Update:

> So if A-Eon are pleased with Varisys's performance regarding
> development of the Nemo board I don't see a reason why they
> wouldn't want to expand their business relation to an X1000's
> successor (if there really will be any, that is), based on QorIQ.

Sounds like that's exactly the plan:

"Throughout the Nemo development phase Varisys has proved an extremely knowledgeable and highly responsive partner. A-EON Technology director Trevor Dickinson said, “We have been very satisfied with Varisys commitment, dedication and quality. When it comes to leading edge PowerPC hardware their level of technical expertise is possibly unrivalled. As a result Varisys has contracted to work on several new development projects to improve and extend the AmigaOne product line. Adam Barnes, Varisys Technical Director said, There is some exciting cutting edge PowerPC technology on the horizon and we are delighted to have the opportunity of bringing this to the AmigaOne platform. Varisys Managing Director Paul Gentle added, “We enjoyed working on the Nemo development which provided our first experience of the global Amiga community. We look forward to extending our relationship with the new projects and will do our best to 'Keep this party going'."
http://amigaprez.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/amigaone-x1000-to-be-at-amiwest-2011/
http://www.amigakit.com/x1000/newsrelease.pdf (page 2)
http://www.a-eon.com/news.html

Admittedly, QorIQ is not mentioned explicitly, but what else should "exciting cutting edge PowerPC technology on the horizon" mean? :-)

> When the Sam440ep was released in October 2007 it still took Hyperion
> one year for a first OS4.1 version to be released for it:
> http://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=news&id=15
> http://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=news&id=38

Hyperion now claims this:

"22 October 2007
ACube's Sam440ep released for end users with a beta version of AmigaOS 4.0"
http://www.amigaos.net/content/10/history-amigaos

Does anybody remember this? I clearly don't. AFAIR there was never ever OS4.0 for any Sam board available (at least not for end users). What am I missing here?

Moreover, it's claimed under the same link:

"AmigaOS 4.0's inception dates back to 2002 when an agreement was reached to port AmigaOS to the PowerPC platform."

Didn't this agreement between Hyperion, Amiga Inc. and Eyetech being reached happen already in 2001 when Hyperion (re-)started the OS4 project, not in 2002?

Unfortunatly Andreas, Hyperion don't share your fondness for complete accuracy. Especially when it suits them otherwise.

> Hyperion don't share your fondness for complete accuracy.

Now I'm only waiting for someone to reflect this new "truth" in Wikipedia and referencing that "history" page as source ;-)

> Especially when it suits them otherwise.

"2002" instead of "2001" could be a typo (which of course should be corrected nonetheless). But yes, Hyperion's nonsense claim that the Sam440ep was released for end users with OS4.0 available (when in fact it took them one year to release a first OS4 version for it) is really dubious and does look like it was put there on purpose.

> Hardware development is mostly done by Pegatron -with the cooperation of bPlan

I just noticed that back in August bplan put up a web page dedicated to their latest hardware developments done for Genesi:

http://www.bplan-gmbh.de/genesi_en.html

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

Well duh!!

The OS4 related Wikipedia pages have been a work of fiction for a long time. If someone tries to correct it, hordes of BHF go on the attack.

Update:

> As of November 2010 there's a fresh roadmap on QorIQ T series:
> http://www.freescale.com/files/training/doc/dwf/AMF_NET_T0425.pdf (page 7)
> T5: T5040, T5020
> T4: T4160, T4120
> T3: T3080, T3060
> T2: T2040

Revised QorIQ T roadmap as of August 2011 (page 4):

http://www.freescale.com.cn/cstory/ftf/2011/pdf/0772.pdf
http://2011ftf.ccidnet.com/pdf/0772.pdf

T5: T5080, T5040
T4: T4320, T4160
T3: T3080, T3060
T2: T2080, T2040, T202x

The most interesting changes to my mind are the removal of the T5020 and the addition of the T5080. What's puzzling is that the T4240 (in June 2011 announced for early 2012) is missing from this roadmap. Or maybe they increased its core count from 12 to 16 and accordingly call it the T4320 now?

