Apollo Upgrade Question

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by Peter

I would keep the Apollo 1240 - it's still a great card and a piece of Amiga history really... you don't really get much for them on the 2nd hand market either to be honest. I really enjoy using my A1200 that has the 1240 in it.

yes there still a very capable card.

[8bitbubsy]

Originally Posted by Amigafanboi

Jens has said time and time again how he dislikes the apollos design, especially the 600 accelerators.

Why not let them phase out when he produces new accelerators for Amigas?

Personaly i'm a great fan of Apollos, they are blisteringly fast.

Because 060s are beasts in comparison to the 030 accs Jens is designing (even though his 030 accs are very good because of the very fast RAM access).

Regarding the Mach-apollo-source-code thing:
A lot of us wants to upgrade our Apollos 040 with Mach130... The "let this acc and its fanbase die" thing is beyond silly, what could possibly go wrong if he released the source? He could have a note saying "This design is bad, if you dare build upon it, you're a fool", this would actually make a lot of Amiga fans happy so they could not only upgrade their Mach130-Apollos, but also make changes to it!
Maybe I have a wicked view on this case, but isn't this kind of .. egoistic from Jens? What does he fear? That the Chinese market will produce bad design Amiga accelerators?

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by 8bitbubsy

Because 060s are beasts in comparison to the 030 accs Jens is designing (even though his 030 accs are very good because of the very fast RAM access).

Regarding the Mach-apollo-source-code thing:
A lot of us wants to upgrade our Apollos 040 with Mach130... The "let this acc and its fanbase die" thing is beyond silly, what could possibly go wrong if he released the source? He could have a note saying "This design is bad, if you dare build upon it, you're a fool", this would actually make a lot of Amiga fans happy so they could not only upgrade their Mach130-Apollos, but also make changes to it!
Maybe I have a wicked view on this case, but isn't this kind of .. egoistic from Jens? What does he fear? That the Chinese market will produce bad design Amiga accelerators?

very true,as for the chinise thing its insanity who cares if the chinese make a cheap version. infact alot of electronics comes from china anyway.
years ago it was the blizzards compared to the apollo's he should be proud of the work he did on the apollo's ok the disign wasent perfect,but neather was the blizzard's ive heard peaple say the apollo 060 cards where based on 040 cards,they where all based on the 040 cards apart from maybe one or two the only thing that let the apollo1230/040/060 cards down was how much fastram they could have on board.

[moxavius]

From a relative outsider's perspective, having been away from the Amiga market for several years, the rub on this topic is:

What is the point of owning a copyright and refusing to sell copies? That, imho, is kinda crazy.

Isn't the purpose of a coyright to protect intellectual property so as to make money? If not money, then the motive must be personal.

[moxavius]

I found this site and there are links to download Apollo ROM images. I'm guessing these are not the files in question?

http://amigaromarchives.limewebs.com/

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by moxavius

From a relative outsider's perspective, having been away from the Amiga market for several years, the rub on this topic is:

What is the point of owning a copyright and refusing to sell copies? That, imho, is kinda crazy.

Isn't the purpose of a coyright to protect intellectual property so as to make money? If not money, then the motive must be personal.

exactly.

[8bitbubsy]

Originally Posted by moxavius

I found this site and there are links to download Apollo ROM images. I'm guessing these are not the files in question?

http://amigaromarchives.limewebs.com/

These are the boot ROMs, not the Mech130/131 codes. Sorry, but it's a completely different thing.

[Leffmann]

Originally Posted by 8bitbubsy

Regarding the Mach-apollo-source-code thing:
A lot of us wants to upgrade our Apollos 040 with Mach130... The "let this acc and its fanbase die" thing is beyond silly, what could possibly go wrong if he released the source? He could have a note saying "This design is bad, if you dare build upon it, you're a fool", this would actually make a lot of Amiga fans happy so they could not only upgrade their Mach130-Apollos, but also make changes to it!
Maybe I have a wicked view on this case, but isn't this kind of .. egoistic from Jens? What does he fear? That the Chinese market will produce bad design Amiga accelerators?

It's about money.

If Jens Schoenfeld can make all Apollo and Blizzard accelerators vanish from the face of the earth then there will be a demand, and he can manufacture and sell more products. Why do you think there are Catweasel I through XVI instead of just one really good board that does everything? None of it is cutting edge. Don't be surprised if there will be an ACA 1232, 1233, 1240, 1241 and so on. More boards with incremental features means more sales and more profit. He's not as much an Amiga fan as he is a businessman, and as such his priority will always be to make profit.

[moxavius]

You're probably right about that. He's creating an artificial shortage. <sigh> I'm starting to remember why I left the Amiga community the last time....

Maybe he's trying to make Apollo and Blizzard cards disappear from the face of the earth, but in doing so, what if he makes Amiga users also disappear from the face of the earth?

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by Leffmann

It's about money.

