[News] AmigaOne Update from Alan Redhouse | ANN.lu |
Posted on 24-Jul-2002 22:17 GMT by Douglas McLaughlin | 106 comments View flat View list |
On the AmigaOne mailing list, Alan Redhouse from Eyetech posted the following update:
Many dev board purchasers were clearly motivated by the 10% discount
rather than their ability to contribute to the developer process. The
initial boards were therefore shipped to those who could make a real
contribution to developing drivers etc, and porting Linux/UAE
distributions. Their progress has been astounding IMO with no less
than 5 different linux distributions (SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, Yellow
Dog and TurboLinux) being ported within a couple of weeks. More...
Many dev board purchasers were clearly motivated by the 10% discount
rather than their ability to contribute to the developer process. The
initial boards were therefore shipped to those who could make a real
contribution to developing drivers etc, and porting Linux/UAE
distributions. Their progress has been astounding IMO with no less
than 5 different linux distributions (SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, Yellow
Dog and TurboLinux) being ported within a couple of weeks.
However the Softex open firmware we had originally shipped with the
dev boards (incidently as seen on the Pegasos video) has several
shortcomings (although this has been used to boot the 5 linux
distributions and the OS4 kernel) and we are currently
developing/extending the alternative PPCBoot open firmware for use on
the production AmigaOne boards. This will allow us to build in Amiga-
specific boot etc options, a well as a more comprehensive multi-boot
environment.
We are not shipping the remainder of the dev boards (or any of the
user boards) until this code is complete because of the expense of
shipping update ROMs and chip changing tools. This is anticipated to
be towards the end of August.
This revision to the boot ROM is being undertaken by Hyperion as part
of the work necessary for booting OS4 on the A1.
Meanwhile the Amiga Inc club membership/coupon program results
(coupled with our own market extrapolation processes) means that the
future of the AmigaOne is in no doubt.
Finally several people have asked us why we are not delivering the A1
board to Linux users in advance of the release of OS4. Well there are
two main reasons:
1 - This is a product we are producing for the Amiga market and IMO
it is proper that the Amiga community get their hands on it first.
2 - I still cannot see why there would be a significant market for
Linux on the A1 given that the main focus of Linux is the x86
platform, which - because of sheer sales volumes - will always be an
order of magnitude cheaper than a ppc-based product.
Hope this helps
Alan
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AmigaOne Update from Alan Redhouse : Comment 77 of 106 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Leki on 25-Jul-2002 15:57 GMT | In reply to Comment 15 (Anonymous): >"My biggest worry is that people who pre-paid won't ever get a board. Lets >face it - right now is a bad time to be building a computer company."
no one has pre-paid. credit cards don't get charged untill they actually send th board out to you. This isn`t Phase5 or DCE you know :P
in reply to comment 15
>"ALL of these companies have a track record to be ashamed of. From AInc (still >selling Party Packs to anyone gullible enough to buy them) to Eyetech >(accepting orders for a product they knew they couldn't deliver) and Hyperion >(most software they offer to port is never released, will OS 4 be different ?)"
as i said above they haven`t charged anyone for the orders.....the only people who have been charged are they people that do have thier amigaone board so eyetech do deliver. |
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