> I think they're going to have a hard time selling their 250 units at that price.

Some 100 of those 250 units have already been sold to beta testers for a lower price. So only about 150 to go ;-)

Reply to myself:

> why it will come with "Audio & Ethernet cards" when Nemo has
> both audio (via SB600) and Ethernet (via PA6T) onboard?

Interesting comment regarding onboard Ethernet:

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=664411

Quote:

-dream

There is nothing "dreamy" about this at all IMHO. And that specs to that price looks rather like a "nightmare".

Quote:

I'd say *blind*...

redrumloa,
Quote:

NO NO and NO !!!

Releasing the G5-port in it's current (assuming it is true that nothing substantial has been done on it since I saw it last time this summer) state would mean the MorphOS-team repeating HYPE's worst mistakes.

There is no point in releasing something that can only be used by typing in cryptic commands into the OF prompt to than boot from a a specially prepared USB-drive only to be harrased by a bunch of fans running full speed all the time.

In this state it isn't even worth considering further beta-testing...... Would I take such an ISO if offered ? Sure yes !! Would I use it beyond the sporadic novelity boot and to brag on user-meetings ? Probraly not

If they can address those 2 issues (read power/fan managment and SATA) I'll be 1st inline for an extended betatest, but for the general public it would still be another year till it's finished enough to meet the MorphOS-teams quality-standards.

I would love to have G5 support, but not before it is usable and meets the high standards that the MorphOS Dev. Team is known for.

I also don't want work on any G5 models to detract the Developers from completing work on support for the G4 PowerBooks (including wireless support), so please let them complete one project at a time and not ask for something that they are not going to do anyway (at least not until they are done working on perfecting 3.0 for PowerBooks).

Support for G5 PowerMacs & iMacs is an unknown right now. It might never happen (but I hope it does).

Addendum:

>> why it will come with "Audio & Ethernet cards" when Nemo has
>> both audio (via SB600) and Ethernet (via PA6T) onboard?

> Interesting comment regarding onboard Ethernet:
> http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=664411

I just found the time to watch Trevor Dickinson's AmiWest 2011 presentation and there I heard him say:

"There were 20 improvement changes from revision 1 to revision 2. Most of them were minor things [...] but there were a few major changes like changing the onboard Ethernet to use the PHY from PA Semi [...] and also changing the audio circuits."

...and it has the following on a slide:

"Revision 2.1 design to correct several issues:-
[...]
Incorrect audio connector pinout
Resistor changes to the Ethernet PHY [...]"

Reply to myself:

> Anyone has an idea why it will come with only half the amount of RAM that
> the X1000 product page claims [...]?

Trevor Dickinson answered this one in his AmiWest 2011 presentation:

"This is the base system. We're trying to keep the price down for you guys. We're trying to keep the price down for the minimum. [...] So we're putting in 1 GB RAM [...]. We wouldn't recommend that minimum. I'd go for 2 [...]"

Quote:

AmigaKit reportedly sold out (pre-sold) all of the available "First Contact" X1000's in less than one week and I think that there were supposed to be 100 in that production run.

Even at the price they are asking for them, I think the demand is going to be greater than the supply, unless A-Eon has more PA6T CPU's than the demand and plans to do several production runs of the X1000.

> [...] unless A-Eon has more PA6T CPU's than the demand and plans to do
> several production runs of the X1000.

Several production runs are a given I think, else the "First Contact" systems would not only be the first but also the last ones.

Quote:

That could be a possibility if A-Eon and Varisys have a better design to move on to that is more cost effective and practical.

Although the demand for the X1000 seems to be greater than the planned first production run, that does not guarantee that a second production run will take place. I hope that everyone who wants to purchase an X1000 gets the opportunity to buy one, but only Trevor and a few of his closest advisers know exactly how many X1000's will be produced.

If he has a better system to follow the X1000 with, they might decide to move on to that next design, instead of spending more money producing additional X1000's.

amigadave,
Quote:

Sold out? Users on Amigaworld.net were complaining that Amigakit didn't even put it on their site yet. I find it very hard to believe, just like I find it hard to believe 100 people bought "beta tester" boards.

