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Mini-ITX AmigaONE Board
bhtooefr writes "When I was checking Mini-ITX.com, I found this little gem, info on the AmigaONE Lite board that will be coming out. It's a Mini-ITX compliant motherboard, so you'll be able to throw an Amiga in a Cubid case. Pictures are here (first two - first is without CPU, second is with)."
AmigaOne News:Alan Redhouse Comments on AmigaWorld about the A1-SE Lite
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Posted by Mikey_C on 20-Sep-2003 18:14:27 (2452 reads)
Read Alan's full post
TA magazine issue 15. To quote myself (because its easier than typing)
Quote:
AmigaOne Lite - some more details.
In the last edition of Total Amiga I gave a brief overview of the AmigaOne Lite - an entry level AmigaOne designed to both as a CD32/A1200 successor and for use in embedded systems such as kiosks, STB's etc. However the more observant of you will have realised that in the last issue I actually described the AmigaOne-SE Lite - so why the change of name?
In the interim period we have re-examined the costs and decided that it is economically feasible to significantly increase the A1-Lite's specification and flexibility within the same overall target pricing. As one of these changes is to use the standard A1XE CPU modules (plus a new entry-level 750CXe module) we dropped the 'SE' from its name.
The full specifications for the AmigaOne Lite are as follows:
Micro ITX form factor (170mmx170mm)
Gigabit and 10/100 ethernet on board
133MHz UDMA RAID IDE controller
USB 2.0 on board
IEEE 1394 ('FireWire') on board
2x AGP graphics on board with PAL/NTSC TV out
AC97 sound on board
1 x PCI33MHz slot (horizontal, via supplied riser card)
Cardbus slot for flash card support (diskless booting, applications, games slot etc)
Usual legacy PS/2, serial, parallel ports
Being a standard form factor it will fit in a standard micro ITX case, such as the one shown in the enclosed photograph. Please visit the web link at http://www.morex.com.tw/minicase.htm and www.mini-itx.com to see other suitable case designs.
We are aiming to bring the AmigaOne Lite to market early next year.
Not mentioned in the above spec is that the board is now designed to take the standard A1XE megarray cpu module so that it can be supplied with/upgraded to anything from an entry level (=cheap) 750CXe@433 to (possibly) a 1.3GHz G4.
The pictures published on the Soft3 website are of the first pre-prototype version - there will be 2 or 3 revisions before the actual production version is ready. The first step - this board - is basically to shrink the A1XE board to a mini-ITX formfactor and make sure it works properly. Then the other chipsets and connectors will be added and that series of boards use for developers to port OS & applications. It will also be used to demonstrate capability - and hopefully gain some significant orders - in the industrial markets that we and other dealers are targetting (display controllers, kiosks, etc).
Finally we hope the final version (which will be as near as possible to the above spec) will be available for sale in the specialist shops (and ultimately in the high street electronic entertainment chains) - with OS4 and some Amiga applications - in 1Q04.
The pre-production pictures were intended to be shown - at this stage - only to the A1 developers and to the A1-users list on AmigaWorld to try to get some useful feedback. Thats why there was really no explanation available to the world at largel when Soft3 (due to a misunderstanding) put them up on their own website.
However, from what I can see the, open publication of these pictures, together with the screen shots of a beta of OS4 running on the A1 - has had a very positive reception. But, please, no private emails for more details on availability dates and prices - we're swamped with emails as it is. This stuff will be posted 'when its ready' (c).
Hope this helps
Alan
17cm by 17cm
The board is a beta design, not the final one. It'll be a few more months yet as they get all the functionality they want onto the board sensibly.
AmigaOS4 is now booting on native PPC platforms now (well, the AmigaOne).
I'm only 21, but I grew up on AMIGA's. I lived in Holland till I was 10, so it was only natural. I didn't have a PC clone untill I was 12.
*deep nostalgic sigh*
As far as I can tell, the AMIGA really was just about the perfect computer. I can't even imagine what computing would be like today if Commodore still ruled the ring... (Remember - they really did in the late 80's in every place but the US)
Sig.i>
Right now Amiga is a dead horse. It just does not stand a chance, even against a lowly 486/66. But you should compare computers with similar price at the time that were available. In 1991, I could play 2D games with 768 colors and 40 levels of parallax scrolling at 60 frames per second on my Amiga, with 4 channels of 22KHz hardware-driven sound. I couldn't do the same with a 1991 PC 286.
The PC got the edge over the Amiga because of the Amiga's graphics architecture, which was heavily geared towards 2d blitting: it used bit planes, where the PC had packed format. The use of packed pixels made 3d much easier, and the lack of 3d killed the Amiga.
The Amiga had many advantages:
-a nice Unix like O/S where everything could be done from the command line
-each executable had its own 'registry': a text file with '.info' extension; applications could be copied by dragging their directory around
-nice multitasking; very light
-Arrex, an advanced scripting language that could do gui as well as command line apps
-a nice library system; and O/S file organization
-an Ultra light gui, that could be easily customizable
-each app could be in its own screen, with its own video mode. Drag and drop from one screen to another worked
-many custom chips, especially for blitting. The Amiga 1200 could do many graphical tricks, and its blit speed was close to a Pentium's.
Commodore did many mistakes and really killed the Amiga. Back in 1991, Amiga needed hard disk support, cd rom, and a custom chip that could do 3D.
I really miss the Amiga, as well as those halcyon days of back-bedroom coding. It just don't feel the same with a PC: although the PC is vastly more powerful, it's nowhere near as beautiful(as a concept, as a design, as a promise!!!).