Introduction
After years of waiting the Amiga community will finally get a new complete AmigaNG experience. 2010 is the year we made contact. The AmigaONE X1000 is a new machine being commissioned by a new company A-eon that was set up to develop new AmigaOS4 and beyond hardware, it has a very close relationship with Hyperion the developers of the AmigaOS. This will be the first new Amiga designed for the high end market for 17 years since A4000 launch back in 1992 and is it hope that this computer can regenerate some interest in the Amiga market and lay the foundations for the Amiga platform to continue. Unlike the previous AmigaONE systems this system will not just be another motherboard that you will have to build up to a computer yourself but a whole complete computer, with even a custom computer case designed for it. The main goal of the AmigaONE X1000 is to offer a high end and complete end user experience for Amiga enthusiast right out of the box. To that end the hardware and operating system is being extensively beta tested on this system to ensure that it offers the best AmigaOS platform to date, a team of over a 100 beta testers have been selected to ensure this outcome. The potential price of the system has been one of much debate in the Amiga community, due to the fact that this is a specially designed board for AmigaOS and offers some unique features and add to the fact of the small production quantity when compared to the PC markets the cost of such a system was always going to be high. The first production run named “First Contact“ system will be priced at £1699 and will be exclusively available from Amigakit (a partner with A-eon and a well establish amiga online store) more details below. The release date of the system has been another well debated topic in Amiga land, the reason is the original release date was intended for Summer 2010, but both OS and machine was only just in alpha stage at this point, it was hoped that at least beta testing would begin in 2010 however due to a required hardware revision and more extensive testing including a full Linux port being made for testing of the system it has caused some delay. Finally in September 2011 Beta boards began to ship to beta testers and work has truly began on AmigaOS4.2 development and testing for the machine. Beta testing will be a short affair this is due to the extended hardware development time the key OS developers have been able to much further develop the OS and the hardware has had quite significant testing in-house, far more than previous AmigaONE systems. Because of early reports and tests of the system have been very positive it was decided that rather than delay the release of the complete commercial system any longer for AmigaOS 4.2 the system would ship with AmigaOS4.1 update 5 with users getting a coupon for OS4.2 when it becomes available, it is also a good test of the market to see if the demand/interest is still their for such a high price system. Within 36 hours the first production run was sold out. It is believed and hoped that due to the success of the first run another run will be made and will most likely coincide with the launch of AmigaOS4.2, but no date or information has been made available on details of this yet.
HARDWARE
Specs:
CPU: PWRficient PA6T-1682M Dual-core 1.8 GHz 64bit CPU
Co-processor: “Xena“ Dual Core 500 MHz XCore XS1-L2 128 SDS
GFX: Radeon R700 Series (most likly Radeon HD 4650 1Gb)
Audio: 7.1 channel HD audio
Memory: 4x DDR2 SDRAM slots
8x USB 2.0
1x Gigabit Ethernet
2x PCIe x16 slots (1x16 or 2x8)
2x PCIe x1 slots
1x Xorro slot (gives access to "Xena")
2x PCI legacy slots
2x RS-232
4x SATA 2 connectors
1x IDE connector
JTAG connector
1x Compact Flash
The system will offer the fastest AmigaOS experience todate, powered by a PPC CPU the PWRficient Dual Core 64Bit PA6T-1682M processor the last developed cpu by P.A. Semi, clocked at 1.8Ghz and is ultra power efficient, it will be the only desktop computer shipped with the CPU. Another unique feature on the X1000 board is a chip named Xena, which is a co-processor 500MHz, dual-core XS1-L2 XMOS chip that is a event-driven processor, which means it can respond immediately to events such as external signals, rather than having to wait on an interrupt. This makes it appropriate to true real-time functions. Although it is still not clear as how the chip will be used or accessed in AmigaOS it is a interesting addition to the motherboard. The chip can be expanded with Xorro slot allowing direct access to Xena and possible allow additional Xmos core to be attached to the system.
FIRST CONTACT
At Amiwest 2011 it was announced that finally per-orders would now be taken for the X1000. This first production run would be named “first contact“ systems, and would be a test to see if their was still demand for a system of this type in such a small market and difficult finical times. The system would also be released before AmigaOS4.2 would be complete instead user would get AmigaOS4.1u5 and offered a free upgrade to OS4.2 when available this would stop the delay of the system any longer. Included in the first contact systems is the nemo motherboard, the black boing ball case, 1Gb of Ram, a Radeon HD 4650 1Gb graphics card and a DVD-RW drive priced at £1699. Curiously it doesn't include a hard drive or AmigaOS4.1 as standard it was design to keep the cost low, but you also cant really use the machine or (at this moment) buy it without them from Amigakit. Adding the costs of the Hard Drive (a 1Tb SATA hard drive) and AmgaOS4.1 the cost of the system is £1857 this is without local taxs and shipping costs so the end figure is likely to just cross the £2000 mark. Additionally you can change some of the specs like having a white boing ball case and 2Gb or even more Ram. You can also add Linux per-installed as an option and of course add the official AmigaONE keyboard and mouse accessories, however this will of course raise the costs of the system. Within 36hours all First Contact systems have been sold although its not known how many where produce, it is hoped that the X1000 will get a second production run and a full commercial release with OS4.2 is expected sometime in 2012.
ACCESSORIES
MORE COMING VERY SOON...
REVIEW
A quick review and first thought that I have on the system so far has been written up on Google Doc, using an AmigaONE X1000. You can view it on Google Docs or on here, these are just some first thoughts and I may update and expand on the review at a latter date.
MEDIA
Amiwest 2011 = A-eon Speech on X1000 Boing Ball = Look at the white boing ball case AmigaONE X1000 Unboxing = Opening up a complete white X1000 set up Booting = What happens when you turn one of these things on. Srec = Quick capture of the AmigaOS4 running on the X1000 Clusteruk demo1 = Demo of the Amigaone, Part one Clusteruk demo2 = As Above, Part TwoFURTHER READING
Promo Page = NEW promotion page fan made A-Eon = X1000 Official Home page Hyperion = OS4 Developers Home Page Forum = Support forum for OS4 hardware Yahoo X1000 Group = For Photos, Discussion and Fans of the X1000 project