At the AmiWest 2011 Show I asked Trevor Dickinson what was next for him. I thought that after all the criticism he received about the X1000 computer he would be discouraged and not wish to spend any more money trying to satisfy the Amiga community with more hardware projects. To my surprise, he instead announced that he is moving forward with more new computers from A-Eon with Varisys as his partner and AmigaKit was also joining him as a partner to produce new AmigaOne computers. He also expressed that although his personal preference is OS4, he hopes to bring the Amiga community back together and one way to help accomplish this is to provide hardware that all Amiga inspired OSes can run on.

Of course he cannot accomplish this without cooperation from the AROS and MorphOS developers, as well as his current cooperation with Hyperion to have AmigaOS4.x ported to any new computers. It will be interesting to see what his next system(s) is/are going to use for a CPU, as OS4 and MorphOS are clearly not moving away from PPC in the near future and AROS is already available for PPC, though I have not read up on which PPC platforms AROS has been ported to, or if work continues on the PPC port, or not. The QorIQ CPU's are the most likely choice, I would guess.

Trevor also said that he will not be talking about what he is doing, or releasing any specs on his next project(s), until they are ready to release. It was an obvious statement on his displeasure on the highly critical nature of many users in the Amiga community that love to tear apart and criticize plans and timeframes that are released early, or who moan and complain endlessly about the direction some people are taking to advance the Amiga experience, instead of doing something themselves. We have no shortage of people that love to sit on the sidelines and complain, instead of actually contributing anything useful to the Amiga community as a whole. So, with this choice to hold back information about new projects, we will have to wait until a product is close to being ready for release, before we will know what CPU any new computer from A-Eon will be using.

I for one, will be interested in seeing what Trevor will come up with next.

2012 should be another interesting year for new Amiga hardware announcements. Now if we could just make some progress on bringing back more developers and speed up the writing of more useful software and drivers for the hardware we already have, or will soon have, the future of Amiga inspired systems would be better than it has been in many years.

[ Edited by amigadave 09.12.2011 - 11:41 ]

> he instead announced that he is moving forward with more new computers
> from A-Eon with Varisys as his partner and AmigaKit was also joining him
> as a partner to produce new AmigaOne computers.

True, he specifically said that they contracted Varisys to develop three new products, one of which will be an XCore processor card. I guess the remaining two will be standalone PPC boards for running OS4. One of them could be a successor to Nemo, and the other maybe a mobile solution (i.e. quasi-successor to Hyperion's OS4 netbook), but that's just wild speculation from my part.

> he hopes to bring the Amiga community back together and one way to help
> accomplish this is to provide hardware that all Amiga inspired OSes can run on.
> Of course he cannot accomplish this without cooperation from the AROS and
> MorphOS developers

It's not that MorphOS can't be ported to existing Sam4x0 boards or to the X1000 but just that the MorphOS Team doesn't want to do this for several comprehensible reasons. So it will be interesting to see how he's going to create appeal for the MorphOS Team to port MorphOS to any future A-Eon hardware.

> It will be interesting to see what his next system(s) is/are going to use for
> a CPU [...] The QorIQ CPU's are the most likely choice, I would guess.

Absolutely. A-Eon already hinted at Freescale's QorIQ P4 and P5 chips for future hardware. In my opinion it would be better for them to wait for the availability of the AltiVec-enabled QorIQ AMP (= T series) chips, at least for the X1000 successor, as even the top end P series chips are only a little better performing than the PA6T, if at all, and they lack AltiVec.

> I have not read up on which PPC platforms AROS has been ported to

So far, AROS for PPC runs natively only on Efika 5200B and Sam440.

> Trevor also said that he will not be talking about what he is doing, or
> releasing any specs on his next project(s), until they are ready to release.
> It was an obvious statement on his displeasure on the highly critical
> nature of many users in the Amiga community that love to tear apart and
> criticize plans and timeframes that are released early

I've understood it more like a statement on his displeasure with A-Eon's own rush job at announcing the X1000 for half a year later, two whole years in advance of its release.

> 2012 should be another interesting year for new Amiga hardware announcements.

So given that Trevor Dickinson said he would "not be talking about what he is doing, or releasing any specs on his next project(s), until they are ready to release" you believe there should be new A-Eon hardware released as early as 2012?

