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"The chipset is what the amiga made what it is. It is the architecture."

Once again, you're stating an opinion, not a fact.
The primary thing that attracted me was the 68K processor, the chipset became dated quickly.
I would have no problem with Paula being entirely scrapped.
AGA was much slower than it should have been and effectively crippled performance once higher performing cpus were available.

"Real Amiga"? if that existed today it would have an X64 processor and the chipset would NOT be register compatible with legacy hardware.
Its just a fact of life that as systems evolve, their underlying hardware changes.
The only reason that legacy hardware for the Amiga hasn't changed?

Well a Star Trek quote is appropriate here "Its dead, Jim".

If Vampire continues to deviate from an exact replication of Amiga hardware, I'd have NO problem with that.
Better 16 bit sound, full 32-bit color, and modernized fpu and mmu, no problem.
I'm not a gamer, and if your one of those man-children that insists on playing games with your hardware, don't worry they'll probably include emulation for your 'beloved' Amiga, so you can play your Sega Genesis level 2D games.

In the meanwhile, things have moved on.
And if they want to give me a supercharged 68K platform, I'm all for it and will be buying a Vampire4 for my A2000.

Because legacy Amiga kind of bores the stuffing out of me anymore. I get more excitement hacking user designed 68K systems, and using NG.

So, to conclude, Amiga is NOT just a chipset, its hardware, software, and mostly a concept for a quick, fast, multi-tasking multi-media oriented system.

[ Edited by Jim 25.09.2017 - 10:04 ]

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exact replication was never the goal. It was always about improving the original chips.

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agree with that. But without the chipset you'll never have a real Amiga. So i'm very glad that the Apollo team is working on improving the old chipset.

While we are on the subject of vampire, I've been building V2 A500 to A2000 CPU slot adapters. $35 shipped any place in the world.

I wonder what the sales numbers are at now? I got on the pre-order list 4 months or so ago, and finally got my order in. I should have it in a week or so. I haven't owned an Amiga in 7+ years and only bought an A500 again for the Vampire. It is an exciting project.

My Vampire arrived and I've been playing around with it. It is certainly worth the hype. I also cannot understate how nice it is to have a MorphOS computer sitting right next to the A500/Vampire. No UAE needed, being able to prep a hard drive and load it with software. Everything you need done just works.

I really dont understand heavy criticism of Vamp project.

Not everything is perfect, but is clearly evolving and via FPGA path we might
have really good and fast 68k again.

Bringing Atari and MacOS Classic software is also a great retro idea.

I am all in for Standalone v4 as soon as it is offered.

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Criticism is mostly due to a mix of jealously and ignorance. I see the same thing on the C64 with the Turbo Chameleon. Some of them are in the "if it isn't a stock C64 with a 1531 Datassette it isn't teh reals" camp, others claim the FPGA makes it invalid while using an FPGA based 1541Ultimate themselves. Stupid.

On the vampire you don't have to use the HDMI/RTG output if you don't want to. You can install it and use all the original ports including video. With the case closed no one would even know a Vampire is inside.

As stated earlier, the only reason I got an Amiga Classic again was the Vampire project. It's just cool.

[ Edited by redrumloa 21.08.2018 - 16:06 ]

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It's the classic Catch-22 situation encountered by every retro hardware device. Nostalgia is a very personal ideal.

Some fanboys won't accept it unless it has all the limitations of the original, plus a few upgrades. "How is this anything like Amiga/C64/Spectrum/etc??" Many customers of course won't accept it if it doesn't come with HDMI. And mainstream will piss all over it.

I find the retro crowd, in general, not worth bothering about. You could sweat for years providing them with their wish list only for them to play with it for 15 minutes and decide their poor experience was more to do with you than an overly-nostalgic recollection.

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I mostly agree with you here, except on the last paragraph. Jens/Icomp, like him or hate him, always seems to sell out of stock. The Turbo Chameleon sold out too (but no published numbers AFAIK). The Apollo Team has pumped out over 4k Vampire boards. While not getting rich, it seems enough to make it worth their while.

I do agree overall that the retro crowd is a fickle bunch. Presented a reasonably priced impressive product, a vocal number of them will whine and not let it go. They don't just say "not for me", they'll go whine anywhere they possibly can. I just think companies are correct to ignore the noise. Vampire sales show to me there are enough of us who want such a product.

Got myself the Vampire for my 1200 and it is really a nice piece of hardware for the good old A1200 :) As the thread starts mentioning 4000 sales, now is the 5 digit number the goal .. More cards and easier to buy, lets rock 2021!

Roadmap for 2021. Apollo Forum Gunnar von Boehn: "Our goal for 2021 is reaching a 5-digit Vampire user base and to satisfy the users demand for both V2 Accelerators and V4 Standalone. We increased our production capacities and aim for much lower waiting times as before.

Our goal is to reach a level where the card is ready for shipping two weeks after order. I think we will reach this speedup for the V4 next year and hope we also get the Accelerator up to speed.

Our main goal is to produce bring up CORE updates which continous improvements, being them faster and increase AGA game compatible even more. Our goal is that all old games run well.
We will continue our work on ApollOS to bring it to the level of perfection that will please all users."