AmigaOS 4.x Netbook announced

[MarkONE]

Steven Solie, project manager at Hyperions, announced at this year AmiWest a PowerPC Netbook for AmigaOS 4.x. The price range for this notebook is arround 300 to 500 USD (215 EUR to 360 EUR / 188 GBP to 330 GBP), this includes the cost of a licence for AmigaOS, screen size is 12in and the CPU is based on the e300 technology.

Recoding to some posts from Hans-Joergen Frieden, the Netbook prototypes have 512 MB ram, Wifi, Lan and "couple" of GB internal memory.

[Washac]

Hello


Just seen this.

http://www.amigans.n...ype=0&order=ASC

[MarkONE]

Some related links:

http://www.amigans.net/modules/xforu...d=4910&forum=4

http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/...orum=33#633755


Personal, I think this is great news! Can't wait

[gunni]

the speech with the announcement (around the 30 minute mark) http://vimeo.com/30985798

[jbenam]

Finally! This might give new life to the Amiga brand It also has a decent price (I hope that it's going to cost 215 euro)

[MarkONE]

Originally Posted by jbenam

Finally! This might give new life to the Amiga brand It also has a decent price (I hope that it's going to cost 215 euro)

Yes, I hope so too! Would be great news to everyone who wanted to update, but where not reluctant to spend much money on it. This could give a real bust to the brand (fingers crossed).

[kire_online]

Put me down for one please

[chiark]

Now this interests me. If they really can pull it off, I will be happy.

[Jope]

If they make it 300 USD, I'll have to make a large effort to avoid buying it.

[Xytec]

Originally Posted by MarkONE

Yes, I hope so too! Would be great news to everyone who wanted to update, but where not reluctant to spend much money on it. This could give a real bust to the brand (fingers crossed).

Freudian slip?

[MarkONE]

Originally Posted by Xytec

Freudian slip?

Haha, looks like that . Was a bit late when I posted it.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Jope

If they make it 300 USD, I'll have to make a large effort to avoid buying it.

$300 too much?

Ill be buying one.

[Lord Aga]

What kind of sorcery is this ?
How can it be so cheap ?

[Mr B]

It's being built on a e300 SoC, so it's not going to take all that much hardware to get the basics of a system together. The e300 design is 7+ years old, so it's likely to be cheap to source parts for the builds. It runs on DDR/DDR2 memories, so again, old cheap hardware that might be scored on the cheap.

I'm not sure if i think it's a good thing that they are looking to go with old, proven hardware, or if i think it's sad that they don't go with something faster, more of "today's standard"

I'm split. But the price is a bit high for old stuff, and a lot to low to allow for new stuff, so it pretty much all boils down to what they make of it.
B!

[Xytec]

How can it be so cheap?

The Inquirer have Amigakits AmigaOne for 2000 quid on its main page today saying
" Given the price, we would like to congratulate Amigakit on making Apple's Mac Pro seem positively good value for money." and also stating its a bargain for Christmas but only after a Golden Chocolate Teapot.

[Synthesize Me]

This is great! If not for this, I don't think I would ever give OS4 a shot due to the price of the HW and the fact that the 8 computers in my BEDROOM already take up way too much space.. I can't wait for more details to emerge! Hopefully they will offer the netbook with different possible configurations at different price points (I.e. bigger HD+RAM for a bit extra).

[NovaCoder]

The Latest Netbook… Is An Amiga?

[kire_online]

I did hear in the Amiwest presentation that another model would be considered if this netbook was a runaway success.
It's tough trying to find the sweet spot that the A500 occupied long ago, but this netbook to me seems OK but not as ground breaking as anything in the Classic Amiga Era.
Given the limited resources and limited market, I think it's a great effort and a step in the right direction.

Good work Hyperion.

[P-J]

Originally Posted by FOL

$300 too much?

I think he was saying that at $300 it would be hard to resist. Which is true

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Xytec

How can it be so cheap?

As Mr B says, it's not new technology.

Also, because they are already built. This isn't a new product.

There is a company that has been making these for a while. Hyperion is just getting them tweaked a bit and porting AmigaOS to them (drivers)...

I think people were saying it's a modified "Limebook" most likely.

desiv

[phipscube]

An Amiga Netbook? All my dreams have come true! I think this will be the first EVER "portable" Amiga?

[Christian]

Originally Posted by phipscube

An Amiga Netbook? All my dreams have come true! I think this will be the first EVER "portable" Amiga?

Erm, any laptop/netbook running a version of UAE? Just as "Amiga" really

[DDNI]

This is an AmigaOS 4.x netbook. NO other laptop / netbook / tablet etc can run AmigaOS4, even with UAE.

[gibs]

I prefer to save the money for the FPGA Arcade. I think it will bring more fun.