Andreas_Wolf,
Quote:

It is more likely that the 4240 is canceled for 2012 (delayed to 2013, 4320).
IMO it's a bad sign.
I am corious if and when the 4160 will see the light of day. The TDP will be very interesting, also!

>> What's puzzling is that the T4240 (in June 2011 announced for early 2012)
>> is missing from this roadmap. Or maybe they increased its core count from
>> 12 to 16 and accordingly call it the T4320 now?

> It is more likely that the 4240 is canceled for 2012 (delayed to 2013, 4320).

That's in essence what my speculation you replied to was. And you're right that this would mean a delay from early 2012 to early 2013 according to the roadmap depiction. In June Freescale said they would "provide more details regarding the T4240 product later this year", which still has 3 weeks left. So I guess when there won't be any details on the 12-core T4240 this year we can conclude that it's probably cancelled and "replaced" by the 16-core T4320 which is supposed to come one year later.

> I am corious if and when the 4160 will see the light of day.

According to the roadmap depiction, the 8-core T4160 should be available as initial sample when the T4240 was originally said to be available by Freescale, i.e. early 2012. We'll have to wait and see I guess.

> The TDP will be very interesting, also!

http://www.freescale.com.cn/cstory/ftf/2011/pdf/1417.pdf
http://2011ftf.ccidnet.com/pdf/1417.pdf

This document has on page 16 mentioned "<50W thermal max at 1.8GHz" and "<40W thermal max at 1.67GHz" as power targets for the 16-core T4320. From these figures we may infer the targeted TDP for the T4160 with half the amount of cores.

A little bit more than 20W for an 8 core CPU sounds sweet.
It should be easy to double that figures from - King of the hill - IBM

David's conversion with Treavor brings up topics that I've discussed with him via e-mail myself.
He has stated that he would like to develop systems that support OS4 AND MorphOS.
That would be interesting considering his partner's involvement with Hyperion.

> He has stated that he would like to develop systems that support OS4 AND MorphOS.

First off, it's the OS that must support the hardware, not the other way round. As said before, the MorphOS Team is free to port MorphOS to hardware that is already supported by OS4 (Sam4x0, X1000). I remember that in March you and me discussed the possibility that Trevor would attempt to have new systems created outside of A-Eon (i.e. without Ben Hermans' involvement) in order to reduce the MorphOS Team's reluctance. So far it seems he won't do that. Another show stopper is the compulsive bundling of OS4 to the hardware. For the MorphOS Team to consider a port the hardware would have to be available without OS4 optionally.

> That would be interesting considering his partner's involvement with Hyperion.

As we know, Trevor says A-Eon would very much appreciate a port of MorphOS to the X1000. So it seems Ben Hermans wouldn't object to that either.

The obstacle you speak of no longer exists, but I don't know if I am free to explain further.

> The obstacle you speak of no longer exists

I spoke of two separate obstacles. Which one are you referring to?

Sorry, probably said too much already.

> Sorry, probably said too much already.

Alright, so I guess this must mean either
* Ben Hermans has left A-Eon, or
* Trevor Dickinson has commissioned hardware development as a private person or a business separate from A-Eon, or
* the X1000 or Nemo is also going to be available without OS4 license.

I'm really curious what it is :-)

> It is more likely that the 4240 is canceled for 2012 (delayed to 2013, 4320).

What's speaking against a cancellation though is that in a Freescale press release from 6 weeks ago, i.e. 2 months after the latest roadmap, the T4240 got mentioned prominently. This leads me to think that the roadmap depiction from August is flawed and they just missed to put the T4240 in or something. There's also another error in there, as it reads "P3080" where it should read "P3060", so the thought of an erroneous roadmap depiction is not too far fetched I think.

@amigadave

ahh so those rumours about trevor and hermans nearly coming to blows were true? excellent./

@cheesegrate,

Please do not spread rumors like that. I have not heard that rumor and doubt it is true.

As far as I know, Trevor, A-Eon and Hyperion are all still on good terms with each other.

You can make all the assumptions you want, but Trevor has publicly stated his desire to bring the Amiga community back together, in what ever way he can, and knowing the limitations and obstacles in his way. He uses both OS4 and MorphOS, but prefers OS4 for himself, so I am pretty sure what ever he produces in the future will have OS4 ported to it, but he also sees the advantage of having hardware that can run both OS4 and MorphOS, which would provide a small step toward re-unifying the Amiga community. He knows that unifying the Development Teams is not something that is possible at this point in time.