I guess the real reason for the high number of production runs is quite simple:

There was a huge prepay for those buying their boards as "betatesters".

Same seems to be true for the current run of "earlybirds" (or whatever nonsense they use this time).

> That could be a possibility if A-Eon and Varisys have a better design to
> move on to that is more cost effective and practical. [...] If he has a better
> system to follow the X1000 with, they might decide to move on to that next
> design, instead of spending more money producing additional X1000's.

There are two aspects which to my mind speak against this possibility.
First is that they purchased a certain number of PA6T chips for a certain number of boards to be produced (the latter number being slightly lower for being able to replace broken chips). If they now would decide to only produce one batch, then what do you think would they do with the remaining stock of expensive PA6T chips they already purchased?
Second is that a follow-up board to the Nemo board would need to have a QorIQ P5 or better yet QorIQ T5 chip. The Nemo board development up to current revision 2.1 has taken Varisys about 2.5 years. If we take this as a ballpark figure for the time Varisys needs to come up with a stable board of Nemo's complexity and take into account that a board based on QorIQ P5/T5 could probably be less complex than Nemo and thus only take maybe 1.5 years to be developed by Varisys, we now only need to look at the release state of the QorIQ P5 and T5 chips. The QorIQ P5 reached early sample state no earlier than half a year ago. Even if Varisys commenced that early with development of a board based on that chip it would still be a year away. And QorIQ T5 is not even available as sample chip yet. So I doubt they would now stop producing Nemo boards after the first batch in favour of a successor that could be available in a year from now at best.

> Although the demand for the X1000 seems to be greater than the planned first
> production run, that does not guarantee that a second production run will take place.

Not producing a second batch under these circumstances would be outright silly.

> only Trevor and a few of his closest advisers know exactly how many X1000's
> will be produced.

It may be that even the three A-Eon directors do not *know* how many boards *will* be produced because they don't know the absolute demand. What they know for sure is the maximum number of boards they *can* produce as that is limited by the number of PA6T chips they have in possession. I'm not sure what they'll do in case demand dries out before all of their PA6T chips have found a home on a Nemo board. I guess they'd either try to resell the remaining stock of chips at a loss or put them on Nemo boards nonetheless and try to sell those at a loss in order to make more people consider to buy one.

Just remember that Trevor stated that he is making zero money from selling the X1000 and that he is not even getting any of his investment back from the sales of X1000 systems. There is NO incentive for Trevor to sell more X1000's, unless his statement was directed at only this first public production run and that he would be making some kind of money toward his considerable investment from a future (after the "First Contact") production run.

Varisys has been paid for the design and probably makes a small amount on each board that they produce and AmigaKit will make a small profit on each system they assemble, but Trevor made it very clear that he is not making any money on them during the AmiWest 2011 Show.

Edit: Red, the sign-up site was different than AmigaKit's normal store site for those people that were interested in buying one of the "First Contact" systems. I know that AmigaKit received more responses than the planned number of First Contact systems to be produced. No way to tell if every response will be followed up with money in the way of a purchase, but the demand, or interest appears to be real.

[ Edited by amigadave 27.11.2011 - 17:25 ]

> Sold out? Users on Amigaworld.net were complaining that Amigakit
> didn't even put it on their site yet.

I think what was referred to is that page which went live 5 or 6 weeks ago:

http://www.amigakit.com/x1000/

> Just remember that Trevor stated that he is making zero money from
> selling the X1000 and that he is not even getting any of his investment
> back from the sales of X1000 systems. [...] Trevor made it very clear that
> he is not making any money on them during the AmiWest 2011 Show.

He also said before that he was trying to break even with the X1000 and would only continue with further products if he manages to do so. So I think what he really meant to say with his statement you're referring to is that he's not going to make any profit on top of just trying to recoup the expenses the board development, purchase of the parts and board production have caused. But you're right that it can also be interpreted in a different way which would be contradictory to other statements he made on the matter.

