| [News] AmigaOne Update from Alan Redhouse | ANN.lu |
| Posted on 24-Jul-2002 22:17 GMT by Douglas McLaughlin | 106 comments
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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 86 of 106 | ANN.lu |
| Posted by Some Farker on 27-Jul-2002 15:38 GMT | In reply to Comment 74 (anonymous):
"Happy Birthday Ami! You're about to get a baby brother!"
No, it's not. These final, pathetic death throws of the Amiga's legacy is like some kind of nightmare for those of us who enjoyed using the system from the late 80's through the early 90's. Like a car crash in slow motion, one can watch as these final fragments bounce around on the hard road of life and finally come to a burning rest in the median.
Let's take a long, hard look at what's left of the Amiga, shall we?
Parent company: A small handful of "enthusiasts" who've co-opted the Amiga name and "spirit" and made two or three tiny arcade games that they can't even give away on eBay. Oh yay, they run on cell-phones and PDAs. Guess that Digital Convergence thing is right around the corner - and B I G, right Gary?
Userbase: God, what a laugh. What's left is a group of shrill-voiced fanboys incapable of grasping the exigencies of hardware and software development. How many "tuned out" when the aforementioned "parent company" did the only smart thing it's done since it's inception? That is, it partnered with Microsoft. Plenty of 'em. Given the low level of intelligence expressed here on ANN and in newsgroups (S.G., I'm looking in your direction), it's amazing to think that the Amiga had a "userbase" at all, ever.
Development community: This sickens me, more than the parent company's meandering non-business non-plan. Hyperion's constant foot-dragging and outright refusal to give over any information regarding the 4.0 development track is infuriating and saddening. I ask you: How hard would it be to post a "milestones" timeline on the web-site? No dates - just a .plan type file that states "Today, we finished testing the USB stack. Next up, video card compatibility." etc. No dates required, just a little something for the - what, 940 - users remaining.
But I guess that'd be something only "stupid Americans" would want, right? Assurance that you're going to deliver on your advertised project once and for all, as opposed to the two years of delays. Yeah, must be sheer American Stupidity.
Eyetech isn't exempt from this at all. Initially, when the Amiga One systems started rolling out, I was elated that after years gone by, someone was finally *doing something*. Now, it turns out that Eyetech have stuffed their developers firmly, as well. "Well, we decided that a bunch of pre orderers weren't really developers so they can't have their boards, so there."
What lie is this masking? What internal "We're out of money, we can't buy boards, we already spent the pre-order cash on other things, oh my god" situation is this a smoke-screen to cover? I am admittedly not a programmer but one phone call and credit card order to any PC hardware or software company would get me a dev kit for just about anything that's been publicly announced. Something much, much worse is going on than "We're not giving out dev boards to people we don't think are developers", mark my words. Eyetech is rapidly approaching the Mick Tinker/Antigravity/Boxer death-spiral.
I used to think that the people with 4000's, 1200's and 3000's were waiting in vain for cards and systems that'll run OS-4; that the Shark and so forth were pipe dreams and that the Amiga One boards were the future. It's becoming increasingly obvious that this isn't true: Each time a milestone is approached by Hyperion and Eyetech, it goes by without so much as a whimper. They can't even put a non-dated roadmap up now that shows where they're going. So upgrading ancient (in computer terms) hardware may be all that there is left to do. This, of course, presumes that there's an OS4 *at all*, and there's no indication that it's coming any time soon. What's the calendar like, Ben? Leaking Alpha copies out in September, betas that you can actually show videos of in November, and then early versions sometime in Feburary or March of 2003? Ah, you've only missed your deadline by a year or more! That's not too bad.
Heck, there might be eight or ten people with Amiga One boards to run it on by the time you've got it ready for release!
On the flip-side of the coin, there's this "Pegasos" thing - yeah, right, a subset of a minority of a subset of a minority computing platform. An "OS" that runs an Amiga emulator. Yay. No thanks - I've got WinUAE or Amithlon for that. Both of those, by the way, are great products and the only real path left for Amiga users right now who don't want to invest in old and busted hardware.
And now for the well-reasoned responses. The two people with Dev boards will post bemused ramblings about how *they* have *their* boards, and that the "dev community" is alive and well - but they can't say anything else! Oh no-no-no! NDAs, don'tcha know! The broken engrish of a few incohate European 12 year olds will follow, I'm guessing that'll be entertaining. |
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