Amiga38 Germany

@walkeroQuote:

You wrote that really well and hits the nail on the head, as you said there won't be much new customers through sales of high-priced PPC systems. The prices are currently far too high for that, especially if it is supposed to be an “entry-level system”.

@geennaam

The A1222+ will come, but what happens if this hardware doesn't establish itself as an entry-level system with AmigaOs4.1. ? Then we are exactly where we are now and wait another 5-8 years until a better product is available. Probably some of us have already passed away during that time so that we could not buy anything new.

I am firmly convinced that the quickest and cheapest way to get started with AmigaOs4.1 can only be done through Qemu. As @walkero has already written, this has been tried with PPC hardware sales for 13-20 years and it has not driven the number of users to a point where we are competitive with other systems, everyone should be aware of that. The possibility of the "virtio-gpu" driver could make AmigaOs4.1 interesting again, of course it has to be advertised and people have to be shown what this system (AmigaOs4.1) can do.

An example, there are already some projects that were developed exclusively under the emulation (WinUae) AmigaOs3.x, but still work just as well on real 68k hardware. Ultimately, both platforms benefit from this. Another example, some of my videos with Qemu AmigaOs4.1 have already been viewed almost 200 times and the number is increasing, many videos are not even 3 months old, so there is already interest.

Would it stop sales of PPC hardware? I don't think so, we know that there are many Amiga users who already have several AmigaNG systems at the same time and so those who have the money and the passion for it will also buy the A1222+. However, new interested parties could be put off because they don't know what they are buying and Qemu could also contribute here so that they can take a look at AmigaOs4.1 in advance in a relatively cheap method and try it out and the experience should then be as good as possible.

We shouldn't forget that this isn't just about maintaining PPC hardware, but especially about maintaining and further developing AmigaOs4.1. Because that is exactly the reason why this hardware is bought or what it was developed for.

Trying something new is better than not trying anything...because then things will never change.

@Maijestro

Quote:
This question has already been answered: at 1200 EUR for a bare board, the A1222+ cannot possibly become an entry-level system. In this particular regard the A1222+ is a flop already. (Good luck selling it to newcomers!)

Quote:
Like others I very much prefer real hardware, but I agree with you and Walkero here: in the future, QEMU can be used to build a cheap entry-level system that runs OS4 in emulation. If Classic users don't mind running OS3.x emulated on a RPi, why shouldn't we try doing something similar?

@Maijestro

That the PPC hardware wasn't done right, considering the size of user base, doesn't mean that it can't be done right. Or do you think that the V4 Apollo hardware was designed and produced by a company like varisys?

Now with €1200 sam460 systems, an entry level could be priced at €500. But with emulator rivaling the top of the line already, you lower that bar even further. To a point that only rpi level prices are enough to make new users buy hardware.

The production batch size of a1222 is about 110 iirc. There are maybe 50 X5040 left. Sam460 is also still for sale despite a small production run. It is safe to say that the hardware base will not grow beyond 1200 in the current situation.

If emulation was the holy grail then there would have been a noticable presence on Amiga38. But I've only counted amikit and cloanto. I couldn't spot any pc running winuae at the stands of those user groups. I bet that 99.99% of its users are just reliving their childhood experience by downloading those adfs. The other 0.01% is using winuae as alternative for cross-compiling.

Amigaos4 wasn't someone's childhood memory. So I honestly don't see any evidence that qemu would do the os4 situation any good. And trying something different from something that hasn't been done right while destroying the last hope for entry level priced hardware doesn't sound appealing to me.

But I'll just lean back and see how it will unfold. I would gladly be proven wrong of course.

@trixie

Difference here is that the PiStorm still looks like an accelerator and is used in combination with real classic hardware.

Can you say the same for a pc running Linux with qemu?

@geennaam

Quote:
I wasn't talking about the PiStorm. What I meant was a solution like the Pimiga, or the A500 Mini.

@trixie

Ah, never heard of pimiga. And isn't that a500mini not just uae with adf loader gui?

Anyways this is comparing apples to oranges. When it comes to classic, you can make uae run on your refrigerator and someone will buy it.

If the direction of os4 is emulation then so be it. I am sure that I can read the retrospective in some future book.
For now three parts From vultures to Vampires are on my menu.

@geennaamQuote:

I think you are overestimating the overall situation. Nobody who has ever used AmigaOs4.1 will buy this hardware until they get information about what they are buying and what operating system it is connected to.

What remains is the current user base that knows AmigaOs4.1 and then of course invests in new hardware. And so we keep going in circles...

Qemu is not a competing product, but can show in the simplest way how well AmigaOs4.1 works. Please give me an AmigaNG the size of a MacMini/MacStudio fanless, price 1500 euros, I would buy it straight away and wouldn't have to bother with Qemu because it's currently the only way for me to be able to use AmigaOs4.1 at an acceptable speed I think I'm not alone.

There will be no arguments for you, you are someone who doesn't want to allow changes, I accept that, thank God everyone has their own opinion about it.

You can now continue to let off steam...for me it was the last post on this topic. When this driver is released, accept it or ignore it. Even if this driver shouldn't be published due to your complaints and skepticism, someone else will do it for free and no money will go towards something we urgently need (software)

But nothing will change the fact that Qemu emulation continues to develop. AmigaOneXE emulation will already be available with Qemu 8.2. Here too, it is either accept or ignore...which will be very difficult.

@Maijestro

Lol, it is you that is overestimating the situation. Especially when it comes to new users by emulator solutions. And since you will never buy hardware and are just here for a free ride it is of course in your own best interest that this driver gets developed.

Or did I understand you wrong will you now develop software and buy hardware? Afteral you now know what amigaos4.1 tastes like.

If you need advice how to setup your X5k then I'm here to advise you. Can you give me a hint what software you working on?

