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[News] Bill Buck clarifies MAI situationANN.lu
Posted on 16-May-2003 08:58 GMT by ek246 comments
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Bill Buck offers on Moobunny his account on the events that lead to the creation of April, April2 and Genesi's decision to move ahead with Marvell instead of MAI.

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Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 1 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Ross Heinlein on 16-May-2003 07:16 GMT
The ole' Marv has much better industry support anyway. kudos! brilliant move. it'll be interesting to watch what you fellows do with this, the PCI-X support is interesting.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 2 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by greenboy on 16-May-2003 07:28 GMT
Up through the January CES entry, this is all stuff Gerald Carda was telling me every time we hung out at CES. After that, I was hearing what BBRV wrote in the later entries because the delays were impacting developers, and of course a financial stress. Then Mai's sitting on the money and missing scheduled deliveries - which I've mentioned here and Amiga.org to skeptisicm (and not so mild either!) was causing some real nosebleeds.

IT was a tough decision to curtail Peg1 and not get back some lost-time sales flow. But once the Marvell deal was chosen it was a big relief to everybody in spite of the further shifting of timeframe. Actually it got HAPPY again!
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 3 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Linus G on 16-May-2003 07:53 GMT
Isn´t it illegal to sell products that you know doesn't work as advertised? Or did BBRV tell everybody that bought a Betatester about the Articia bugs?
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 4 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Adam on 16-May-2003 08:05 GMT
I knew about the DMA bug when I get my betatester and signed the NDA.
I speak for myself, I don't know about other people.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 5 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Linus G on 16-May-2003 08:07 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Adam):
Good, I hope everybody else knew about it too. Not that I have any reason to doubt that.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 6 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Johan Rönnblom on 16-May-2003 08:19 GMT
Genesi never did that. Furthermore, they replaced the (buggy)
Betatesters previously sold, free of charge!

(this is more than can be said for the buggy AOnes that were sold, if
Alan Redhouse's account can be trusted)
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 7 of 246ANN.lu
Message removed by Christian Kemp for violation of ANN's posting rules.
Specific reason from moderator: Trolling
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 8 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by DaveP on 16-May-2003 08:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Johan Rönnblom):
"Genesi never did that"

Never did what?
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 9 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Leki on 16-May-2003 08:21 GMT
sure...like i`m going to believe Bill "G3 is faster than G4" Buck after the other FUD and half truths he spreads all the time.

any problems with the Articia were probably mainly due to the buggy bplan southbridge as eyetech didn`t have all the major problems like Bill "there is no mail without april" Buck did.

anyway i`m happly running my AmigaOne-XE G4 800mhz with no problems :)
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 10 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by DaveP on 16-May-2003 08:21 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (amigamad):
I wonder if amigamad is the parody of a troll.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 11 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by T_Bone on 16-May-2003 08:23 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (DaveP):
Thinking the same thing.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 12 of 246ANN.lu
Message removed by Christian Kemp for violation of ANN's posting rules.
Specific reason from moderator: Trolling / profanity
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 13 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Leki on 16-May-2003 08:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Johan Rönnblom):
>(this is more than can be said for the buggy AOnes that were sold, if
>Alan Redhouse's account can be trusted)

Eyetech did replace any boards with problems for free.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 14 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Leki on 16-May-2003 08:25 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Leki):
that "mail" should be "MAI" of course......i had just checked my email and must been thinking of it hehe
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 15 of 246ANN.lu
Message removed by Christian Kemp for violation of ANN's posting rules.
Specific reason from moderator: Profanity
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 16 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by David Scheibler on 16-May-2003 08:28 GMT
In reply to Comment 13 (Leki):
>Eyetech did replace any boards with problems for free.

Oh really? From what I read in the AmigaOne ML they had to pay a update fee for
the AmigaOne XE.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 17 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by DaveP on 16-May-2003 08:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (Anonymous):
I wonder why there always has to be one teen taking it too far.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 18 of 246ANN.lu
Message removed by Teemu I. Yliselä for violation of ANN's posting rules.
Specific reason from moderator: flood
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 19 of 246ANN.lu
Message removed by Teemu I. Yliselä for violation of ANN's posting rules.
Specific reason from moderator: flood
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 20 of 246ANN.lu
Message removed by Christian Kemp for violation of ANN's posting rules.
Specific reason from moderator: Trolling / copy&paste'ing the same statement a hundred times
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 21 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by T_Bone on 16-May-2003 08:32 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (Anonymous):
> You people on here are such cunts for supporting a bent fucking crook.

