New Amiga to Go on Sale in Late 2017

Megalith

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Apollo Accelerators, the team behind the Apollo range of accelerator boards for Amiga computers, is releasing a new product called the Vampire V4: it will be a standalone item featuring a 68080 CPU core and complete SAGA chipset. While the Amiga platform died when Commodore went bankrupt, there is still a lot of enthusiasm in the line of microcomputers that brought mouse-driven GUIs and graphics to the masses.

Apollo's produced similar devices before, but says the V4 should outpace its older models thanks to its use of an Altera Cyclone V A5 FPGA to fill the role once played by Motorola silicon. There's also 512MB of RAM, 40-and-44-pin FastIDE connectors, Ethernet, a pair of USB ports and MicroSD for storage. Micro USB gets power to the board. Full specs can be had here [PDF]. Apollo hasn't set a price for the Vampire, but warns it will exceed that of previous models due to more expensive components. The company plans to make accelerator boards first, then get around the standalone systems.
 
It will a Frankenstein version, pale shadow of the original. Commodore could not market worth a damn. This just another attempt to sucker the poor pathetic souls who cling to a dead horse. For your Info I have an A500 and a1200 both buried in a box in my basement. Let the dead stay dead. I swore when Commodore failed to NEVER back a non main stream computer system ever again..
 
Seems like a lot of money to spend just to play It Came From The Desert (which honestly wasn't really fun, just amazing to look at), Barbarian and maybe...hmmm...NY Warriors or something. I'm sure the Video Toaster and nostalgia computing types would be interested in this however, I'm sure there's still more than a few small video production houses that might use VIdeo Toaster/green screen effects (although why is now beyond me since you can do that with software on any windows PC today). The small town Cable Access production room might still have one kicking around with a box of 3.5" floppies up on the shelf with NewTek logos on them....
 
Ooooo memories!

I got the 7th Amiga 1000 to be sold in Canada. It's long gone now :( If I had a working crystal ball I would have hung onto it and ebay-ed it for a fortune (there was no ebay when I sold it).
When the rest of the world was all gaga over 16/8-bit IBM PCs, I had my full 16/32-bit Amiga with its really simple cooperative multitasking.
 
I can still remember walking into the game store at the mall with $600 in my pocket, walking to the back of the store, picking up a white box with a carry handle on it that contained an Amiga500, grabbing a copy of Shadow of the Beast and a joystick and walking to the register to pay for it all.

It replaced my C64 and C128 that I'd used since I was 14.

Later on, upgraded to an Amiga4000 and loved it just as much.

Shame that Commodore was managed by idiots.
 
Ooooo memories!

I got the 7th Amiga 1000 to be sold in Canada. It's long gone now :( If I had a working crystal ball I would have hung onto it and ebay-ed it for a fortune (there was no ebay when I sold it).
When the rest of the world was all gaga over 16/8-bit IBM PCs, I had my full 16/32-bit Amiga with its really simple cooperative multitasking.

Awesome thanks for
I can still remember walking into the game store at the mall with $600 in my pocket, walking to the back of the store, picking up a white box with a carry handle on it that contained an Amiga500, grabbing a copy of Shadow of the Beast and a joystick and walking to the register to pay for it all.

It replaced my C64 and C128 that I'd used since I was 14.

Later on, upgraded to an Amiga4000 and loved it just as much.

Shame that Commodore was managed by idiots.

I returned an engagement ring to get my first C64 :| I know it's not an Amiga but we all have our awesome stories, thank you for sharing :)
 
It will a Frankenstein version, pale shadow of the original. Commodore could not market worth a damn. This just another attempt to sucker the poor pathetic souls who cling to a dead horse. For your Info I have an A500 and a1200 both buried in a box in my basement. Let the dead stay dead. I swore when Commodore failed to NEVER back a non main stream computer system ever again..
It won't die because of a principle insisting on doing more with less, something the PC community really could benefit from. Yeah, it's not mainstream but certainly a beneficial learning tool and pushes the limits of imagination (see demoscene). This practice occurs on other deprecated computer and console platforms as well, but Commodore is the most iconic.

