Update:

> That's assuming the announced OS4 netbook is really based on the LimeBook of course.

In April, it has been publicly (albeit apparently unnoticed by most) revealed by A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson (i.e. remarkably not by Hyperion) that Hyperion's OS4 netbook was indeed supposed to be the LimeBook (surprise, surprise), and that the project has been cancelled in the meantime because the end user price of the netbook would have ended up at about 750 USD instead of the projected maximum of 500 USD.

"We have reviewed the LimeBook as a possible AmigaOS Netbook. It's not a bad little machine, even if it is somewhat underpowered and the keyboard is a little flimsy. However, after performing detailed cost analysis, which included Non-recurring Engineering (NRE) set-up costs, OS porting costs, driver development, branding, import costs and AmigaOS 4 licences we cannot get the end user price much under £500 (VAT inclusive), and that based on ordering batches of 1000 units at a time with a minimal sales margin. We think that is far too expensive for such an underpowered machine. We are still considering options but, at the moment we are leaning in another direction altogether."
http://amigaone.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/micro-mart-trevor-dickinson.pdf (page 2)
http://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/1015592_637774986232890_905422189_o.jpg


Edit: Added 2nd source.

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 07.07.2013 - 00:37 ]

Quote:

Genesi dropped that idea years ago because of the chip lacking (which came a bit as a surprise to them) Cache Coherency, thus making it badly suited for what Genesi had in mind (which at one point even included MorphOS, in a customized form, although that option kind of faded away before becoming realistic). But I think they were of the opinion that the price was very good, as well as the potential flora of gadgets beyond the netbook. But in the end, neither the price nore the lack of cache coherency made the deal crash and burn, and caused Genesi to turn away from PPC and go into ARM territory instead, no it was other issues they had with the company behind the LimePC.

Update:

> In April, it has been publicly (albeit apparently unnoticed by most) revealed by A-Eon's
> Trevor Dickinson (i.e. remarkably not by Hyperion) that Hyperion's OS4 netbook was
> indeed supposed to be the LimeBook (surprise, surprise), and that the project has been
> cancelled in the meantime because the end user price of the netbook would have ended
> up at about 750 USD instead of the projected maximum of 500 USD.

Objection from ssolie:

"The official word from Hyperion is that the original Netbook project is on hold. Nothing has changed yet."
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=36695&forum=16&start=320#707482

Update:

> Objection from ssolie: [...]

More info from ssolie regarding Hyperion's netbook project:

"It boots up to Workbench. The project has not been cancelled to my knowledge. It is officially "on hold" last time we chatted about it. I know A-Eon did some work to try and revive that project and that didn't work out. The main problem seems to be that the manufacturer keeps changing their story (and pricing). So, if (big if) they come back to Earth we still might see that go forward is my understanding. It is a real shame the rules were changed after the announcement at AmiWest... I guess that is why Hyperion doesn't like to say things."
http://www.intuitionbase.com/solie_irclog.txt

And some words from Trevor (new info since April interview in bold):

"When I realised that, due to a number of issues, it looked like the development effort had stalled I contacted the Chinese manufacturer to try and kickstart the project. Timothy De Groote of Hyperion Entertainment provided a prototype LimeBook for us to test and following some prolonged email negotiations with the manufacturer we managed to get a reasonable price and volume commitment. The LimeBook itself is not a bad little machine, even if it is somewhat underpowered and the keyboard is a little flimsy. However, after performing detailed cost analysis which included NRE set-up costs, OS porting costs, driver development, branding, import costs and AmigaOS 4 licences we could not get the end user price much under £500 (VAT inclusive), and that is with based on ordering and pre-paying for batches of 1000 units at a time with a very minimal sales margin added. We think that is far too expensive for such an underpowered machine. As far as we are aware the project has not been officially cancelled. However, we are now leaning in another direction altogether."
http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwdickinson2_en.php

And ssolie again:

"the netbook project is solely in the hands of Hyperion. [...] A-Eon doesn't want to do the netbook project and is instead looking at starting something else."
http://amigaworld.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6827#90649

"The netbook does run AmigaOS and it has done so for a long time. The port was just never completed (e.g. the touch pad driver) because Hyperion put the project on hold. I have not been informed that the netbook project has been cancelled."
http://amigaworld.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6827&start=20#90683

More from Trevor:

"Trevor also spoke a little bit about the Netbook project. While this is officially a Hyperion project, A-EON considered funding the Netbook development but decided, based on the economics, that it was not commercially feasible. It was going to be based on the LimePC but, due to changes in the market, costs went up significantly. The cheapest the netbook would have sold for was $750 and it was way too underpowered for that price. However, they haven't given up on a portable solution and are looking at other possible options."
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38150&forum=2#717207


Edit: Added more quotes.

