Vintage Computing Festival-Amiga 25th Anniversary (Blog-thingy)

@nubechecorre

yes. that has been on the a-eon website since it started listing specs.

@derfs

i didn't notice it before...

Hey all,

Got back from the festival a couple of hours ago, very busy venue. All Bletchley Park car parks were full when I arrived at just after 11:15. So I have to use the recommended nearby train station. Speaking with Mikey C in the marquee I was told they expected between 5,000 - 7,000 at the park over the week.

Of course not everyone came to the Amiga marquee there was lots of true-geeky activities going on inside the Mansion - I had a go on a few games like Bomb Jack on the Acorns there a played a game on some Commodore machine that had a Guitar hero-esque guitar attached to it - was good for 5 seconds (I can't play to save my life).

Had a laugh on the ZX 48k Spectrum playing manic miner and this black and white Pong bat and ball style game on this Plastisomething system with twiddly controllers... what a blast from the past.

But by far the busiest place was the Amiga tent with a steady stream of people taking a look at everything Amiga.

Stephen Jones showed me around his iMica, and introduced me to Aros which was a bit of an eye-opener as the vanila iCaros Desktop install I have running through VMWare on my Mac looks crap in comparison to what he was showcasing - loved the look of the custom case and silent drive - just cool.

Had an albeit brief chat with Max Treton of Acube System's who english wasn't that great - maybe it was my Grimbarian accent haha. The Sam 460Ex looks pretty decent - much bigger than the photos of the similiar 440Ex posted on AmigaKit .. but all the same very sexy. The Sam 460Ex is expected final week of September/Early October. ?600 euros Max told me. He said he doesn't fear the X1000 release and that he was pretty hopefully that both Acube and A-Eon would both see an increase in sales - increased choice for the customer is good.

13:30 Trevor gave his speech on the X1000 and yes couldn't hear a word he was saying - AmigaProductions has posted videos on YouTube, search for 'Amiga X1000'. Didn't manage to find a moment to speak with Trevor as my dad wanted to have a look around the rest of the museum. Any unanswered questions I will probably send via email to A-Eon. Trevor was sporting a great Boing ball tie throughout the event - he was not hard to spot! Seems like a nice chap and I can tell he is passionate about the Amiga platform. He has 150 Commodore Amigas (of various models) in his basement? o.O

I found Trevor's answers to questions from the audience to be very sincerely and honest (just wish there was more questions posed) and the only thing he was hiding was the CPU and the '$64 million dollar' question - how much will it cost? :D
Which I believe he said was below the ?1500 mark, but subject to change.

Great days was had by all.

PS: MikeyC has a few copies of Descent Freespace 2 at the show if anyone is interested in purchasing this game - looks good to me.

PPS: http://www.uploads.beaverpromotions.co.uk/x1000/index.html

A few updates made to the site, might do a few more like change the <TH> rows to some sort of gradient or pattern background.

Trevor could of done with a mega phone or summit. It seems he was targeting the x1000 at amiga nuttas rather then a wider market. I think they should aim for a wider audience. I also think playing a slow version of quake is really not a good idea from promotion, mabye blender would have been a nice choice. To me the x1000 looked laggy and did not show off any cool new features.

A good thing from A-Eon was the great amiga branded keyboards! A-Eons first commercial product. They sold in PS2 and USB option and amigakit sold out pretty fast http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/693/p190610182802.jpg This should be on the frontpage!

The Sam 460 appealed to me a lot more the the X1000. Found out some cool things about the Sam 460 like the fact it had like a sim card slot and an ariel plug (i think) for mobile internet. I also saw timberwolf working fine on sam 460. When somebody tried to load timerwolf on the x1000 they were told to stop or it will crash the system. Mabye thats just the the software set up.

Overall was a great day, met loads of cool new people and a tired Mikey C (good work man). Not seen that many amigans in one place for a very long time. It was amazing to see Imica, Acube, A-Eon all in one place at the same time. Well worth the trip.

@Mikey_C

Thank you so much for providing a blog of this.

I'm also very happy to see that the A1-X1000 and SAM460 both have the latest AmigaOS 4.1 working on these systems without problems! Wonderful to see!

I'm having happy tears in my eyes, and the 19th of June was also my 35th birthday!