I can still remember walking into the game store at the mall with $600 in my pocket, walking to the back of the store, picking up a white box with a carry handle on it that contained an Amiga500, grabbing a copy of Shadow of the Beast and a joystick and walking to the register to pay for it all.
Did you get your free Beast t-shirt? ;)

A 68060. A Raspberry Pi is a lot more powerful and can emulate an Amiga.
It uses an Altera Cyclone V A5 FPGA.

Fast IDE ?? Are there new storage products that still run on IDE without an adaptor?
Compact Flash.
 
man loved the amiga back in the day.

not sure elsewhere but in the uk at the time aimiga die hards hated anything pc related with a death wish there was pure hatred and still is with some not even used a windows based platform. i always had an amiga and either a 286/ or 386 and some amiga users would refuse to talk to me when they found out.
 
It will a Frankenstein version, pale shadow of the original. Commodore could not market worth a damn. This just another attempt to sucker the poor pathetic souls who cling to a dead horse. For your Info I have an A500 and a1200 both buried in a box in my basement. Let the dead stay dead. I swore when Commodore failed to NEVER back a non main stream computer system ever again..

Wow you sound like a really adventurous soul.

You might want to read up on what it actually is before you comment. It's not made by Commodore, as you seem to imply. It's an FPGA, not an emulator. It's certainly not a pale shadow in any way. Here's a good video by Dan Wood on the Vampire 2

 
If its a vampire then it's not a true Amiga is it? Just a poor remake trying to capture past glory days. This will be at best a shuffling zombie compared to an original. Different company just like all the marks whose names were bought by others an re marketed IE Fisher, Zenith, Marantz just the names not the real thing.. Anyone that buys into this is living in nostalgia hype land.........The Amiga is gone let it rest in peace....
 
I got my first Amiga in 1988. I loved it. It was a great computer at the time. When I started taking computer science classes and couldn't get a C compiler I could use for school (not too mention, the word process I had sucked - think it was called Excellence?). So, I bought a 386/33 with DOS 5.2 and Windows 3.0. I basically switched over to the Microsoft world while my Amiga was no longer getting use from me.
Don't get me wrong, I loved my Amiga and used it a lot for a few years. I used to argue with people at how it was superior to their computer. Games? Amiga had several great games. Sadly, Amiga died with Commodore. I sold my Amiga 500 to help pay for college (and I had a 386 to replace it).
Not sure I'd be interested to get another Amiga. I wouldn't have any extra time and the emulators aren't that bad. Can't think of too many games I really miss from that era.
 
It's the Vampire accelerator remade as a stand alone unit emulating the original Amiga chipset in FPGA, in my mind it's not really the same thing - Realilstically speaking, that A600 using the Vampire is no more than a keyboard, virtually none of the original chipset is used at all when outputting via the included HDMI output, it's like emulation within an Amiga chassis.

I have two Amiga's here, both expanded/accelerated using 68030 cards, both using modern DVI/VGA Indivisions and both running CF>IDE HDD's and I wouldn't give them up for the world.

This new Amiga is a hobby machine, it's not intended to be a mainstream product.
 
With the exception of Amiga cult types this thing will not sell enough to even be worthwhile. In fact I doubt you will ever see it actually be sold......
 
If its a vampire then it's not a true Amiga is it? Just a poor remake trying to capture past glory days. This will be at best a shuffling zombie compared to an original. Different company just like all the marks whose names were bought by others an re marketed IE Fisher, Zenith, Marantz just the names not the real thing.. Anyone that buys into this is living in nostalgia hype land.........The Amiga is gone let it rest in peace....
The legend will never die.


With the exception of Amiga cult types this thing will not sell enough to even be worthwhile. In fact I doubt you will ever see it actually be sold......
Considering the two previous models outsold expectations, backordered again and are still being produced, it seems you do not know what you are talking about.

It's the Vampire accelerator remade as a stand alone unit emulating the original Amiga chipset in FPGA, in my mind it's not really the same thing - Realilstically speaking, that A600 using the Vampire is no more than a keyboard, virtually none of the original chipset is used at all when outputting via the included HDMI output, it's like emulation within an Amiga chassis.

I have two Amiga's here, both expanded/accelerated using 68030 cards, both using modern DVI/VGA Indivisions and both running CF>IDE HDD's and I wouldn't give them up for the world.

This new Amiga is a hobby machine, it's not intended to be a mainstream product.
Ain't nothing like the real thing baby; awww yeah. But I do wonder how far they reversed the chipsets.