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 11.09.2013 - 00:46 ]

Addendum:

> Objection from ssolie:
> "The official word from Hyperion is that the original Netbook project is on hold.
> Nothing has changed yet."
> http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=36695&forum=16&start=320#707482

ssolie now claims that he gave his May 2013 "on hold" message already in 2012:

"The official word I received directly from Hyperion which I repeated last year was that the netbook project was on hold."
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38196&forum=2&start=40#718858

...when in fact he said the following in October 2012:

"The netbook project is still ongoing."
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=36695&forum=16&start=25#685672

Update:

> "The netbook does run AmigaOS and it has done so for a long time. The port was
> just never completed (e.g. the touch pad driver) because Hyperion put the project
> on hold. I have not been informed that the netbook project has been cancelled."
> http://amigaworld.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6827&start=20#90683

"Despite the surge in interest the low cost Amiga laptop caused when it was announced at AmiWest two years ago, the project has now been officially declared as dead as chief engineer Solie said the final product would have been anything but cost efficient. Apparently, the hardware manufacturer couldn't come up with a financially viable solution acceptable for Hyperion and its partners as the consumer product would have offered too little hardware for too much money."
http://amigaworld.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6899

"the netbook project is officially cancelled. [...] it was not cancelled until a few week ago. They just couldn't work with the supplier to get a reasonable price point. It is a real shame considering it already booted AmigaOS so we lost that time/effort investment."
http://www.amigans.net/modules/xforum/viewtopic.php?post_id=83148#forumpost83148

"The netbook project initially announced at AmiWest 2011 has been cancelled. Below is an excerpt from an email to me from Ben Hermans dated October 10, 2013 on this matter.
"Despite best efforts by Hyperion and A-EON we were unable to get acceptable and stable conditions and terms from the Chinese supplier (price point, paying terms, required upfront, etc.)... The project was therefore cancelled in favour of a more future proof solution.""
http://blog.hyperion-entertainment.biz/?p=1010

"The netbook commercial evaluation was independently made by A-EON some significant time after Hyperion instructed Steven Solie to announce it in Amiwest. A-EON established separate, independent contact with a China-based manufacturer, requested business quotations based on various volume scenarios and evaluated the commercials behind the quotations. Some preliminary email based negotiations ensued but after evaluating the financials behind it, I advised that we could not get anywhere near the original end-user retail prices quoted by Hyperion in their Amiwest announcement. As we could not match (or even come remotely close to) the "$500" end-user prices, and given the low performance of the netbook, we felt it was futile to pursue it further as we would have to retail at a much higher ticket price. Given that some time had elapsed since the Amiwest announcement, we also felt that the technology was also too slow to be desirable for the retail price."
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=41275&forum=2&start=340#786297

"As Hyperion is a separate company, [...] A-EON were not privy to any prior private discussions they had with the manufacturer or to how they evaluated the end-user retail price cited in their Amiwest announcement. It is possible that they were quoted on much larger volumes than we requested- we only requested volumes based on what was feasible for A-EON to finance relative for the production run. It is also possible that the Chinese manufacturer raised the pricing when we enquired. Based on the financials we evaluated, it was not commercially viable to proceed [...]."
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=41275&forum=2&start=340#786305

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 18.08.2016 - 03:36 ]

Screw netbook, amiga ballz were the best!

> Screw netbook

Hyperion showed it at http://www.amiga30.co.uk event :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBt849dGPog (2:32)

Is that a limebook booting AOS 4 native or a netbook using WINUAE emulation?

> Is that a limebook booting AOS 4 native or a netbook using WINUAE emulation?

According to the narrator it is the former. Seems plausible by the looks of it.

http://www.os4welt.de/viewtopic.php?p=25186#p25186

If so, why was it never sold then?

