How about we end this weekend on a happy note? Something we can all agree on is a good thing, so that we can all be happy and frolic and hand out hugs and kisses? I’ve got a video for you guys and girls. A production video of how a certain motherboard is being assembled. However, this is no ordinary board. This is the rev. 2.1 versions of the A-eon AmigaOne X1000 – which will be shipped out to beta testers next week.
The video shows part of the production process of the AmigaOne X1000’s motherboard, called ‘Nemo’, which is being assembled by Varisys, a UK company.
This is good news in and of itself, but even better is that after countless delays, the first machines will finally ship to beta testers starting next week (next, as in, the week starting August 8). As far as I know, a select group of people were already playing with previous revisions of the board.
As far as software goes, the AmigaOS developers are currently working on adding Nemo support to AmigaOS; AmigaOS 4.2 will ship with the AmigaOne X1000. In addition, Varisys has Debian Squeeze running on the Nemo rev. 2.1 board, so even if you don’t like AmigaOS, this exotic piece of hardware might still appeal to you.
In case you forgot, what makes this an exotic piece of hardware? Well, it comes with a PA Semi dualcore PA6T-1682M running at 1.8GHz. This is probably your only chance to get your hands on a processor made by Apple that’s not stuck in a Mac. That alone makes it pretty extraordinary. Add to that the ‘Xena’ 500MHz XMOS XS1-L2 124, and this board is unlike pretty much anything else out there. I’m not knowledgeable enough to really understand what developers can do with such an XMOS chip, but I’m sure you guys can enlighten me.
All in all though, the AmigaOne X1000 is a true Amiga in that we’re not looking at a default Chinese OEM box with a slow Intel Atom processor and an Amiga sticker flung on top sold at three times the OEM price, but at a machine with unique hardware you won’t be getting anywhere else. I’m holding on to my hat for the eventual price point, but thank god we still have people willing to take a gamble like this.
I can’t wait until I can get my hands on a review unit for loan (nice case, too, but I prefer white). And yes, that was a very subtle hint.
and I have one video for you Thom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbNBlxmy8dE
Edited 2011-08-07 23:57 UTC
Ha ha, I remember that demo! Well it wasn’t much of one, but I still remember it.
I have an Atari Mega STe, which was my first ST, then I bought my friend’s 1040ST, and an Atari TT030 off of eBay.
I also have bought an Amiga A4000, and will be getting a second one shortly for my Video Toaster.
And I’ll say without a shadow of a doubt, the AmigaOS is a billion light years better than Atari TOS/GEM. One of these days, I’ll have to get my TT030 up and running and give MiNT a test, but ’til then, I’d rather use my Amigas.
Now to the topic at hand;
Been waiting for that thing! Though still on the fence about if it’s a ‘real’ Amiga. I think the true successor to the AGA Amigas is the Natami. Unfortunately for any ‘retro’ computer, it’s the old software that is what’s important, and for this PPC based AmigaOS computer, what new software is there besides opensource software that is already running under Linux?
If they could get some developers behind it like in the old days, then it could grow to be huge. But time will tell.
now for real
PA6T is not Apple CPU. – but this brings some other question: what Apple do white PA Semi anyway?
There was rumors that lot of PA Semi folks left Apple after few months…
Apple did not bring any “real” new stuff on CPU front (A4 and A5 are not so impressive, beside Apple bought Intrinsity for ARM) and why Amiga decide to build new Amiga computer on CPU technology that has no future?
Edited 2011-08-08 00:38 UTC
Apple own PA6T now and it’s manufactured under license from Apple(PA Semi, previously).
Power is not going away any time soon. XBox, Nintendo and PS are representatives of the Power architecture…
you are right. PA6T is now Apple CPU
just found interesting reading by Jon Stokes, little off-topic, about PA6T:
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/10/5486.ars
“But they didn’t jump ship for performance or performance/watt reasons. They jumped ship because they no longer care about making leading-edge computer hardware. They also don’t care about PC market share, or any of that other G3-era Mac Faithful malarkey. From now on, merely “good enough” is good enough for the Mac line, and the real innovation will come in the form of post-PC gadgets and entertainment-oriented, techno-cool doohickeys. But I repeat myself…”
it will be really interesting to see what Apple did miss/gain with jumping to x86.
PA6T was GREAT CPU on paper back then in 2007.
on-topic: I will spend 600euro for FireBee for sure.
What is price of Amiga X1000 and what of NatAMI ?
btw XMOS is so…… Atari 1988.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Transputer_Workstation
Wow that ars article is 100% spot on. That was published before the announcement of the iphone, right?
you have date on first post in forum connected to this article, it say:
26 Oct 2005 21:07 – so it’s long before iPhone
btw 10x corto for link! I’ll read it now…
If you are interested in the PA Semi jewel, I wrote an article for Obligement, an french Amiga website that is a huge data source : http://obligement.free.fr/articles/pa6t-1682m.php (history and characteristics of the PA6T-1682M).
Any feedback is welcome.
About the X1000 machine, that will be great to get it and finally see it used in a desktop computer.
To me they seem to be making the same mistake as Atari did. IE: Only one co-processor on the motherboard.
A 16-CPU or more Transputer system could do things no other machine could do at that time. A single one was no better than any other high end CPU available then.