If Jens Schoenfeld can make all Apollo and Blizzard accelerators vanish from the face of the earth then there will be a demand, and he can manufacture and sell more products. Why do you think there are Catweasel I through XVI instead of just one really good board that does everything? None of it is cutting edge. Don't be surprised if there will be an ACA 1232, 1233, 1240, 1241 and so on. More boards with incremental features means more sales and more profit. He's not as much an Amiga fan as he is a businessman, and as such his priority will always be to make profit.

to be honest i for one think jens should put away his "business head" and put his "enginering head" back on.


all this oh dear ive just got to "refine this product" and make sure its perfect for the community,sound's more like: if i hold on to it for a bit longer it gurantees 100% sales of all items in stock
strange how it happens "every" time isent it?
but ofF course it's just pure speculation on my part.


as for the comment about hopeing that all apollo's dissapaer from the face of the planet,well lets put it this way:everytime a peice of hardware dies its not necessarily a card. its amiga's dieing. the market gets smaller not not larger!,when was the last time an amiga was manufactured?.
or maybe thats why he wont make any of the high end cards.
or maybe because he just cant be bothered,at the end of the day we would probably get it ten years after we wanted it in the first place.

for instance not about jens this is just genaral chit chat, we asked for a 3D graphics card for zorro based amigas,we got after r and d and manufacture from phase 5 sometime down the line the virge based card CV64-3D ok it was a nice card but daaaamn it was expensive,you dont agree ?i hear you say,well........the card it was based on you could get for a pc compatible was 25 gb pounds at the time i think and the cv64-3d was 180 gb pounds and was years too late and fitted with slower memory.
and im sure everyone would be able to get one for around 100 pounds.

even harddrives where less expensive in any other system but the amiga its not like they where "different" drives so called tested for amiga drives it was shipped with a floppy to prep it and partition it."yourself"but still i was more than happy to do this for a massive 428 mb drive its always been the same,i wouldent leave the amiga scene. i just wish peaple would realise it wont be around forever.

[moxavius]

I for one would love to see a new high-end accelerator card for the Amiga. I'd buy two - one to use and another as a speculative investment to sell on ebay in five years for 10x times its actual value. lol.

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by moxavius

I for one would love to see a new high-end accelerator card for the Amiga. I'd buy two - one to use and another as a speculative investment to sell on ebay in five years for 10x times its actual value. lol.

funny you saying that,strange really that peaple would rather buy one to stick in a box for ten years,even peaple that join eab for info on how to fix there cards so they can sell them on ebay for max profit(no this does happen)even if it suck's ball's to be them seriusly

[daxb]

Has anyone asked Jens about that? I may wrong but as fas I can remember he bought the design and after that he noticed that he would get in service trouble if he build the cards because of bad design. So, speculate doesn`t help.

About dying Amiga hardware. Sooner or later it happen. Some more or less good alternatives exists.

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by daxb

Has anyone asked Jens about that? I may wrong but as fas I can remember he bought the design and after that he noticed that he would get in service trouble if he build the cards because of bad design. So, speculate doesn`t help.

About dying Amiga hardware. Sooner or later it happen. Some more or less good alternatives exists.

hmm ok,its a bad idea to speculate anything.

and lets think about that for a second, he noticed design flaws that where already there?,dident he help design the card in the first place while it was in production for how many years?

ok to re-cap the card was in production for years yes?then he bought the rights to the card he had already worked on while it was in production,is that right?. sudenly decided,oh my god its got flaws lets stop making them for fear of comeback from the bad ones,im sorry but it just dont add up.


i dont dislike the guy at all.its just that sometimes some things just dont add up.after all having an opinion is my right as is anyone else on the planet.

[moxavius]

Originally Posted by daxb

Has anyone asked Jens about that?

I did ask and got the following response this morning:

I do not support Apollo cards. I've bought the rights in order to get the cards off the market. Apollo cards are instable by design. The components used - especially the MACH chips - are operated way out of specification and can therefore never work reliably.

I have found that Amiga users with Apollo cards lose their interest in the computer, because an unstable machine is no fun to work with. In the long run, Apollo owners abandon the "hobby Amiga", so essentially, I lose them as a potential customer.

I am therefore happy for every Apollo card that is taken off the market. I'll do my best to provide appropriate replacement products.

ciao,
--
Jens Schönfeld


Could this mean we might see a new 1260 card as an "approprite replacement"?

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by moxavius

Could this mean we might see a new 1260 card as an "approprite replacement"?

i for one hope so.(yes you read that right)

i used a few apollo models for years with no problems(i still use two).and i would buy one from jens.if it had support for 128mb of ram.(which for me was the ONLY downfall of owning one of these)

i dont/dident expect support so many years down the line for any apollo,im just suprised there isent a replacement for this range in the 040-060 region.(i dont care if theres no scsi support but it has to have a mmu and fpu on board)

[daxb]

So, I was also wrong. However, I use an Apollo 1240 with nearly no disaffection. The RAM limit of 32/64 MB is a problem. At least for me if I would buy a new one it should has as much as possible (1-2 GB will be fine). But that is just a taste thing and what you want to do with it.

[roy bates]

maybe with support for pc100-133 dimms or so-dimms that are in laptops to cut the price down a bit.

but then again we probably wont see it anytime soon,oh well its just a shame really.

[JimmySage]

Originally Posted by moxavius

Could this mean we might see a new 1260 card as an "approprite replacement"?

I'd be happy to transfer the 060 from my Apollo if Jens could sell a better board.
I'd pay £200 for a board without CPU if it could take some modern RAM and have an expansion port for future products (decent IDE/SATA interface for example).

The only real problem I get with the Apollo is that my idefix-express dongle won't work with it (great with my 1230XA). Never been able to get to the cause of it

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by JimmySage

I'd be happy to transfer the 060 from my Apollo if Jens could sell a better board.
I'd pay £200 for a board without CPU if it could take some modern RAM and have an expansion port for future products (decent IDE/SATA interface for example).

The only real problem I get with the Apollo is that my idefix-express dongle won't work with it (great with my 1230XA). Never been able to get to the cause of it

the problem is i really think no-would be able make a card like this for such a low price i think 3-400 would be more the asking for it.

in comparison a 030 card at 50mhz is about 150 gb pounds and thats cheap.