Individual Computers - New accelerator cards for A600 & A1200

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Predseda

I would like to express my full support to Jens' awesome work and I will buy at least one of those three cards, possibly two. BTW that was not against you, fitzsteve.

Oh, sorry I took it the wrong way!

I too would buy, well the A600 accel is what appeals to me. I already have my A603 in preperation for the Indi ECS

[Amigaman]

Have to agree with Fitzsteve on this, what Jens is doing for the community is fantastic, and I will certainly be buying at least one of each of the new cards, however, I would also like to see faster cards produced one day, if the market is there.

The small number of 060 cards that appear tend to sell very fast, but is there still enough of a market for a batch of cards to be designed and built new? wish I knew for sure. Hope so.

Anyway, looking forward to boosting my a600 real soon! I assume AmigaKit will be a UK seller? hope that can handle the influx of orders. Does anyone remember if they have commented on this thread yet?

Go Jens; go Jens; go Jens !!!

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Amigaman

I assume AmigaKit will be a UK seller? hope that can handle the influx of orders. Does anyone remember if they have commented on this thread yet?

Yes we will, and yes we can handle the influx of orders, .

[Amigaman]

Originally Posted by FOL

Yes we will, and yes we can handle the influx of orders, .

YAY!

[TronPlayer]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Both cards are PCMCIA-friendly.

Jens

This new card is the reason I've been holding off on picking up a used card on eBay. I represent one who has never owned an accelerator. Ive owned commodore 64's for 25 years. I have been wanting an amiga for 20 years! I personally hate emulation and just picked up my first amiga 1200 a month ago. I will definately be purchasing one of these cards. I have an ntsc machine and live in the us.

[Khyron]

Originally Posted by FOL

Yes we will, and yes we can handle the influx of orders, .

But, will there be enough stock to go around, or will it end up like the indvision 1200, all gone before most people even noticed it was in stock?

[amigakit.com]

We stocked Indivision 1200 for over 2 years before stocks became finally exhausted. We advertised it on the front page of the AmigaKit webstores and every forum carried a product announcement.

We have Indivision ECS in stock now- I hope people notice that before stocks are exhausted.

[DonAmiga]

I could do with A600 accelerator card. Great News

[phipscube]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

I also think a faster 060 accelerator would be welcomed and sell very well. So many people want to upgrade their Apollo's to 060 and Blizzard 1260's always sell quickly so there is definately a market.

I would love a 100mhz+ 060 that supports faster Memory, I think that would awesome and if such a project was viable I think it would be successful. And bolt some kind of RTG/Indivision onto that and you'd be onto a winner.

As far as I can see you have two types of user here, those who want a basic WHDLoad machine and those who have an upgrade bug who just want to push the limits of what is possible with these machines.

Steve.

I back this up, and even more out there:- hows about a mad for it PPC accelerator? something that uses a G4 or even G5? Just a thought as Amiga OS 4.1 is coming to classics. It could even be a dedicated PPC card with no 68K so it could really fly under OS 4.1. and a newer GFX card similar to BVision....Anyway back down to earth again

I'll be getting both the A600 and A1200 accelerators anyway, they are awesome! And its the reason why I get carried away with thoughts of what Jens could do if he really went crazy

Originally Posted by amigakit.com

We stocked Indivision 1200 for over 2 years before stocks became finally exhausted. We advertised it on the front page of the AmigaKit webstores and every forum carried a product announcement.

We have Indivision ECS in stock now- I hope people notice that before stocks are exhausted.

I think he meant the very small new batch that came in a few months ago (I was one of the lucky ones that nabbed one)

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by phipscube

I think he meant the very small new batch that came in a few months ago (I was one of the lucky ones that nabbed one)

That was no "production run" - it was part of the safety stock. That's the units we keep in stock in order to serve warranty claims where the unit cannot be repaired for whatever reason. We reduced this safety stock to a minimum and shipped a few units to Vesalia and AmigaKit - merely to serve waiting customers. I did't expect that advertising such a small quantity would even make sense.

Back to accelerators: I don't like the PPC, and Hyperion, the Friedens and Trevor know that by now. I like my classic with a 68k, and if there's ever going to be something "next generation" from my side, it's going to be totally different. So different, that it requires quite some money to be developed, so if there's the mystical investor out there who is willing to spend some serious money - the Individual Computers team is first in line :-)

Jens

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

I like my classic with a 68k, and if there's ever going to be something "next generation" from my side, it's going to be totally different. So different, that it requires quite some money to be developed, so if there's the mystical investor out there who is willing to spend some serious money - the Individual Computers team is first in line :-)

Jens

I got my Ticket for the EuroMillions this weekend, if I win I'll fund it

[RMK]

What do you class as serrious money?