Can't we drop the subject already? If you don't want to join the I Am Amiga club, just don't! Nobody is forcing you.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 22 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Leki on 16-May-2003 08:37 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (David Scheibler):
>Oh really? From what I read in the AmigaOne ML they had to pay a update fee for
>the AmigaOne XE.

well obviously if your going from a AmigaOne-SE G3 to an AmigaOne XE G4....they are different models and the AmigaOne-XE is worth more.

when my A1200 broke years ago and was under warranty i didn`t get sent an A4000....i got a working A1200 again....doesn`t that make sense?

eyetech replaced the same model for free
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 23 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by David Scheibler on 16-May-2003 08:46 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (Leki):
>well obviously if your going from a AmigaOne-SE G3 to an AmigaOne XE
>G4....they are different models and the AmigaOne-XE is worth more.

Yes sure. The only problem was that there were only AmigaOne XEs and no more
SEs.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 24 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 16-May-2003 08:47 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (amigamad):
I'm equally interested in Pegasos/MOS and AmigaOne/OS4. Iha ve not decided which I should buy when I have enough money. Nothing against any of those.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 25 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 16-May-2003 08:51 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (No):
LOL
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 26 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Leki on 16-May-2003 08:56 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (David Scheibler):
>Yes sure. The only problem was that there were only AmigaOne XEs and no more
>SEs.

i highly doubt that...they got SEs boards in aswell.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 27 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by DaveP on 16-May-2003 09:03 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (David Scheibler):
David

Unless you have evidence of any cases where someone has returned a board with bugs to Eyetech and have been told "There are no AmigaONESEs to replace it with you will have to get an AmigaONEXE" then I suggest you back down from this.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 28 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Ben Yoris on 16-May-2003 09:07 GMT
Just a question.

Both SE and XE AmigaOnes are using an Articia chipset : is this right ?

As the Articia Chipset (even patched by Mai) seems to be buggy, does that mean that both SE and XE AmigaOnes are buggy as well ?

Or am I missing the point ?

Thanks to answer me cleverly.
Bye,
Ben
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 29 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Leki on 16-May-2003 09:13 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Ben Yoris):
thats what i said in comment 9

isn`t it strange that the AmigaOne using the same Articia northbridge doesn`t have all the major problems Bill "i thought it was old news" Buck had?

so it points more to problems with the bplan southbridge.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 30 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 16-May-2003 09:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Ben Yoris):
It's hard to say because for some reason current AmigaOne SE and XE models seem to work flawlesly, whitout problems. I wonder why Bplan/genesi has not told us exactly what the MAI problems was and how they noticed it and what can it cause. It's ofcourse possible that Eyetech has made it's own fix for those problem and that's why AmigaOnes seem have no problems. Another possibility is that those problems show only in wery rare situation, if so it would be even more important genesi to tell details of the problem.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 31 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Ben Hermans/Hyperion on 16-May-2003 09:17 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Ben Yoris):
>As the Articia Chipset (even patched by Mai) seems to be buggy, does that mean >that both SE and XE AmigaOnes are buggy as well ?

The AmigaOne XE certainly is perfectly usuable as hundreds of people can testify, DMA and all.

I find this whole Buck story very amusing, especially the part where he called IBM to force Mai to send him chips.

Next time somebody doesn't do what I want, I'll be sure to call IBM.

Is that IBM the IT company or IBM as in "Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles"?

This might explain it as nobody wants to be targetted by such a device.

All joking aside, the fact of the matter is that Thendic prepaid those Articia chips and Mai therefore entered into a legally binding contract to deliver them.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 32 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 16-May-2003 09:28 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Ben Yoris):
"As the Articia Chipset (even patched by Mai) seems to be buggy, does that mean that both SE and XE AmigaOnes are buggy as well ?"