Anyway, I'm happy with WinUAE. Toni Wilen has made a lot of progress in the accuracy department to say the least and continues to add features I never thought would exist in an emulator.
 
So what's the point of this? To simply play retro games? Something you can do with any emulator as it is. There's no new software for it is there? I almost feel like this is like Nintendos retro console crap they pushed.

Look I loved the Amiga back in the day, and part of me cringes at how much I spent on it and everything for it (I seem to recall spending like $600 for a 20 megabyte hard drive, yeah that's mega not giga). Man I blew through all sorts of potential college money on that crap too. I mean don't get me wrong, was good times desoldering the jumper to get another 512kb of chip ram and all sorts of other tricks like that, swapping out a 68000 with the 68030, but hey those days are over... plus they never made a better version of Mail Order Monsters beyond what they did on the C64 and that game was just my most favorite EVAR! :D
 
So what's the point of this? To simply play retro games? Something you can do with any emulator as it is. There's no new software for it is there? I almost feel like this is like Nintendos retro console crap they pushed.

Look I loved the Amiga back in the day, and part of me cringes at how much I spent on it and everything for it (I seem to recall spending like $600 for a 20 megabyte hard drive, yeah that's mega not giga). Man I blew through all sorts of potential college money on that crap too. I mean don't get me wrong, was good times desoldering the jumper to get another 512kb of chip ram and all sorts of other tricks like that, swapping out a 68000 with the 68030, but hey those days are over... plus they never made a better version of Mail Order Monsters beyond what they did on the C64 and that game was just my most favorite EVAR! :D

It's a hobby machine. Computing doesn't always have to have a modern purpose, and the real hardware is becoming rare, and expensive.

I love the old games and tech demo's and I like to run it all on well preserved hardware using expansions that either weren't available or were too expensive in the day. I feel the preservation of our computing history is important and the common Windows machine is soleless in direct comparison.

My real A1200 is actually snappier than an emulated A1200 with identical specs, and everything was expensive in the day, not just Amiga hardware!

All good fun. :)
 
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With the exception of Amiga cult types this thing will not sell enough to even be worthwhile. In fact I doubt you will ever see it actually be sold......

They've made a fortune on the Vampire accelerator it's based on, they're selling like hotcakes and they're worth a fortune. You have to pre order just to reserve one.

Don't fall for the assumption that there's no market for modern expansions regarding retro hardware - It surprises the shit out of me that the [H] forums don't offer a retro subforum.
 
I'm a huge AMIGA HEAD. I will say this and this is without a shadow of doubt how any true Amiga owner well feel toward you. If you have anything negative whatsoever to say about the Amiga we will just think you're an idiot. It's not only 100% true but the word of god.

Anyone who owned an Amiga new how awesome it was. It was incredible and way ahead of its time.

These guys said that they could make a stand alone Amiga a few years back but wasn't sure if that would ever happen due to their feelings about emulating the entire platform. These guys are hardcore Amiga lovers. The take away I got from the video is it would be disrespectful to emulate the Amiga 100%.

This could be very awesome indeed.
 
I had an A500 and A600 with external SCSI drives, upgraded memory and processor, had a whale of a time, it was the nads!
I've still got a kitted out A500.

I am also the definition of idiot cos I wouldnt even think of buying this new one.
You cant knock a good hobby for those well into it though, I wish I had more of that kind of enthusiasm.
Its currently wasted on my hifi. Naaa, luvvin it :D
 
It will a Frankenstein version, pale shadow of the original. Commodore could not market worth a damn. This just another attempt to sucker the poor pathetic souls who cling to a dead horse. For your Info I have an A500 and a1200 both buried in a box in my basement. Let the dead stay dead. I swore when Commodore failed to NEVER back a non main stream computer system ever again..

I have to agree with more fuel for the fire. I owned the 1000, the 2000, and the 3000. The problem was never the hardware, the problem was backing a darkhorse that couldn't get main stream software developers to produce for the platform. What good is a computer, even if it is the best and fastest in the world, if there is no software for it. Insult to injury, I bought Commodore stock a few months before they tanked.
 
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Whats really needed here is a time machine to go back and change history. Since I doubt anyone here has a Doc Brown Delorean the Amiga has died and no amount of emulation can bring it back.....
 
