Amy Motherboard Sneak Peak

Part 1

Dear Amigans,

Back in 2007 at TroikaNG, we changed our product development goals. The system codenamed Prometheus/Amy05 had taken us into one direction, grown and as time progressed became costly, and slightly dated with regard to the technology used.

A new project, codename Athena, was commenced. This was a lower cost system which provided a more effective price point for the current markets. The initial hardware was developed and tested towards during 2007.

We are very pleased at this point in time to present a sneak preview of the updated design of this new motherboard designed for Amiga OS4x. The focus is a low cost entry level system designed to kick around Os4, and maybe do some developer work. Our new series will be known as the Amy Developer.

In addition we have an active development roadmap around a higher higher performance core, with a 1 GHz processor and numerous enabling technologies. The part we have designed in for this next model after this first Athena adds some additional costs. It provides a good price/performance/power ratio.

Since this is a sneak peak we won?t reveal all the specifications only that she can compete with other motherboards running at speed of 500-700 mhz. The feature set includes USB 2.0 high speed, Gigabit Ethernet, SATA and support for DDR RAM (DIMMS).

Graphics are provided by an off the shelf PCI card as this provides the most cost effective solution, to you, the end user.





Customer feedback is important to us. We realize that in the past, our announcements have not always been universally well received. It is because of this that we have spent the best part of the last two years developing and testing our system before announcing the product.

If you could futher help us with your feedback, we have a poll running on AW regarding the price point of this model.
We ask the question: Would you purchase an Amy Developer Series MB for $300-350 US /227 Euro?

@Troika

No disrespect, but haven't you take enough of a bashing on the other forum this was posted on?

I think the feedback you have is:

1. Stop with silly compos of little substance
2. Stop showing us reference boards with vague descriptions of components a likely board would come with
3. Confirm you have a licence to run OS4 on this machine
4. Stop with the empty promises and half arsed excuses
5. Confirm exactly what happened in the past, and how you plan to remedy steps 1 - 4 above

I hope you take note of this and the other thread, but in a constructive manner.

Thanks,
Rude!

@Troika

I agree with Rudei.
I don't think you're going to get much of a positive response here unless you can confirm that it's going to run os4.1.

Part 2

Starting point for Athena is the Freescale model MPC8349E-mITXE reference board

This is one of our Software development and testing systems used in our development program. Basing Athena on a very reliable reference design has allowed us a working system running Linux from day one.


Mods note: This image is too large, click the link to view it separately
Picture 1


The case is an Antec Aria case, shown inside is the reference design motherboard and the graphics card used is a Radeon HIS9250. All components used to build this system, including the graphics card, were procured from Misco. A suitable card is http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/S ... p?EdpNo=236374&CatId=2694, good value at ?31.31 inc VAT.

Mods note: Again, click the link for the picture
Picture 2

We hope you have enjoyed this "Sneak Peak"

@Troika

Could you please answer to Rudei's post? Please?

Varthall

@Rudei

Quote:

Plans sometimes go bad. No excuses, it happened.

Our wish was to give something special to this web site then point the other sites to the link. We ran into a password issue and the info never went out.

If we obtain the poll info and user feedback then any bashing is worth it. Sides trolls will be around no matter what right?

@Troika

sorry, but which feedback could you receive??

Also me can take a simply picture from any motherboard google and put it here.
I think that after many years of preomises, users needs real things and not only pictures/images..

maybe i'm the only one.. but i don't think..

@Troika

Quote:
They are not trolls, as nearly *everyone* has commented negatively on your post!

Varthall

@Troika

Quote:

With such an explanation, we can be very confident about your capacity to do serious business!

@Troika

The price looks nice. But i would like to see atleast 1ghz if i would to consieder this option as i have got a sam already.

@Troika

I think it correct to say that every one like get more expensive motherboard, PCI express, ONE extra pci slot, 1Ghz to 2Ghz range.

Sam440ep covers the low-end / low price.

