Are you a MICROA1 Owner? (Calling A1SE Owners!)

@DaveP

I'm sure when the time is right, there will be some sort of official announcement. For now, it's just my opinion (as usual).

Simon

@DaveP

btw i think that the first machine to be dropped will be the Classic Machine, as obviously.. For the moment don't worry about Micro and XE/SE.. but i understand your point of view when you said that you wish to have support for your machine..

Well, i guess that asking to Friedens for that problem costs zero.. let's hope they can find a solution for all the micro's users out there.. Then for Amiga OS, it is obviously that it evolves, but the good thing of Amiga OS is that you can customize it for your machine, so i guess that your Micro wil have long life

@nubechecorre

It was mostly the case that the entire line was supported as long as was possible, as such you can could buy and put OS 3.1 ROMS even in your A600.

Commodore was very good at supporting the entire range of machines, at the time.

However, we don't have the resources of Commodore anymore, and key players from the AmigaOne era are no longer around, (Eyetech, Adam, MAI, etc....) so much of the expertise to solve the MicroA1 issue is no longer possible.

Hyperion is the only entity remaining, and obviously they are focused on other things such as X1000 and SAM, and don't have time (and maybe the expertise) to troubleshoot and fix weird hardware/uboot issue that prevents USB and DMA working with a PCI gfx card on the micro.

I am happy we have had support as long as we have had it with the A1 and even classic, and hopefully they will have the time to support the entire range still, even if some features are not available on all models.

I think you will continue to be able to run OS 4.1.x on your micro, and perhaps SAM, and X1000, and who knows, maybe even classic. No one said anything about cutting off OS support.

The micro is a specific case of a hardware issue whereby you can only use the onboard graphics. It sucks (since I own a micro myself), but at least we can still run the latest OS on it, albeit with limited gfx memory.

@HammerD

Quote:

OMG! The guys that made the micro are gone!

Just who do they think they are?

No matter, now it's someone else who must support my machine.

Back to reality----------
I have a uA1c and just not interested in upgrading. Sorry.

@Mikey_C

I purchased my MicroA1-C near the end of 2004. IBM PPC 750 GX with 256 MB RAM.

At the time, I thought it was a cool little system with lots of potential. It is still the fastest "Amiga" that I have ever owned. I use it every day and I have come to terms with its limitations. While I simpathize with the cause, I believe it is too late now.

Currently running AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2
Screenmode = Radeon 7000 at 1024x768 ARGB32
Using Default theme called 1024x768 OS4.0 Look
3D acceleration disabled
This gives me approx 24,866,944 bytes of available Video RAM after my system finishes booting.

Typically, I run only one major application at a time. If I am using OWB, I don't use Timberwolf or NetSurf at the same time. Same with the paint programs, if I am using PPaint, I don't have TVPaint running at the same time. Most of the time, I run with a web browser open, NotePad open and possibly AmigaAMP playing music in the background. I don't have as much experience with TuneNet, so I am not sure what programs I can run at the same time as TuneNet. I use Final Writer 97 on its own screen.

I use the onboard IDE interfaces, with a hard drive on one interface and a DVD-ROM combo drive on the other interface. Due to some issues with my current hard drive, I have been running in auto-discovery mode (with best PIO) for many months.

I have my rear USB ports disabled to allow me to boot from my AmigaOS 4.1 Update 1 CD-R when I need to do so. (Like some others, I had a hell of a time installing AmigaOS 4.1 Update 1 ... then someone discovered that the system would be stable if we disabled two USB ports).

---
redfox


corrected spelling ...
snipped out speculation ...

@thread

IMHO, MicroAones could also become development machines (and why not develop a solution to make the riser PCI work).

Many are still satisfied with their MicroAones, only recent games don't work due to lack of video memory, all the rest works fine as far as I know.

Nonetheless, I see MickeyC's attempt an excellent project for MicroAone owners and this does not involve Hyperion in any way.

The ?Aones are theirs and they are free to expermiment anything to enhance it.

I don't see any reason to troll, flame or whatever.

Mickey : good luck in your project !

As a thought if the issue is simply down to the pci bus not being initialised properly then is there scope to re-initialise it after the boot loader has kicked in much as linux does (the bios on a linux system is largely ignored after the kernel starts up) ?

No, its not so much support for my kit I care about (one broken XE, one broken uA1, and several uA1c's I donated to various "developers" and one given away as a prize) its that I don't particularly appreciate someone needlessly deflating the price of kit I want to sell. I don't think it is in anyone's inteest for that to happen especially as the less money people get for their older kit the less likely they are to buy X1000s and Sam460s. Carry on like this and you'll be lucky to scrape together enough for an Imica.

