We enthusiastically accepted Alan Redhouse's invitation to see the AmigaOne prototype. (Alan Redhouse is the managing director of Eyetech). As he was on a business-trip in the south of France he had the idea of calling us just in case we were interested in meeting him. What a great idea indeed! We immediately told our friend Ben Yoris, from Hyperion, who met us there as well. Thanks a lot to Alan and his wife for a day we'll never forget. The following pictures have immortalized that day.
Pictures of the 1st prototype of AmigaOne as held by APS and detailed pictures of the mother card.
We were told some interesting things:
Sound and Firewire will be on PCI cards to allow for future flexibility and upgradability. Amiga will develop the drivers as part of OS4.x. There will be several user-interchangeable CPU cards, including adapter boards which can take a variety of different, user supplied CPU modules, including ex. Macintosh ZIF types. Eyetech recommend that users let authorised dealers fit and test CPU modules to the relevant adapter card. CPU cards specifications will be open to any company wishing to develop them.
The end user price of the mother card remains unknown for the time being due to changes in the price of electronic components and in currencies as well (Euro, Sterling pound, Yen). These will be published when the board goes into production. All dealers will be able to purchase the boards at the same price, so there will be no advantage in purchasing the AmigaOne from dealers in other countries. The ATA & USB chips are not on the photo of the prototype as they are not needed at this stage of the board's development. These chips have been chosen to allow the best compromise between price and performance. Because much of the operating system testing will now be undertaken by Amiga Inc. and their contractors, the Beta version will not have to be shipped until later in the development cycle, and then only for compatibility testing of classic Amiga applications. Dealers, such as APS, will be offered the opportunity to become application software beta testers. Production boards are scheduled to ship (along with OS4.0) this summer.