Same for the co-processor here in this Amiga, not that it has to come with 16 CPUs, just have the sockets on the motherboard or deliver a shipping daughter-board that will supports a large number of additional co-processors and maybe this Amiga will be worth looking at. But as it stands, what can it do that you can’t do on a modern day quad/octal core machine? I am not just meaning Intel, multi-core ARM and MIPS CPUs are available today.
The chip Amiga wants to use needs to be available in large arrays to out-perform what is already available. When will they deliver such machines?
Edited 2011-08-09 20:18 UTC
Duh, tradition!
You need to do it to have a machine in the True Spirit of Amiga!(tm) 
From the article:
Yup & yay, just what basically put the nail in the coffin of Amiga a decade+ ago! ;P
And XMOS seems to be meant for something close to the upcoming role of GPGPU elsewhere. All in all, like JAlexoid almost points out just above, a fairly similar hardware to current-gen consoles (millions of them; generally not bogged-down by slow productions runs, etc.; though they do like to shift – a generation before, 2 out of 3 players were NOT on Power – and I wouldn’t be too surprised with, say, a machine with many-core ARM tightly interwoven with some massive GPU)
PS. So many available cooling vents for active fans, that doesn’t seem to be very much in the Amiga style…
Edited 2011-08-08 09:55 UTC
And what, exactly, does ifancyshop have to do with computers?
Well, Thom, we’ll see. A skeptical Amiga user.
I really did love my Amiga back in the day.
I originally had an Amiga 500+, then got my hands on commadore CDTV (the one in black), had A600, A1200 installed harddisk, ram/zero/squirrel cards etc
Then when I was checking out the A4000 desktop, shortly after it’s release I had to make a choice between the A4000 and the PC I needed (cross dos just wasn’t hacking it anymore) for my college work.
Unfortunatly, in a forunate way, I had taken the PC route and commadore died shortly afterwards.
I still have a love effinity with the Amiga and Workbench. More so Workbench 3.1… the AmigaOS that is being developed just feels wrong on so many levels. It reminds me of a poor version of Nextstep I was first using on my PC in the midpart of the 90’s.
I really really do want the amiga to return and i’ll certainly get my hands on one of these machines eventually but deep down don’t think the amiga has what it takes.
<3 Amiga
While I think that the X1000 is probably a nice machine, I think it is quite doomed to fail because it is simply too expensive.
On the other hand, the NatAMI project has a very compact and low-cost design which will allow to sell the boards at a reasonable price. Also, NatAMI promises maximum compatibility with classic Amiga software which is probably more interesting for most Amiga users.
At least I, being an Amiga user since 1992, rather prefer a cheap and fast classic Amiga than some PPC machine which runs AmigaOS 4 even though the latter could perfectly run on old PPC Macs like the Mac Mini G4 (which I happen to have, too).
Nevertheless, it’s always good to see some life in the Amiga world and I am still investing something into Amiga hardware, recent purchases include an 68030/56MHz accelerator and a new, switching power supply for my A1200.
Still waiting for the new Indivision AGA to be released this October.
Adrian
At the off-chance you’re not aware of this possibility (well you don’t mention it, and it’s quite relevant) – you can try out MorphOS on that G4 Mac Mini.
Any possible price of the Natami hasn’t been released.
I’d be suprised if it’s not not significantly cheaper than the X1000, but as to ‘low cost’, well we’ll have to wait to see.
Edited 2011-08-08 21:24 UTC
Just what is the expected price and when will we see it in the US? If it truly is $2500 US like I have heard then they are unselling it. But if it is sub $1000 I will buy one for sure. Better yet let me buy the motherboard and case it and assemble it my self.
Exciting times as I have always had a soft spot for Amiga.
lol
What I would like to see is a 4K cores, SRAM/SSD only, programmed in a sort of functional/c/erlang/assembly hybrid language which enables the writing of parallel and concurrent applications…
Coupled with a really modern O/S, which allows code mobility through nodes, a relational database file system, a capability security model and automatic persistence of data…
The graphics would be ray traced in real time at 60 FPS.
The UI would be very simple, ala LCARS, but a lot more polished.
Now, that would be an Amiga I could sell my house to buy.
Why am I saying this? because, for me, Amiga is connected to ‘jaw-dropping’, and this new Amiga is anything but jaw-dropping.
Edited 2011-08-08 10:39 UTC
Yeah the Amiga had its time.
It was a wonderful machine to program for, and ahead of its time in multimedia.
Nowadays the only thing going for it is nostalgia, nothing else.
Just let it rest in peace properly.
“Hi, I’m Thom, and I’m an Amigaholic.”
“Hi, Thom.”
I have been setting money aside for this machine for
about 8 months now, and I’m ready.
This is not just another ‘Lets make the Mall Rats happy’
stab at making money. This is a very good development system for future products, and just perfect for the computer enthusiast crowd.
I wan’t one too but I have no idea what they will sell for. Anyone knows?
From what I’ve heard, they’ve lowered the price significantly.
Instead of it costing an arm, a leg and your right testicle. It is now only going to cost the arm from the elbow down, leaving a wonderfully useful stub, a foot and your left testicle (we all know the right one is more valuable.)
I’m surprised they managed to actually reach the production stage.
I still fail to see why people other than fanatic nerds should buy such a thing, but that’s another question.
Im a Amiga-fan myself.
I have owned every single classic model from A1000 to A4000T.
But i don’t see the point of this.
Powerful off the shelf hardware is everywhere today.
Its the shit software from MS, Apple, Google, Adobe, etc that is the problem.
http://www.xmos.com/products/xs1-l-family/l2qn124