Sam440ep (not Flex) is out of production

:(

@hunk

Dunno why there ":(". It's pretty slow machine. Imho will be ":(", when machines with 2ghz cpus will out of production, but not these with 600mhz.

Anyway, there Flex, which are better (and still, it's slow too). Even my peg2 with 1ghz cpu a bit slow from time to time, just dunno how you guys live on those 600mhz with and 64mb of video :)

@hunk. Who gave you this information? There is no hint on ACube?s website:

http://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=hardware&pid=1

@Anton_P

Information comes from ACube Systems s.r.l itself and it's not on their web page. Well, it's logical step. SAM Flex is the successor which is more powerfull and now even costs less than the small SAM.

Flex: 667 Mhz CPU: 360.00 EUR (432,00 EUR including VAT where applicable)
Old: 667 MHz CPU: 442,00 euro (530,40 euro with VAT where applicable)
(see acube's web page)

@hunk: O.k, I see. Thank you for the info.

@hunk

I REALLY hope that a new SAM will come soon...

@hunk

Good move i think. I have an EP,a good machine. But the flex is much smarter choice. Better to expand,no 64mb gfx onboard. And cheaper and faster. Just hope they can make it even faster

@hunk

I think this is good move, nevertheless unless ACube announces so, this is pure speculation.

I have a ep and i love it, but flex is cheaper, more powerful and have more rooms for expansions.... flex is little too, you can buy for it mini tower/cases.

@ikir

I am not so sure.

I would prefer a mini-itx form factor without the onboard gfx chip, a more powerful cpu and one PCIExpress slot X16 for a graphics card.

Nice

@hunk
Moved to the rumour section until you can prove your claims.

@ssolie

Confirmed by posted email from Enrico.

Also confirmed by Acube.

post #28

#6

@number6

I'm quite happy with this infact. Just hope they can make it a bit faster at the same price. Would be a nice entry machine. And the price of the flex ain't that bad. At around 6500 NOK i can get a complete flex system with taxes and postage.

@hunk

The EP model might have been nice for some embedded use I have in mind, where gfx memory is not that important, but noise and heat is. (I rally need some touch screen drivers for that product)

But I agree whit most flex is better model, faster, more expandable.

I hate it when machines go out of production means im scared to use it now :( Im affraid for it going bang or something daft! My 667mhz sam 440ep is still going strong and i hope for many years yet.

@magic

To be honest, EP model was quite buggy, kind of rev1 board, altough I believe Radeon 9000 is the right chip, 64MB is quite little for composting and high resolutions.

In other words: since Flex has grown mature,
EP became obsolete.

I liked its tiny size however.

And even if so, it does not mean that there will be no guarantee / service of repair etc.

@vox Quote:
I have no idea what you're talking about, mine runs perfectly fine...

@ChrisH

I ment the OS Beta version that was issued at the time. Now, I believe with OS 4.1.2. it works fine.

OK. it was expensive also for a full integrated system, that is supposed to be cheaper then e.g. Flex with separate components.

But was only thing to keep Amiga running.

Oh yes, what is your experience with Cirrus Logic sound card? I remember them as GFX card producers, not sound.

Is M9 faster then 9250? Radeon 9000 should be best card in 9000 series, no matter the numbers of cards.

About unavailiability of the board: all Amiga resellers just sell Flex. Maybe that is the answer. Also, some of the Flex models have dissapeared over time (533Mhz and overclocked 800Mhz) so seems to be kind of lifecycle in their development, as well as limited amounth of each board. Also, EP440 was limited to 1GB. Not that OS4 is so mem hungry, but I believe Flex moves it to 2GB and EP460 to 4GB.

677Mhz used to be standard, now is 733Mhz I believe.

And soon 460, with only 733Mhz 440 avail as low end.

Is there any use of FPGA Lattice XP under Linux or AmigaOS?

Why 2 net cards and 2 audio cards?

I suppose with these 3 components out board would be at least 10% cheaper, so I hope they will do some revisions in the future.

And USB2 support in AmigaOS ... (Hyperion) as an update to OS 4.1.2

@vox

REason for the somewhat strange stuff on the sam,like 2 net plugs. I think this is beacuse of they sell it to embedded marked aswell. But i don't mind that. Probably not that costy?

The first 4.1 for sam ep was buggy yes. But now after 4.1 update 1 it has been rock solid here. Working great. Onyl thing is low memory and slow cpu. Else this is a perfect product.

@Antique

Its not rock solid. If it was rock solid it wouldn't lock up with runaway applications. For example dvplayer, fresh os4.1 update 2 install, try to open dvd drive. Oh dear. No "shit, this task is causing everything to slow down and then die" requester. Or how about Disk Master 2? I had that in the same hi-res mode and got it doing some stuff in the background and it just started taking more and more CPU until it crashed the entire OS.

OWB, sometimes if you click back when its in the middle of doing something you get an entire system freeze.

But perhaps you mean AmigaOS4.1 runs the same on the Sam as it does elsewhere. You might be right. AROS, MorphOS and AmigaOS are absolutely woeful compared to modern OS in terms of being "rock solid". I would not attempt any serious work on any of them.

I realise I'm going to get the "its the programmer's fault" but tell me this, how does one know in advance that an application is going to crash?

Once you've used it and found it crashes once you might say to yourself, never again, but at that point you've already rebooted maybe once - or twice or more - before you spot exactly what it was that caused the crash.

As for two NICs, its incredibly useful in all sorts of applications, even low power server based development, providing a bridge between networks and splitting traffic between networks (say memcached/mysql versus internet in a "LAMP" style environment).

I realise the Amiga religion is strong with most folks that hang around these boards but its just not a very good serious workstation OS when stacked up almost any other free alternative. The fact that I can drag screens and windows around super-fast is one thing, the fact that the applications perform like a dog INSIDE those screens and windows and one thing brings the whole lot down is another entirely.

Frankly, its a bit rubbish really. Its useful to delete all the crap on my Amiga partitions and put some apps back on ready to sell it, but given the vast quantities of utterly obnoxious people in the Amiga community perhaps it isn't the selling point I thought it was. I might even be able to ask for more money if I sold a Sam 440ep as "you don't need to buy AmigaOS" with it.

Still, I'll watch the market and see what happens to prices. But I sure as hell wouldn't recommend anyone get into MorphOS or AmigaOS these days. I'd be recommending AROS because at least clusteruk, who has taken the de-facto role of front man, is leading by example and is well mannered, doesn't go in for personal attacks when you say something he doesn't want to hear, and if he is representative of the AROS community now Fabio has (thankfully) departed and Dammy has taken a chill pill then its a much nicer place to be.

One or two notable exceptions from amigans.net excluded, but in general, you guys really need to take stock of how you come across and treat your fellow users. It is, in general, appalling.