the $40-$60 iMac G3 computers and use for their OS…
-Bob
Why not take the x86 box and modify the hardware to powerpc with a cell-cpu? maybe even run aros instead of morph or amigaos4 (they are run by old-facioned copyright fanatics thus dying) m68k could be done too with cheap pc hardware with a lot of harware hacking ofcause
Well, you generally have to get boards built specifically for your processor.
AmigaOS4 is not failing because the owners support copyright. Amiga OS4 has been failing because its owners seem to have a terminal case of stupid.
In fact they announced a machine that already exists on the market. http://www.embedded-developer.com/tools/531/Freescale-Semiconductor…
In fact they announced a machine that already exists on the market. http://www.embedded-developer.com/tools/531/Freescale-Semiconductor…..
I don’t see any PS2 jacks on that board. Do you think they’ll waste half of the USB slots for the mouse and keyboard? That would only leave two USB plugs for a scanner, printer, PDA, calculator, flash drive, DSL modem, cell phone, cameras, and GPS (assuming those peripherals can be used with AmigaOS in the first place).
-Bob
Edited 2007-05-01 06:23
Doesn’t the obsession with hardware strike you as completely mad? The thing they have, if they have anything, is the Amiga OS. That is all anyone cares about. So why on earth insist on tying it to some particular sort of low spec hardware? It is just a hopeless commercial strategy.
I’d bet they could make enormously more if they’d just sell x86 versions of the OS for people to run on whatever they want. Apple arguably is a different story, because of market position and installed base, and having moved to Intel already. But the Amiga saga, it is amazing how the fans retain their loyalties in the face of this hopeless behaviour.
Or am I missing something?
I’m not sure whoever will own AmigaOS may one day have enough bucks to invest in a team of developers that ought to write drivers for even only a part of the x86 hardware out there (just to make the OS appetising). Maybe it’s not by chance they’re going to sell a backward compatible PPC chip, which is basically a slightly enhanced old chip.
If just every dog in the neighbourhood should claim to own a bit of the OS IPwise, we’re probably never going to see it opensourced. No, I don’t understand this fixation with a doomed architecture for the desktop, either, and I don’t understand why the OS must be dragged into oblivion along with it.
I’m not sure whoever will own AmigaOS may one day have enough bucks to invest in a team of developers that ought to write drivers for even only a part of the x86 hardware out there
I’m not sure that would be necessary, or even desirable. They couldn’t possibly support ~everything~, but they could have selected common inexpensive components to build their system with and cut the price in half. I don’t understand why they chose overpriced, obscure, incompatible hardware for the foundation of their future business.
Just say No to propietary hardware…
I’m not saying $500 is too much to spend on a computer, it’s not. But modern computer hobbiests aren’t idiots, and they (we) know what our money can buy elsewhere.
-Bob
I do not wish to defend Amiga here. But common inexpensive components that you talk about only apply to x86 hardware. They are inexpensive because they are mass produced. This is why Truckweb’s mobile phone is also cheap, it too is mass produced.
When you talk about the PowerPC platform, they have to design their own motherboard (if your suggestion is to be followed) or use someone else’s (which they are trying to do), in both cases it will be expensive because it is not mass produced, no matter what specs are.
In my opinion the specs may not matter so much as long as the OS (and it’s apps) is responsive enough. We all used such low end hardware in the past, that time it was current and all software made for it worked well. It really depends on the design of the OS and it’s accompanying software. A lot of processing power on our PCs are wasted anyway because the developers don’t care. If they were made to optimize for low end hardware they would surely do so. But they don’t. Surely the software on your phone isn’t slow. They make sure it isn’t. So the Amiga may work well, again, might work well enough. Let some models ship and let’s see.
I know this isn’t directly related to this article, but I figured no one would read this post if I appended it to the original article about the lawsuit…
On page 32 of the lawsuit (Exhibit F), “Itech” is stated as the company that is supposed to get the OS4 source and object code, not Amiga, Inc. What’s with that? Are they the same company, or not?
Furthermore, that contract is from 2003. Nowhere to be seen in the lawsuit filing is the original contract that states OS4 is to be finished by 2001, and more importantly this missing-in-action original contract clearly must NOT have had the clause about paying Hyperion off for $25,000. That means Hyperion may well have good reason not to hand over the source code etc, namely: they may have been promised to be payed more for their time beyond the in-sum $41,050 that they received.
Then there is the Friedens’ mentioning in various interviews of a “mythical” contract that provides for Hyperion holding onto OS4 should Amiga Inc go under. Of course, if such a contract exists, then a good case could be made for Hyperion purposefully seeking to damage Amiga Inc in hopes it would go under. On the other hand, if this original contract somehow specified financial support for Hyperion that Amiga never made good on, then Hyperion may have a case.
My question is: Where is the original contract, and what does it say? Until we see that, no conclusions can be drawn.
…Of course, maybe there is no original paper contract, or maybe there was one, but for some reason no one wants to come forth with it… that would be typical.
Okay, found it, the original contract, along with a statement from Fleecy Moss:
http://www.merlancia.us/amiga-hyperion/decmossshow_case_doc.pdf
It’s all there, exactly like McEwan said… Things aren’t looking too good for Hyperion now from a legal perspective.
When I saw the specs (as presented by Amiga, Inc.), I was chuckling at the anemic level of performance and expansion… when I went to Freescale’s site and looked at the *actual* specs… I bust out laughing.
Is it really any surprise they do this to us, time and time again? That we are promised “new hardware” and then it shows up as being so pathetic, as to not even be worth considering, performance-wise?