I'm a huge AMIGA HEAD. I will say this and this is without a shadow of doubt how any true Amiga owner well feel toward you. If you have anything negative whatsoever to say about the Amiga we will just think you're an idiot. It's not only 100% true but the word of god.

Anyone who owned an Amiga new how awesome it was. It was incredible and way ahead of its time.

These guys said that they could make a stand alone Amiga a few years back but wasn't sure if that would ever happen due to their feelings about emulating the entire platform. These guys are hardcore Amiga lovers. The take away I got from the video is it would be disrespectful to emulate the Amiga 100%.

This could be very awesome indeed.
I haven't seen this conversation and video from a few years back, but their view might have changed as they are now working on the AGA chipset. The datasheet pdf on their website shows a potential for a standalone model in the future after their firmware and driver matures.

I have to agree with more fuel for the fire. I owned the 1000, the 2000, and the 3000. The problem was never the hardware, the problem was backing a darkhorse that couldn't get main stream software developers to produce for the platform. What good is a computer, even if it is the best and fastest in the world, if there is no software for it. Insult to injury, I bought Commodore stock a few months before they tanked.
The software is there, just not from the developers you are accustomed to and in certain cases late to the party. As others have mentioned, this is a hobby enthusiast expansion product. The Amiga community expects you to leg up and write your own software if there is really something lacking in your area of interest. But, you know all this stuff.

Whats really needed here is a time machine to go back and change history. Since I doubt anyone here has a Doc Brown Delorean the Amiga has died and no amount of emulation can bring it back.....
1.21 troll-a-lots.
 
MarvelousDirtyHalibut-max-1mb.gif


\m/
 
The software is there, just not from the developers you are accustomed to and in certain cases late to the party. As others have mentioned, this is a hobby enthusiast expansion product. The Amiga community expects you to leg up and write your own software if there is really something lacking in your area of interest. But, you know all this stuff.

I know all this stuff?

What I know is that I invested in an awesome collection of hardware capabilities back in the day that were wasted, because for whatever reasons the vendor couldn't get current software applications to the market. So the Amiga was a bust for any but those few individuals who had niche hobbies that it supported, like HAM radio heads for instance.

Now if you make a new one today, will it run current software or will it remain a niche machine. Guess if my interest is peaked.
 
I know all this stuff?

What I know is that I invested in an awesome collection of hardware capabilities back in the day that were wasted, because for whatever reasons the vendor couldn't get current software applications to the market. So the Amiga was a bust for any but those few individuals who had niche hobbies that it supported, like HAM radio heads for instance.

Now if you make a new one today, will it run current software or will it remain a niche machine. Guess if my interest is peaked.
Sorry if I assume too much; maybe you didn't stick around after Commodore went under and follow the software that continued to develop. It's not like you are going to get the horsepower of modern machines, so why are your expectations so high? Sorry for your investment loss, but c'mon don't let zalazin's negativity bring you down. He's just trolling this thread, fully knowing that this expansion platform is not intended as a rebirth or mainstream comeback.
 
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Sorry if I assume too much; maybe you didn't stick around after Commodore went under and follow the software that continued to develop. It's not like you are going to get the horsepower of modern machines, so why are your expectations so high? Sorry for your investment loss, but c'mon don't let zalazin's negativity bring you down. He's just trolling this thread, fully knowing that this expansion platform is not intended as a rebirth or mainstream comeback.


Cause like a few billion other people, I use MS Word for resumes, occasionally I need PowerPoint or Excel, and I game. I gave up on Amiga and boxed up my 3000 somewhere around 1994 (give or take), and went to a DX386 machine because all I ever saw on the shelves was new promising games for Intel machines and old crap for Amiga's. When the company went under that was that, it was over, and it was over no matter what a few enthusiasts or niche users think. The idea that the Amiga could fill the role of a primary work and entertainment platform was dead.

If you are doing things and have a use for an Amiga that's cool. If you still like messing with them you don't need my OK. And if some guy wants to breath some semblance of life back into the platform I'm fine with it as well. But it sure isn't going to pull me back in. when I have been running the best gaming platform offered since the day I boxed my Amiga 3000 and gave it to a ham radio dude a few years later. I felt good that I found it a new home, but that's it.
 
