[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 82 of 106 | ANN.lu |
Posted by ehaines on 26-Jul-2002 00:40 GMT | Judging from the vile hatred in some of the posts here, it sounds to
me like some people are jealous at being left out and are expressing
it this way. Well, you had your chance, and you blew it, now you have
to wait for the "end-user" boards. Too bad. In the meantime, it
would behoove you to remain silent, because you're merely
demonstrating the breadth of your ignorance for the world to see.
More succinctly: go jam a fork in your eyeball. (That's an Amiga
Power reference, not a serious suggestion, but you're free to
implement it anyway.) You don't know what's going on.
For example:
> Sigh, poor boot rom. The old one was described as so
> nice and so perfect by Amiga fans, and now it's being
> dropped.
A total lie. Nobody ever once described the old Softex firmware as
"nice and perfect," in fact it was strongly suggested by some people
that it go away. Well, it *is* going away, for good reasons that you
have no clue about.
Also:
> 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.
Nobody pre-paid a cent, so no worries there. This is such a common
misconception, let me state again: NOBODY PRE-PAID. Honest companies
wouldn't engage in such schemes, certainly not in the Amiga market,
not now.
Criticism is fine, but not if it's motivated by hate and attempts to
destroy. It should also have something other than wild conjecture
behind it.
So, here's mine: I don't believe Alan's statement about many people
being motivated by the 10% discount. It didn't motivate me in the
slightest; I'd have ordered anyway. I expect that most of the
non-Linux hardcore dev board orderers were like me, in that they
wanted some new hardware to fiddle with and hopefully help beta-test
OS4. In fact, if Eyetech wants, they can charge me full price and I
won't care.
Also, Hyperion ought to have gone with the "when it's done" slogan
from the beginning. After a few years of developing they really
ought to have known better than to announce dates. Nearly everything
with computers takes far longer than expected. (The XBox is one
thing; how about Windows 95, which was nearly Windows 96 for being
almost a *year* late?) |
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