I really admire his spirit and would do anything to help him spread his goals for more cooperation and support for developers. His attitude and dreams have inspired me enough to part with a huge chunk of my retirement income, to purchase a First Contact X1000 computer from A-Eon and AmigaKit.

I encourage all of you to exercise similar attitudes of cooperation, and/or tolerance and acceptance toward OS4 users and developers. It appears to me that the MorphOS Dev. Team members have stopped antagonizing or arguing with any OS4 users a long time ago and are satisfied with just making MorphOS the best system it can be, without regard for anything that is happening with OS4. I think the users should do the same and refrain from any petty disputes with OS4 users who sometimes are offended too easily when they feel that a critical comment of comparison is being made to the detriment of their OS of choice.

It is just a waste of time and more than that, it is harmful to the growth of MorphOS and it's user base. Live and let live and don't let yourself get sucked into pointless arguments, or flame fests on any forum sites. Enjoy and use what you like and help promote it to the benefit of us all. Make positive statements and actions, and forget about trying to argue with, or convince non-MorphOS users to see things your way.

Our small community can accomplish much more together, than we can apart.

(stepping down from my pulpit and hopefully won't bore you all with any more sermons for a long time)

@dave: Thank you for your wise words (the wisdom of age and experience?) that apply not only to Amiga boards but to all fora on the web in my opinion. Being more of a silent reader to Amiga and everything related websites, I do post frequently on football boards (though I did more in the past). You'd be surprised about in how many different and creative ways people can end up in a fight related to their common hobby. It seems to be a human trait, and the internet made it possible not only to argue with your neighbour over the fence but with people from all over the world. I have refrained from posting much almost everywhere (music, politics etc.) cause there's mostly not much use, point and sense in it for me.

@Megander,

Thanks, I can't say I have any more experience than others, but I probably have a higher number in the age category than most.

I have to agree with what you wrote and I wish that I did not post as much as I do now. I am trying to cut back, but seem to have relapsed this past week or two.

My problem is that I have a lot of passion for all things Amiga and it is hard for me to NOT respond sometimes when I see stupid, or incorrect comments on forum sites. I am going to try to go back to reducing my comments and postings, unless they are purely help messages to answer questions that other users have. I am sure that I will slip up and post messages that don't fit into that category, but I am going to try to cut back on any unnecessary posting.

Unnecessary postings like this one

> he also sees the advantage of having hardware that can run both OS4 and
> MorphOS, which would provide a small step toward re-unifying the Amiga
> community. [...] It appears to me that the MorphOS Dev. Team members
> have stopped antagonizing or arguing with any OS4 users a long time ago
> and are satisfied with just making MorphOS the best system it can be, without
> regard for anything that is happening with OS4. I think the users should do the
> same and refrain from any petty disputes with OS4 users who sometimes are
> offended too easily when they feel that a critical comment of comparison is
> being made to the detriment of their OS of choice.

I'm sure you remember Fab's and later Daff's performance comparisons of MorphOS vs. OS4 on the Pegasos II and the arguing and disputes they caused. If Trevor's dream of more hardware that can run both OS4 and MorphOS will come true you can definitely expect more of such "petty disputes" and "critical comments of comparison", as the release of OS4 for the Pegasos II has shown. So to me it seems that longing for a unified hardware platform and at the same time longing for less disputes and comparisons are two aims that are contradictory and you can't have it both ways.
To my mind, the best way to lessen the arguing between MorphOS users and OS4 users would be to keep each of those operating systems on distinct hardware so that pure OS comparisons are not possible (except for the Pegasos II where the horse has already bolted, if you pardon the pun). Having said that, personally I'm all for factual comparisons and critical comments, so I'm looking forward to more hardware where both MorphOS and OS4 can run on.

> the internet made it possible not only to argue with your neighbour over the
> fence but with people from all over the world.

True, and this is a fantastic thing. Mind you, if it wasn't for the Internet, all things Amiga would be long dead and forgotten, except for a few die-hards switching on their old m68k machines once in a while.