Here is my take as a uA1 owner. I purchased my uA1 in December of 2004. I plan to purchase an X1000 around Dec, Jan, Feb? That means the uA1, whcih I have invested ~$1000US into, has cost me the equivalent of $166 a year. While I have nothing against trying to extend it's life I'd say I've gotten more than my moneys worth out of it. I was well aware of the uA1's limitations when I purchased it and I'm suprised it has lasted this long. I plan to do one of three things with it when I get an X1000.

1. Keep it as a test machine for software development.

2. Sell it cheaply so someone else can enjoy AOS4 that might not otherwise be able to afford an AOS4 machine.

3. Give it to someone who is serious about, and capable of, developing software for AOS4. Maybe Trevor could organize a donation program for OS4 developers?

Except for a few recent games the uA1 is still a very capable machine. I run at a 1400x900 resolution in 16bit mode with composting turned off and I typically have a minimum of three screens running. I currently have a Workbench, Simple Mail and OWB screen with three tabs open and I am only using 14 or the 32 Megs of video memory. Still very usable indeed.

@DaveP

There have been discussions on Amigaworld about updating the older uBoots.

There is a project page recently set up on Sourceforge: uboot-amigaone

Perhaps if enough uA1 users get organized something can happen via this project? I think it just needs more motivation and support.

Cheers!

@gregthecanuck

If it's the same discussion I read the other day then it also needs certain pieces of documentation that don't seem to be available, as well as some degree of access to the os4 specific parts of the amiga port of uboot.

#31 @MiggyMan

No I'm not a ?A1 <freeze> ...
...certain pieces of documentation that don't seem to be available...as well as some degree of access ... amiga port of uboot.
Um, original author/engineer is not available. I thought AV was the 'man', but he's just the GPL maintainer ISTR. So, forget about a UBoot upgrade, unless a genius comes along. It would be nice if Andrea gave a comment on the UBoot issue.

@Mikey_C

I've got a microA1 and pretty much use it every day, but I wouldn't want to bother with a riser. It's more than 6 years old already and I'm looking forward to upgrading, hopefully to the X1000 if it is not insanely expensive to get one in Oz.

@all


Since last week I have an annonying problem with my MicroA1.
When I turn on the machine it refuses to boot... I dissambled and re-assembled A1 and its components..
While doing this I noticed that, if I take out the clock battery and leave mA1 for some minutes, it is able to boot again..

I tried changing clock battery at least 3 times with fresh batteries. But let's say if I leave mA1 off for a night or a day,
I have to do the this reset thing to make it work..

What could be the problem ? Faulty uboot chip ? Should I re-flash Uboot or look for a replacement ?

Anyone faced this problem ?

@Sinan

Comme trouble with AmigaOne/?Aones : if unplugged for a while, the battery gets discharged.

@Snuffy

I was going more along the lines of the Articia-S docs

@Mikey_C
As a sam440ep-minitx owner I see exactly were you are coming from with your shortage of Video ram issue on your Micro-A1c and as I tried and failed to purchase one my self I could have even worse video ram issues.

I would love it if a PCIe rises board could be made to allow both the uA1c and the sam440 mini itx boards use modern easy to purchase graphics cards. I know that we would still be limited to 33MHz PCI access speeds for the cards but to me it just seems like a better long term solution.

I am also aware that there are some additional issues that need to be overcome to make such a solution work on the Micro A1 but a working 2 slot PCIe riser would help to extend the usability and expandability of both systems and most PCI mini-itx boards have working 2 slot risers.

So if a working riser for both MicroA1s and sam440eps seems workable count me in :)

@Dwyloc

I think the ep should be able to use a gfx card afaik. Should be some talk about that either here or on aw.net... But as said,only 33mhz pci slot. I'm thinking of swapping my EP for a 460 when it comes out. While waiting for the X1k. But os4 works ok with 64mb ram. But more is always better.

I own a uA1 system as well. I have disabled 2 of the USB ports, turned off compositing and changed the screen to 16-bit. When OS 4.1u2 sits idle, there are 25-26 MB of video memory free. It would be nice to pop in another video card, preferably one that supports DVI. Unfortunately since the manufacturer is no longer in existence and nobody seems to have any documentation on the bios, I don't have a lot of faith on any kind of update for it. It is a shame though, as it is a very quick machine and is capable of running OS4.x.

@Mikey_C

I have MicroA1 and will not sell it .. it means that I have an interest in card for PCI risers uA1 .. The only thing we lack now is better ghx card .. and 512 mb :)