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Back to accelerators: I don't like the PPC, and Hyperion, the Friedens and Trevor know that by now. I like my classic with a 68k, and if there's ever going to be something "next generation" from my side, it's going to be totally different. So different, that it requires quite some money to be developed, so if there's the mystical investor out there who is willing to spend some serious money - the Individual Computers team is first in line :-)

Jens

I agree, AmigaOS would be in a much much better position today if it hadn't jumped on the PPC wagon

Just think about all that wasted effort developing tools, code and hardware. I think without PPC, we might have seen a 100Mhz 060 back in the day and OS4 would be on x86 by now.

As I've said before, it's very unlikley that classics will ever get a 100Mhz 060 card, the future lies with FPGA softcores. Don't forget that a FPGA computer developed today with modern memory could be much faster than a 18 year old computer (even one with a 80Mhz 060 installed in it).

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

I like my classic with a 68k, and if there's ever going to be something "next generation" from my side, it's going to be totally different. So different, that it requires quite some money to be developed, so if there's the mystical investor out there who is willing to spend some serious money - the Individual Computers team is first in line :-)

Jens

Yep it's a pity that the money Trevor and Hyperion are wasting on the X1000 hadn't been invested in something more potentially profitable like for example CloneA or the FPGA Arcade

[Schoenfeld]

Don't get me wrong, Trevor and Hyperion have done the right thing: Multi-core support in a big-endian desktop OS. I wouldn't build an Amiga on x86. Just because Apple did, we don't need to follow.

RMK,
"serious money" would fund a team of 15 for at least 2.5 years - depending on education of the team members, this would be between 2.5 and 3 million EUR plus taxes, insurances and stuff. From a German perspective, we're probably talking 4 million EUR cash. That would fund development and production of maybe 20 demonstration units. Depending on the success of these 2.5 years, a second funding round would have to be done for advertising and mass-production.

Jens

[Zetr0]

okay.... if everyone looks down the back of the sofa....

to be fair though 4Million isn't that much for a completely NEW product - thinking aback to the fact that the original Amiga had over $10M investment. - in the 80's thats atleast double that in todays money ($20M) - and 4Million euros today (converting to DM back in the 80's) would be about 2Million euros worth of DM's.

so realistically thats quite cheap..

[gulliver]

@Schoenfeld

And what about producing an updated 060 accelerator like Rodolphe Czuba did with the CT60 on the Atari? You know it even has an option for a pci busboard that is being debugged as we speak.
The CT60 could run, with proper masked 060s at 100mhz (even 105mhz in some tests) and accepted 256MB of ddr ram. Last batch produced, was of 40 units and it costed 299 euros each.
Could something like that, in your opinion be doable on Amiga?

[Amigaman]

4 million? More money than I got! haha. Let me check the back pocket of the jeans I don't wear...... nope still not enough.

What is the thing where people in the community pledge money to get some software written etc? For the life of me the name escapes me, I have stumbled across it a few times.... mind you, even if people would invest 500 euros each, still need about 8,000 people. maybe its not really workable.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by gulliver

@Schoenfeld

And what about producing an updated 060 accelerator like Rodolphe Czuba did with the CT60 on the Atari? You know it even has an option for a pci busboard that is being debugged as we speak.

I've seen those devices live at the Evoke party in August of this year. Unstable as hell. Bot those few minutes while it was running, it was nice to watch videos and even patched Amiga demos on an Atari ;-)

Originally Posted by gulliver

The CT60 could run, with proper masked 060s at 100mhz (even 105mhz in some tests) and accepted 256MB of ddr ram. Last batch produced, was of 40 units and it costed 299 euros each.

Poor guy. If he'd do the math, he'd probably discover that he doesn't make any money on it, probably even not covering half of his time.

Originally Posted by gulliver

Could something like that, in your opinion be doable on Amiga?

Definitely not when I'm involved. I need to pay wages, taxes, I'm WEEE registered, I need to make a living myself, and I have a house to pay for. Further, I'd never give so many user options that cause a huge customer support mess: No SD-Ram socket, no PCI slots. Plain card with everything assembled and guaranteed, that's the only way to create hardware that works "no questions asked" and "no support required".

True plug&play is what I want to deliver, only this will give an experience that will make people come back to us. And I want people to come back to buy more, not to claim warranty or support for something they already have :-)

Jens

[cosmicfrog]

If I wast on the bread line and/or knew a few investors I know who I`d be backing hint it starts with a J

we did have amiga os running on X86 hardware but the fools mucked it up so y can guess where my loyalties lie not that I have many hehehhehe


jens have we an idea on price point for these accles yet ??