Quote:

Because they could not get the right price to make it a feasible project from the Chinese manufacturer/distributor. They stated that it would have had to have been sold for about $750 US, and that the performance would have been too low to justify that price point, so they eventually cancelled the project, after being put on hold for over a year, while they continued to attempt to obtain a better price commitment from the supplier.

@amigadave
Or they just found out that the Limebook was a pile of .... Just like they had been told from day one ....

> they eventually cancelled the project, after being put on hold for over a year

One year before the public announcement of the cancellation, Solie claimed that the netbook project was still ongoing.

AmigaOS 4 fans would have bought it anyway, no doubt.

Quote:


After which someone would start calling for a MorphOS port. ;)

And why not?

After all, I'm ready to lay down big bucks for an X5000, which if our end goal is an X64 port means I'm ready to invest in a dead end (although I tend to believe we will see more of a fork than an ISA shift).

@Jim

Eeh, why? Isn't the limebook about as powerful as an Efika or something?

Pretty much. The LimeBook Z9 has more memory, but that's about it. The PowerVR MBX graphics chip isn't exactly top of the line either.

Quote:

SSolie said "It boots up to Workbench" however the vid just shows it stuck at the Kickstart screen. Would be interested to know if it was shown running workbench, or any applications.

I wonder if they had Amiga Inc's permission to use the Amiga trademark on the case.. Perhaps there's a small "one" adjoining that the camera didn't pick up. ;)

[ Edited by boot_wb 14.08.2015 - 15:14 ]

>> AmigaOS 4 fans would have bought it anyway, no doubt.

> After which someone would start calling for a MorphOS port. ;)

After? A MorphOS port to the LimeBook Z9 was wished for years before Hyperion's netbook project was even conceived.

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=5820&forum=11&start=14
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6096&forum=11&start=18
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6176&forum=11&start=18
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6436&forum=11&start=2

>> Isn't the limebook about as powerful as an Efika or something?

> Pretty much. The LimeBook Z9 has more memory, but that's about it.

Compared to the Efika's MPC5200B, the LimeBook Z9's MPC5121e also has:

- dual-issue instead of single-issue integer unit
- twice the L1 cache
- USB 2.0 instead of 1.1
- SATA instead of PATA

Quote:

AFAIK it's kind of a "been there, tried that" situation. Well, not from a MorphOS perspective, but at least HW wise (at least from a Genesi perspective) the Efika 5200 was a means to an end, not an end by itself; the end would have been the Lime stuff that you will find several references of this at this site (and powerdeveloper.org) if you do some searching. And there was some kind of MorphOS proposal in this context. I should have a copy of the document somewhere. How sanctioned it was, I can not tell. It doesn't matter.

But more importantly, this was a long time ago. The lime was low-end even back then, and is it even alive now?

Why would anyone suggest a MorphOS port to this poor (and allegedly low quality) HW when there are several generations of both iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 available already?



Quote:

Some got burned I think, and the others smell the smell even today?

Quote:

Your problem!

Quote:

Quote:

Those specs would make for a (barely) usable portable MorphOS system, but would not be worth the effort unless it could be purchased for around $100 to $150 at the most, and then it would really only appeal to people who want new, instead of used hardware, or those who for some reason can't purchase a used G4 PowerBook, or iBook for about the same price.

The Efika runs MorphOS pretty well, for such a low spec system, it just needed more RAM and a better hard drive controller (it's IDE and USB interfaces were very flaky). Having SATA and USB2.0 instead of USB1.1, plus more RAM would solve most, or all of the Efika 5200b's short comings.

Addendum:

> Hyperion showed it at http://www.amiga30.co.uk event :-)
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBt849dGPog (2:32)

...and at http://www.amiga30.de event:

http://www.a1k.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=112549
http://www.a1k.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=113127
http://www.a1k.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=113699
http://scontent-mxp1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/12088322_10153668243166726_1562860969130750151_n.jpg?oh=33263ba98ee727f12552341db5589637&oe=5688924E
http://scontent-mxp1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xta1/v/t1.0-9/12072819_10153668243136726_5661285366840814126_n.jpg?oh=de8e79c30d3f583d7c4ae344c1960f90&oe=56906CE4
(I don't know why they write "Lime, Inc." when the LimeBook was from THTF subsidiary MTC).