Happy Birthday Helgis

looks like you were destined to buy the X1000 afterall

@Rats

Are you sure about this? As it says in stock on amigakit page...
But a nice keyboard it is. Thinking of getting me one myself.

I do wonder when the mouse will be available. If they have one special one for the system.

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@thread


Just like to point out, there will be lots of video (In HD) by monday. I have nearly 2 hours of film to edit for you and not just all amiga either.

@tommo1975


Sorry to everyone all for the sound quality at the presentation. I only found out 10 mins before we were down to give one. It was all very last minute, although I found out later that it was in the actual Event programme. Unfortunately, no one told me! The Amiga "tent"was always busy, especially around the A-EON/Hyperion/ACube area, the suddenly the tent seemed to fill up and it seemed that 100's of people crowded around the A-EON area.

I also apologise if everyone who tried to talk to me couldn't get access. As you will see from the videos that have been posted I almost lost my voice.

The OS4 build was only completed the day before and contained a lot of debug code. I expect it to be up to full speed the next time in A1-X1000 is shown in public at the Essen show next month. However, Blender was running on it at various times during the day. One cool thing I need spot was the ability to change the processor speed on the fly, and at one stage we stepped down to 500Mhz then up to 1,8GHz. Whether that makes it into the final version?

My thanks go to Stephane, Costel and the Friedens who did so much work over the past few weeks to bring this all together in time for the show.

Also thanks to Mikey C & team for all the organisation. Great job AS a thankyou for all their effort we had many of the A1-X1000 hardware and software developers and A-EON management signed a "Boing Ball" tie. Unfortunately we didn't have a dog's paw print but Paul Gentle's 2 year old son added his mark! Mikey will be auctioning the tie to raise money for his Amiga group.

TrevorD (aka the bloke)

@Antique

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I like the colour boingball, it stands out nicely. On the other hand, why has none of the other keys been adapted? For instance the "Scroll Lock" key is used in place of the "Help" key under AmigaOS4 on PC keyboards, so the text on that key should have been changed accordingly. Better than nothing but I think this thing still needs a few finishing touches.

@COBRA
It's a nice first product but I really don't like the AmigaOne logo. The font looks to bold, it's just really bad looking IMO.
Since AmigaOne is supposed to be the new Amiga brand it should be looking better.

more on-topic
Sounds like the X1000 will be too pricey for me but a nice development for Amiga enthusiasts who can afford it

@328gts

Thank you so much, matey! I certainly hope that, and for all of you too!

@TrevorDick

Great show that was running, Trevor I saw the video at YouTube

Although, some said it won't be until close to the end of the year that the A1-X1000 is ready for end-users. I certainly hope that is not the case, as it still says "summer 2010"..

Doesn't matter if that is July or August, as long as it's still summer 2010.

@Antique

Ahhh I ment they sold out the stock at the show. I should have been more clear.

Personally I wouldn't worry about the release date Helgis, it was clear to me being there at the show that Trevor was just being cautious given all the variables. Lots of companies no matter what size or in which industry they specialize nearly always skip key dates when releasing a new product/service.

If you want to keep sane, enjoy the summer and in the back of your mind - think Mid-Autumn.

@Rats

Aha,then i see.

@trevord

I liked the youtube clip from your presentation. All i missed was some showing of the actual machine.

But when are/can you show us the cpu?

More pics from Saturday here.

@ktadd

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Yes, it's supported.

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The driver works here in OS4 already. It just didn't make it to the fair in time.

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Like seen on the pictures of the mainboard from january already...

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Please keep in mind that those were prototyp boards. So basically everything of them is subject to change and might not be the same in the final version. But yes, the CPU stays fairly cool.

Well I dropped into the show for my first Amiga fix for quite some time. Very much enjoyed viewing Amiga OS4 in the flesh for the first time and oggled the new hardware. To be honest I could only justify the cheaper of the two and that's not very likely either.

I got ambushed by the Acorn crew and under torture admitted I still had an Electron in the loft.

Anyway, it was very good to see the Amiga past, present and future in one place and congrats to all those whose hard work made it possible. Hopefully, the VCF will be an annual affair.

@amigacooke Quote:
Don't forget about the "old" hardware (Sam440) which runs OS4.1 quite nicely