I mean, come on… a SoC (System on a Chip) based on the PPC603e? Just how far back do they wanna drag us? A Freescale G4 (7447A) would at least be nice. Maybe they’ll have that as their “high-end”?
But of course, I’m sure we’ll never see ANY of it transpire. With this new “legal development”, I am sure everything is going to get drowned out and we’ll never see the light of day on either AmigaOS4 or this new hardware.
But does that really surprise any of us nowadays?
I mean, how many times do you have to be hit over the head by dumb corporate maneuvers, before you realize they’re so beyond incompetent, there is no way in a million lifetimes you’ll ever see anything worth seeing?
The problem with companies like Amiga and Atari, is that they’re not run by the people who LOVE Amiga and Atari. They are run by corporate boneheads who think THEY know best and usually run the company right into the ground because of it.
They don’t care about US! We’re nothing but numbers on a chart… insignificant numbers, at that. No, there are bigger fish to fry than us… like wasting resources and time and squandering money left and right over silly nothingness and suing this company or that, so they can make their money elsewhere.
As long as they can keep “bigger, better money” rolling in, they will brush us off indefinitely. As long as they have their job, they don’t care who they piss off, in the Amiga community, because WE’RE not where the money is. It’s elsewhere, far beyond our puny $500 they’d get from us.
Never forget the “$50 for a T-shirt & discount” that Bill McEwan begged for, to prove demand for AmigaOne… and what came of that? Was it really worth it? Was the shirt, alone, worth it? Not to me it wouldn’t be… I was just wise enough NOT to give into “hopeful temptation”. Looks like it paid off.
But the fools we are, we KEEP hoping. We KEEP waiting. We KEEP on KEEPING on, even though it is QUITE obvious nothing will ever change.
Sad shame, really… but what’cha gonna do?
My smartphone use a Xscale CPU that is more powerfull that what Amiga want to sell us. My smartphone even include a LCD display, built-in sound and Wi-Fi network, bluethoot, keyboard, … It does not have a DVD burner or HDD, but I have a 2Gig MicroSD… Oh and it’s a phone!!
The point is, even if AmigaOS can run on lesser spec PC does not mean that it’s OKAY to pay $500 for a lesser PC. You can buy a more powerfull eMachine PC for the same amount of money, run Linux and UAE… or AROS…
It’s a bad move. I can only imagine what they will bring in the $1500 “power user” machine… A G4?
Edited 2007-05-01 18:41
For all those who are interested in an Amiga desktop. Does not MorphOS running on Efika (or other boards from Genesi) in Open Desktop workstation qualify as an Amiga desktop? Is it maybe because it does come neatly in a box all put together or something?
Will someone please enlighten? Thanks in advance.
MorphOS runs on Pegasos computers as well as on Amigas equipped with either a BlizzardPPC or CyberstormPPC accelarator card. For both systems MorphOS V 1.4.5 is available for free.
On the Efika MorphOS does run, too. But it isn’t publically available yet. This will change in a not too distant future. Whether MorphOS for the Efika will be available for free or will be charged is AFAIK not decided yet.
MorphOS is compatible to most 68k Amiga applications which do not need the presence of the old custom chips, the 68k JIT processor emulation is very fast. For legacy applications there is an UAE version for MorphOS available. Also MorphOS executes most WarpOS and PowerUp applications as well as many OS4 applications (needs a 3rd party program called OS4emu).
Of course also MorphOS native applications do run and threre are plenty available.
The system is very close to AmigaOS, but modernized in many ways. Development is rather slow and silent, but continuosly ongoing. The developers are sometimes a bit special but friendly and helpful.
But one thing is clear: MorphOS is *not* AmigaOS (and doesn’t want to be AmigaOS). It is an OS compatible to AmigaOS and shares the same ideas and history, but with a modern approach.
It is for those who wanted to have something like an “Amiga reloaded”. I am very happy with it since several years.
The Amiga should be a quantum leap computer, not more of the same. Back when it was released 20 years ago, it was a quantum leap for computers (first machine to have high res multicolor graphics, blitter, hardware stero sound, preemptive multithreading, auto-configurable peripheral system, enhanced DMA and lots of other features).
What I would expect from Amiga today? I would expect a radical change for computers and operating systems; a quantum leap forward:
-no custom chips! although Amiga made its name on its custom chips, today’s demands are radically different from 20 years ago. The Amiga should have 4096 or more (perhaps millions, not thousands) ‘processing elements’ all capable of simultaneous processing of code/data streams.
-a programming language that implements the Actor model: all objects in it would run in parallel.
-an O/S which does not use a file system, but an object store like a database.
-an O/S which is distributed.
All these technologies already exist in some form or another (tips: transputers/cell, Oz/Erlang, Inferno), and they would really revolutionize computing, as we know it.
Another iteration of ‘cpu/file system/C programs/gui’ does not cut it any more.
@ axilmar:
You wrote:
> -an O/S which does not use a file system, but an object store like a database.
I hope that AmigaOS will never match this disgusting idea of a database object store.
Filesystems rulez!
Object database suxx!
This is even worse than I feared. 500 USD for a 400 MHz desktop machine? Are you kidding?
Three years ago at BeGeistert we discussed about the AmigaOne boards, and we came to the conclusion that they were out of market – for the board alone you had to spend more than a complete eMac that had a faster processor.
Three years later, they come with an even slower processor. If it’s a joke, it’s not funny.
*sarcasm* But it is a _complete_ system! */sarcasm*
And in fact I said “desktop machine”