[gilgamesh]

What did take them so long?

[Lobotomika]

Kill it with fire.

[Akira]

I rather wait for ages for a Natami than buying one of these things :P

[Kowalski]

could well be the other way round...

(i'll have both)

[imigger]

seems alot of money for an emulator?

[Leffmann]

Originally Posted by imigger

seems alot of money for an emulator?

It's not an emulator, AmigaOS 4 will run natively on the actual device, so it'll be a genuine portable nextgen Amiga.

It's speculated that the device is the 400MHz LimeBook seen on www.limefree.org with 256Mb RAM and 4Gb flash storage, optionally 512Mb and 16Gb.

The entry-level one with 256/4 cost $199 back in 2009, so bordering on 2012 a more current price would probably be $149. This means you could be asked to pay as much as $350 for AmigaOS 4 alone, more than twice as much as the computer itself. At least to me, it is bat-shit crazy to ask that much for the operating system that AmigaOS 4 is today.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Leffmann

It's speculated ....

By whom?

desiv

[DDNI]

Originally Posted by desiv

By whom?

desiv

Pretty much everyone who googled the mooted netbook specs and landed at the limebook site.

Mooted specs:

e300 derivative
powervr 3d chip
wifi
ssd (likely an SD card)
usb2
Native resolution 1024x768
12" screen

(Sorce: Steven Solie - OS4 team leader)

[Akira]

Originally Posted by Leffmann

It's speculated that the device is the 400MHz LimeBook seen on www.limefree.org with 256Mb RAM and 4Gb flash storage, optionally 512Mb and 16Gb.

Would be ten times better for them to write drivers so AmigaOS ruds on a 12 inch iBook G4 which is not only more powerful than this garbage but also readily available for cheap on places like eBay.

How can people still support these retarded ventures? The fanatism goes well beyond logical comprehension

[desiv]

Originally Posted by DDNI

e300 derivative

Of course, the e300 went to 800Mhz according to Wikipedia (The FONT of all knowledge! ). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_e300
And memory is a bit cheaper than it was then..
So, it might have a bit more of a kick...

Who knows...

desiv

[musojon74]

Whilst as I say I'd probably want it, my preference would be for Amiga0s 4.1 just to be x86 so I could use my main computer...
Yes I know I could use AROS. And maybe I will. But 4.1 should have been x'86ed so it could have had loads more targets to work on.

[kire_online]

Stick an XMOS in there while you're at it

[Dazx]

£188 to £330 I think I could live with that, its about the only way I will ever experience 4.1 and having a portable native Amiga OS cant be a bad thing.. Aros isnt an option for everyone, certainly doesnt work correctly on my laptop :/

[Leffmann]

Originally Posted by Akira

Would be ten times better for them to write drivers so AmigaOS ruds on a 12 inch iBook G4 which is not only more powerful than this garbage but also readily available for cheap on places like eBay.

How can people still support these retarded ventures? The fanatism goes well beyond logical comprehension

Yeah the iBook G4 would be great for AmigaOS 4, but Apple just don't put out comprehensive information on the hardware, so I think Hyperion is ignoring those machines because it's so much work to get up on that platform so to speak.

Originally Posted by desiv

By whom?

In related threads on amiga.org, amigaworld.net and amigans.net, and like DDNI said if you google a bit it seems to be the best/only good match. But like you said they could be working on something different and it could just as well end up being $300 for AmigaOS 4 running on a more recent $250 device.

[DDNI]

Business plan for Hyperion = Sell as many OS4 licenses as possible. Have HW base to support the new licenses. Ensure HW / SW compatibility.

NEED = Compatible hardware that is readily available in a known volume with the option of scaling the platform upwards in line with demand.

iBook G4:
Available = Yes, Second hand.
Known quantity = No.
Readily available = No.
Scalable = No.
HW support for users = No.
Profit in HW sales for Hyperion = No.

OS4 Netbook:
Available = Yes.
Known quantity = Yes.
Readily available = Yes.
Scalable = Yes.
HW support for users = Yes.
Profit in HW sales for Hyperion = Yes.

To achieve the goal, the OS4 Netbook appears to be the HW route of choice.

[imigger]

and ill say again lot of money for an emulator , since when does os4 run classsic real amigas games or apps natively ohh yea it runs an emulator lol ,dooh get real , os4 is great for what it is but its not an amiga its a real slow ppc so there you go thats the truth of it,

now if you said a cheap os4 machine then yeah but it aint no amiga and never will be as i cant seem to recall a 68000 cpu init anywhere or???? now if they made a separate slot which is what i would have done and had an amiga with real chips on a card to stick in so it did run amiga stuff properly then yipee it would nearly be an amiga.