@geennaam, @Maijestro

Could you plase stop arguing before it gets into a fight for nothiung?

FYI @Maijestro bought about 5 copies of AmigaOS4.1 already + enhancer software and tested a lot of things and reported bugs that were then fixed also for those who run AmigaOS4 on real hardware. All this becuase he has QEMU to run these on, otherwise he wasn't here and did nothing for AmigaOS4 as he said he has no place for another machine to run this on exclusively. So having QEMU as an alternative does increase user base and does help even those with real machine.

I don't quite get your point. If you're worried about further availability of cheap hardware then the reason that may happen is not because of QEMU but because producing PPC hardware in small quantity will never be cheap. And just getting any new PPC hardware may be a challenge as it's not really profuced any more. All new PPC compatible CPUs are expensive server POWER10 not really meant for desktop (there's a company who did that anyway but it's not cheap). So why do you think QEMU vs. hardware and why can't these exist besides each otther as they do for classic or why do you think if there was no QEMU then there were more hardware? The number of people who would buy these niche machines is limited and likely all of them already has more than one machine so if you want more users then getting those on board who are happy with just emulation should only help to keep the OS alive. Otherwise the number of people who would run the software you develop is also limited.

Anyway another way to use real hardware could be to buy an old powerpc mac, install some distro of linux ppc on it and hope for a full compatibility with kvm-pr mode.
I tried some months ago on my powermac g5 quad with an old linux ubuntu ppc distro and an old version of qemu (between 3.x / 5.x if I remember well).
The Sam 460ex virtual board emulated in quemu was not compatible with this feature.
I have never understand if the limit was inside linux kernel, qemu kvm or both.
Anyway it's for sure a software limit and it's fixable with some work.
With kvm-pr you can get a full speed and use real hardware, having fun with linux ppc, amigaos 4 and mac os leopard at same time.

@balaton

Yeah you're hitting the nail right on the head there, well there are cheap PowerPc’s around or power I could say, that you can pick up right now for a very good price, these are the previous generation of servers that are being replaced by the new latest servers, these are actually really cheap because they have become undesirable, and they have no use outside the server room, but it could be modified to become desktop machines, the form factor is not ideal, they are generally noisy, because they use small fans, we would have to figure out how to turn those into desktop computers, I mean a power eight or a power 7, are beast of CPUs even today, Power 9 is probably a bit more expensive, and power 10 is probably too expensive.

@flash

PowerMac's are way too old now. it needs to be previous Power blade severs, LOL

I hope the Acube-Systems laptop project becomes real at good price, a lot of the cost was covered by a few bountys.

@flash
About KVM the problem is that while PPC is compatible on the user code level different CPUs have differences in some of their features so at the low OS level code they aren't the same. So running an OS that was written for one CPU may not work on another because some low level isntructions behave differently. KVM-PR does run user level code and traps low level code that could be mulated in the host kernel but it's only implemented for a limited number of CPUs (mostly that were around at the Apple PPC era where this was used by Mac on Linux). So you can likely run code written for G4 and older (like pegaos2 or amigaone versions of AmigaOS) on a G4 with KVM-PR, likely can ron G5 code on a G5 and maybe can ru e500 code on an e500 but running PPC440 (as the sam3460ex version) on a G5 does not work because these CPUs are too different and the PPC440 instructions aren't emulated. These could be added but meanwhile all support for PPC440 was removed from KVM as it was unmaintained. So you should try either running G4 code which may work better although the blog that describes how to run MacOS on POWER10 said even that may not work without the kernel knowing about G5 but at least that's easier to fix than inplementing PPC440 emulation.

So if somebody has some G4 hardware with Linux on it and a pegasos2 or amigaone version of AmigaOS they could try if it runs with KVM. You could do the same on G5 CPU but maybe that needs some fixing to get it working but more likely to succeed than trying to run sam460ex version on G5 which was tested when we had nothing else and found it's the hardest to get working. That's partly why pegasos2 emulation was implemented instead.

I have to try again on my pegasos 2, I have debian 8 jessie installed.
Problem is that I don't think I can compile quemu on that machine due old version of gcc and other missing dependencies

Gentlemen, I don't know where this discourse is supposed to lead.
The topic is about " Amiga38 Germany" - a cool event

The topic so deviated just like the duscussion over the superiority of Christmas over Easter

Regarding emulation and support for it, my personal take as just a consumer, is that anything that increases the overall number of users of OS4 is a good thing.

Being able to quickly and inexpensively try and use OS4 in emulation is what got me back into the idea of being an Amiga user once again and eventually what fueled me to buy an x5000.

But even when I thought I wouldn't be able to find one as I could not even find any for sale online for sometime, I was willing to invest in a high end PC, just to be able to emulate OS4 at the highest level.

So personally I think that it will drive people to PPC hardware in the short term while it is available. But eventually it will also allow us to have access to hardware when supplies run out or the current offerings break or become outdated.

I don't see any down sides.

1200 EUR for A1222 is too much. I was thinking to get one but not with such price. Luckily my X1000 functions fine still.

Any speed up to emulation sounds interesting. I would like to use AmigaOS4 on a laptop. I've had trouble to get WinUAE or qemu working well enough.

@TSK

Yes, it can be closer to 2000 Euro when it arrives, due to import tax, VAT and shipment costs.

We are in a period with high inflation, so people might want to be more careful with what they buy as well.

Wow, just noticed the news that a Tabor will be 1200 euro for the motherboard alone, I am unfortunately out. Can understand the price increase and I doubt they will make it back what they put into it for selling it for 1200. However would much rather pick up another cheap second hand SAM in the future (they can go for as low as 300-500 euro).

@xe1huku

Probably best buy it at amiga event, and smuggle it.