> There is NO incentive for Trevor to sell more X1000's

If there wasn't he wouldn't do so, I think. He's at least trying to break even, unless he even gave up on that, in which case he could sell the X1000 for less and thus create a bigger user base than it's going to create with the current price (of course that's assuming he has more PA6T chips than there's demand for the X1000 at the current price).

> unless his statement was directed at only this first public production run
> and that he would be making some kind of money toward his considerable
> investment from a future (after the "First Contact") production run.

This may as well be, yes. So far his statements seem somewhat contradictory to me.

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

I saw that page. I seriously doubt that page cause 100 pre-orders for this "First Contact" just like I seriously dubt there were 100 who bought "Beta Boards". It sounds like Amigakit/A-Eon went to the Amiga Inc school of progaganda.

http://www.amigakit.com/x1000/%3Cbr%20/%3E%3C/div%3E

Now defaults to search page.

> http://www.amigakit.com/x1000/%3Cbr%20/%3E%3C/div%3E
> Now defaults to search page.

Yes, because it's a distorted URL. The original link I gave is still valid.

Thank you Andreas.
Ordering has not begun?

@redrumloa,

Quote:

No propoganda, one week after that page was made available I sent an email asking to be put on the list of people wanting to buy an X1000 and the reply I received was that they had already received more people interested in buying than the number of First Contact X1000's that were going to be made.

I don't know why you think that there are less than 100 people that want to buy the X1000?

It is a unique computer that will be built in very limited quantities and will hold a place in the history of the Amiga for a very long time to come. I know all of the reasons NOT to want one. All the limitations and weaknesses of the hardware and the current state of the OS that is far behind MorphOS, but still I want one. I know it will never happen, but I would love to be able to boot MorphOS, OS4, Linux & Mac-on-Linux, on the X1000 some day.

What other computer has been built for running only AmigaOS4.x since the demise of Commodore in 1994? If I remember correctly, all of the other AmigaOne designs were boards that were already developed, and later used to port AmigaOS4.x to them. Also, since I have never owned an OS4.x system, I would like to see first hand the differences between OS4 and MorphOS. It will give me a better perspective when talking to OS4 users about MorphOS, if I know what they are using for comparison. Lastly, I really like the case design. I like it so much that I am going to try to buy a second bare case to install my A4000 Toaster/Flyer system into it.

So, call me crazy and foolish, but I have been selling parts of my large Classic Amiga collection to raise money for purchasing an X1000, if I can get into the cue of people that are allowed to purchase one of the First Contact systems. This is how I know that AmigaKit received more inquiries to purchase than they have available First Contact systems. So, unless someone drops out and I can take their place, I won't be able to get a First Contact X1000 and would have to wait and hope that a second production run will be made. I have raised the money needed for the purchase and just wait to hear back from AmigaKit to find out if I can get into the First Contact group of purchasers.

This does not mean that I will be any less of a MorphOS supporter.

@amigadave

AFAIK those limited edition boards were left overs from the beta tester program. That is 100 boards in total including beta testers and those who bought it through limited edition.

But I can agree we are living exciting times. Apparently PA6T is too underpowered to run OS4 and this project is turning to the biggest financial fiasco since CBM. I can only admire Trevor's willingness to dump money down the black hole. Maybe one day I will be rich like Trevor.

itix,

Haters gonna hate.

What that means?

> AFAIK those limited edition boards were left overs from the beta tester program.
> That is 100 boards in total including beta testers and those who bought it through
> limited edition.

According to Trevor Dickinson's AmiWest 2011 presentation there're really 100 beta testers alone. He even showed on a slide how many there're in which country. So "100 boards in total including beta testers" as you say would leave zero boards for the "First Contact" systems. As I mentioned already in this thread, way back a batch size of 250 was mentioned for the Nemo boards. With 100 boards for beta testers this would leave 150 boards for the "First Contact" systems.

> Apparently PA6T is too underpowered to run OS4

Could you go into more detail please?