This what I hope to see for HI-end:

CPU speed 1.5 Ghz G4
2 x DDR RAM slots
1 x PCI Express
1 or 2 x PCI slots (or onboard audio)
2 x Front USB2
2 x Back USB2
4 x SATA
1 x Ethernet.

What you have:

No audio.
CPU speed 500-700 mhz
? x DDR RAM.
1 x PCI slot.
6 x Ethernet.
1 x COM
4 x SATA
? x USB2

@Troika

At least price is nice.

@Troika

You're not going to be able to gather interest in your product this way. The only way you can go, given your history, is to get the product ready, with os4 running on it with a license from Hyperion, build a bunch of boards and then try the market. Starting by showing it at a user group meeting or whatever to prove that it really exists and runs os4 without snags.

A poll like that isn't going to give you what you want, which seems to be that you are seeking some kind of insurance that people will buy your boards.

Remember that you are competing against both your own history as well as other hardware solutions that has already saturated the market in the extreme low end that you seem to aim for.

You can only succeed in those areas by bringing out a product running os4 and mixing in things like a better price point and better or the same quality than the others.

Previews-shmeviews isn't going to get you anywhere.

Could I see an Image of the actual motherboard, preferably not coved up by a PSU?
TBH though, I will believe it when I see it running OS4.x

Many thanks...

Wizz.

@wizzard_o

Its the MPC8349E reference board from Freescale if thats what you want to know.

http://www.freescale.com/files/graphi ... RDMPC8349E_DHC_PRDIMG.jpg

@Troika


Troika wrote:

Quote:

But if so many people think you are full of it how can you expect to get valid results from any poll?

@fairlanefastbck

No one seems to have commented on the colour of the bedclothes.

@tonyw

Quote:

No, but somebody got close:

http://tinyurl.com/aen5ww

Hi Troika,


Finally I can comment!!!


You don't need polling or market surveys....

There are people that have already commented that IF the motherboards from ACube were cheaper (they're quite expensive) they'd have bought 2 or three!!

"Build it and they will come." (Not being comedic or sarcastic.)

No, really.... Didn't you see the run on ACube when AOS4.1 was released for it? They even LOST orders, at their prices only because they couldn't deliver in a timely basis!


As far as trolling and bashing go, I WAS extrememly disappointed at NOT having the Amy '05 released, ..... HOWEVER.... how long was the Sam440EP out, and when did IT get AOS4.1??!?

HAD Amy '05 come out ON TIME, would amiga inc. have allowed them to have AOS4.1 ported to it???

Going by what we know now, seems highly unlikely to ME!


It might have been a dirty trick, I don't know, but I'd even like to say thank you to Troika, because at that time of the Amy '05 announcement there was a big danger of people jumping ship to an alternate OS/platform (I won't mention which one it is) and Amy '05 kept people waiting and hoping AOS4.x HW would soon be here.


So, you ask what people want?

Well, at $350US and 700 MHz, as much as people say they don't want a slow computer, that IS raisable in 3 months or so, so people I believe WOULD buy it, even though sounding reluctant. It blows ACube's price out of the water!!!!

High end is what people are desparate for, however, and SOMEBODY is going to make one, eventually. Might as well be you!

Minimum reasonable system...

1.7 GHz G4 with Altivec. (or faster)
2 Gigs DDR2 support
5 PCI slots
8*AGP (If not PCIe)
4*USB2
1 Gig ethernet and 2 * 10/100 ethernet
2 HD controllers, 1 EIDE *4 and one SATA or PATA or RAID (*4 devices)

Will it be expensive? Yes. Will people buy it? Yes.

Just because people aren't vocal, I'd say at least 500 could be sold. There are people that would sell their AmigaOne to buy this.


Remember, there are hundreds of Amigans just lurking.

@Atheist

The specs and prices may sound desirable, but some people would like to be convinced that there really is a company behind these offers/claims, not just one engineer working from his bedroom with no capital.

And I will be the first to apologise if that inference turns out to be incorrect.