Apparently not. See this comment from an owner:

http://www.flyingmice.com/cgi-bin/squidcgi/mbmessage.pl/amiga/85728.shtml
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 33 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by David Scheibler on 16-May-2003 09:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 27 (DaveP):
Please read http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amigaone/message/23311

"Any pre-November 2 unfixed A1G3-SE developer boards can be exchanged for
A1-XE G3 or G4 boards at current list price less the original A1G3-SE
percentage discount with full credit being given for the original amount
paid. The user and/or dealer will however be asked to pay for carriage both
ways."

Before he always said that you can also exchange them against an AmigaOneG3-SE.
Up from this post you couldn't do anymore.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 34 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by David Scheibler on 16-May-2003 09:32 GMT
In reply to Comment 31 (Ben Hermans/Hyperion):
>Is that IBM the IT company or IBM as in "Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles"?

It is the IBM that owns the consulting part of PriceWaterHouseCoopers.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 35 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 16-May-2003 09:33 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (amigamad):
>stick it where the sun dont shine, Bill Buck is out to destroy the Amiga and people must boycott his crappy hardware and OS then tell him where to stick his hardware and killing the Amiga attitude.

This is not about Bill Buck or anyone else destroying the Amiga.

This is about AMIGA INC being mismanaged, lying to the "community they respect", not delivering promises, etc.

The AmigaOne computer and the AmigaOS4 operating system will continue to exist even after we're rid of this lie-generator they call Amiga Inc.. At least that's what Hyperion told the community about their contract for OS4.

Amiga Inc has let Eyetech and Hyperion BUY the right to do good for it (create the OS and create the computer). What else have they done than raise the public's suspicions and forget to deliver what they sold to the public?
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 36 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by kalmar on 16-May-2003 09:35 GMT
In reply to Comment 31 (Ben Hermans/Hyperion):
> > As the Articia Chipset (even patched by Mai) seems to be buggy, does that
> > mean that both SE and XE AmigaOnes are buggy as well ?
>
> The AmigaOne XE certainly is perfectly usuable as hundreds of people can
> testify, DMA and all.

As a bystander, I thought that Eyetech dealt with the whole issue a lot better. For one, they didn't make a big fuss about the problems, they just got on and fixed them or worked around it. The BBRV approach was so insane, twisting and turning, it clouded the issue completely.
I thought at the time they were going to offend their supplier with all the negative press (no Mai without April and all that), and surprise surprise, they've had to ditch an entire motherboard designed around it and go with something else.

Meanwhile, AmigaOne works. You have to be a bit careful when choosing RAM for it. Big deal.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 37 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by tired on 16-May-2003 09:38 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Leki):
are you a linux lover or do you think a g3/g4 dont deserve something
better than uae ?
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 38 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by David Scheibler on 16-May-2003 09:38 GMT
In reply to Comment 31 (Ben Hermans/Hyperion):
>The AmigaOne XE certainly is perfectly usuable as hundreds of people can
>testify, DMA and all.

BTW: It was you here on ann.lu who advertised the AmigaOne being able to get
certain ram speeds, correct?
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 39 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Leki on 16-May-2003 09:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 33 (David Scheibler):
>Before he always said that you can also exchange them against an AmigaOneG3-SE.
>Up from this post you couldn't do anymore.

even if a few people did have to get an updated model i cant see it being much more in price. The new model has the CPU slot etc anyway so im sure they wouldn`t be botherd...i know i wouldn`t :)

also interesting from the link you posted....

"Incidently the widely hyped (by Bill Buck and others) DMA (April-fix)
problem has been proved by MAI after extensive testing to be absolutely
nothing to do with the Articia northbridge. It is in fact a well known and
widely documented limitation of the VIA southbridge and is an effect that
occurs in very rare - but completely defined - circumstances. This is
properly handled by the IDE DMA driver in both Linux and OS4 (just as it is
with the many millions of PC's shipped with VIA southbridges). Also this is
not just a factor with the VIA 686B chip used on the AmigaOne, as has been
widely suggested, but is a limitation with the IDE/DMA core used in most
VIA southbridges of that family, including the one used in the Pegasos."

seems right to me :-)
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 40 of 246ANN.lu
In reply to Comment 7 (amigamad):
Message removed by Christian Kemp for violation of ANN's posting rules.
Specific reason from moderator: Don't feed the trolls (and it's not okay to use that level of profanity even when referring to an an
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 41 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Leki on 16-May-2003 09:46 GMT
In reply to Comment 37 (tired):
>are you a linux lover or do you think a g3/g4 dont deserve something
>better than uae ?

linux is alright but its AmigaOS4 ill soon be mainly running on it :)
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 42 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by David Scheibler on 16-May-2003 09:48 GMT
In reply to Comment 39 (Leki):
>even if a few people did have to get an updated model i cant see it being much
>more in price.