Cause like a few billion other people, I use MS Word for resumes, occasionally I need PowerPoint or Excel, and I game. I gave up on Amiga and boxed up my 3000 somewhere around 1994 (give or take), and went to a DX386 machine because all I ever saw on the shelves was new promising games for Intel machines and old crap for Amiga's. When the company went under that was that, it was over, and it was over no matter what a few enthusiasts or niche users think. The idea that the Amiga could fill the role of a primary work and entertainment platform was dead.

If you are doing things and have a use for an Amiga that's cool. If you still like messing with them you don't need my OK. And if some guy wants to breath some semblance of life back into the platform I'm fine with it as well. But it sure isn't going to pull me back in. when I have been running the best gaming platform offered since the day I boxed my Amiga 3000 and gave it to a ham radio dude a few years later. I felt good that I found it a new home, but that's it.
Understood, but this is not intended as a new primary platform for any software category or commercial use. No one claimed Amiga is attempting to rise up into the mainstream with a new product, showcase a new operating system, partner with major software companies etc.

I also switched in the 386 era, but I kept tabs on parts of the Amiga software community primarily thanks to UAE emulator. Amiga had much more success in Europe and the UK and this is where the support comes from.

The 80's-90's time period produced so much proprietary hardware which are difficult to accurately reverse, document and replicate all the fine details. As BulletDust mentioned, configuring an emulator for A1200 with accelerated specs still do not run full speed (I only tested A500 and it was perfect) so I see why there is a market for this. The original hardware and older expansion products are ridiculously expensive.

This article and title are misleading because the product will be an expansion board that happens to have a standalone function, the fact that this is an extension of the classic Motorola based platform series and does not bare the Amiga name. C'mon Megalith.
 
Why not? Or is this a riff on a movie quote, that escapes me?

I run WinUAE on my PC and it runs all the old Amiga games just fine.

While you're not going to understand it, it's just not the same as owning the real thing. I own a Mazda 3 MPS putting down 220kw's, it'd put certain 1970's era muscle cars to shame with comfort and handling (but no traction), but for many the 1970's era muscle car is where it's at - They're enthusiasts and they wouldn't have it any other way.

There's nothing quite like the real thing, using actual AmigaOS instead of simply loading .adf's, and for what it's worth, my A1200 with a 68030 @ 42Mhz is actually snappier than the exact same machine emulated.
 
Cause like a few billion other people, I use MS Word for resumes, occasionally I need PowerPoint or Excel, and I game. I gave up on Amiga and boxed up my 3000 somewhere around 1994 (give or take), and went to a DX386 machine because all I ever saw on the shelves was new promising games for Intel machines and old crap for Amiga's. When the company went under that was that, it was over, and it was over no matter what a few enthusiasts or niche users think.

[sigh]

Once again, this machine is not intended to replace your current, modern Windows PC, it's a hobby machine for enthusiasts and there is a huge market for this stuff as retro computing makes a comeback. Furthermore, the Amiga is not dead. AmigaOS 3.1 received an update couple of years ago and software is still released by enthusiasts on Aminet.
 
[sigh]

Once again, this machine is not intended to replace your current, modern Windows PC, it's a hobby machine for enthusiasts and there is a huge market for this stuff as retro computing makes a comeback. Furthermore, the Amiga is not dead. AmigaOS 3.1 received an update couple of years ago and software is still released by enthusiasts on Aminet.

You misunderstand. I am not talking about what this is, I was replying to a comment about how things went in the past. As a 'current" machine, the Amiga died decades ago.

Sigh .........
 
Why not? Or is this a riff on a movie quote, that escapes me?

I run WinUAE on my PC and it runs all the old Amiga games just fine.

Correction ...... I buy Amiga Forever every year when they refresh it. While it works ........ it's very clunky to me ... sure it works but it's not the same as a hardware level chip. I want to turn on the damn thing and go right into the OS. I don't want to click and load this then covert this file then config this joystick or play with the resolution, etc etc etc. It's clunky.

But, we have a problem. They are warning of costs. That it will be more expensive. I know what the prices are. This Amiga hardware could be $600 or $700. Someone please correct me.

They know the user base will be very tiny so they have it at a price point to make it worth their while.

If it's $600 dollars.... yeah I'm going to buy a used 1080 ti before I do all that.

Let's hope this shit is reasonable.

If they can price this thing around $350 - $400 they can sell a lot more. They are probably trying to figure that out.
 
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