I did not deny that. it was just you who said that everyone could exchange a
broken board against a new fixed board of the same type.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 43 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by DaveP on 16-May-2003 09:50 GMT
In reply to Comment 31 (Ben Hermans/Hyperion):
@Ben

Thats the one bit of the story I can confirm independantly. At the moment I haven't turned over any official IBM correspondance with Mai on the matter. This may be outside my access, unofficial or a matter of a phonecall ( which would raise the question "why are you asking" - which might be more trouble than its worth to answer ;-) ).

IIRC Alan admitted that there was a problem in the early Articia S which sounded similar to the one described by the April 1 patch and it was "ugly-patched" as a temporary fix.

This part of the story I can believe with little question.

As for the motivations for Mai to delay delivery and then deliver parts not to specification this I cannot verify and I have yet found nothing primary to back the IBM story either. Its just I still have the question bells ringing in my head but I don't want to create a flamewar over it that will get us nowhere before Ive done my own research.

We also have observable delays in XE quantity shipments, we have also seen TerraSoft give up ( regardless of what they say - there could be a real reason to blame Mai or it could be that what they were about to embark on was ill judged and they realised before it went too far ).

Thats not to say thats not true either, I just haven't found evidence for that part of the story. Ive found some posted documents that Matt Sealey referred to which confirm other parts of the story.

Its plausible and credible for secondary evidence - but secondary evidence can be true and still be written from one perspective.

There is also plenty of testimonials out there from satisfied XE and SE owners that do not see any critical problems that might require further patches. Nate Downes is pulling together a series of tests that might help resolve the matter for those that doubt those testimonials.

If you can answer the question, that is in this case what would Bill Buck gain from distorting the truth about a historical matter like this? I can normally see motivation a mile off but in this case, given we can put differences in accounts down to a matter of perspective, what does he gain from it?

Regards

Dave.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 44 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by DaveP on 16-May-2003 09:52 GMT
In reply to Comment 40 (Alkis Tsapanidis):
Someone please take him up on that offer.
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 45 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Emeric SH on 16-May-2003 09:53 GMT
In reply to Comment 31 (Ben Hermans/Hyperion):
" The AmigaOne XE certainly is perfectly usuable as hundreds of people can testify, DMA and all."

And they are average Joe users or Hardware experts? Do you have hardware experts capable of finding such bugs as with the previous Articia chips?
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 46 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by DaveP on 16-May-2003 09:54 GMT
In reply to Comment 39 (Leki):
Oh yes, that rings a bell.

Could it be that the reason the newer revision Articia-S that were shipped still exhibited the problem was because it was part of the symptom and not the cause?
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 47 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by DaveP on 16-May-2003 09:55 GMT
In reply to Comment 45 (Emeric SH):
If you need to be a hardware expert to expose the bug and normal computer use
does not expose it then surely that means the bug is far from in the critical path ( unlike what No Mai Without April implied )?

Are you indeed asking the right question?
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 48 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by hooligan/dcs on 16-May-2003 09:58 GMT
In reply to Comment 41 (Leki):
Soon? Aha... so you know something we do not. Please tell more :)
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 49 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 16-May-2003 09:59 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (Ben Yoris):
So far I've seen only Genesi say that there is any problem with the latest ArtisiaS.
(and they should be disqualified from saying anything about their competitor)
Bill Buck clarifies MAI situation : Comment 50 of 246ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 16-May-2003 09:59 GMT
In reply to Comment 45 (Emeric SH):
If the problem with the artcia is as criticial as bplan/genesi try to say then you don't have to be hardware guru to notice problems.
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