Re: Castle's plans

In article <1180089363.562392.30510@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ams
<ams@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 22, 4:49 pm, John Cartmell <j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

How would that differ from an A9 - and how do you think Castle - who
don't do hardware in any case! - might manage to produce something for
less than half the price?

I'd agree there's probably little point in another low-end ARM 9 machine,
the only advantage it could have over the A9Home would be price (and
possibly providing an internal IDE expansion that supports a CD/DVD writer,
more RAM, USB 2 etc.,).

It would be misleading to call the A9 'low-end'. You cannot expand it
internally but it has distinctive features (eg size and silence) that simply
position it as different (from the Iyonix & other PC boxes). There is little
difference in speed - and many* differences there are in favour of the A9.

Your comment about Castle "not doing hardware" is, although on the face of
it true - is none the less a tad misleading. Someone could read your
comment as meaning the manufacturer of Iyonix no longer makes hardware (in
actual fact they renamed their hardware production arm Iyonix Ltd -
Iyonixes are still made). I could honestly say Advantage Six don't produce
hardware ... and not mention Simtec do so on their behalf - and it would be
no less dishonest than your previous comment, would it be right to do so -
with respect *NO*.

You would be utterly wrong about the latter claim. I had no intention of my
original comment going unclarified - though I was surprised at Steve Revill
being the one to fall for my correct but apparently surprising comment, and
have to admit to having a smidgin of fun at his expense (sorry Steve!).

I will admit that it's difficult to say who manufactures the Iyonix
(CastleCTL?Iyonix) without a convoluted past-tense/present-tense sentence and
I may not have got that entirely correct. Again - apologies if I goofed! ;-)

As to your comment about managing to produce a machine for half the price
of a A9Home - I doubt if half price would be possible - but a generous
reduction *might* be possible. It would be down to economy of scale or
simply not having to pay a generous swodge of cash per unit in licensing
fees to ROL (something Ad6 can't avoid). As Castle own their own RISC OS
they don't have to pay anyone....

You are again quite wrong with your latter claim but I would love to see a
RISC OS machine sell in the tens of thousands that would be necessary to make
a significant reduction from economy of scale.

But as I said at the outset now is not the time to take the backwards step
of producing yet another low-end ARM9 box - we need to be pushing the
envelope onwards and upwards. There are plenty of upcoming ARM/ XScale
processors that show promise. I note also Sun Microsystems have recently
licensed technology to ARM - so we may see further improvements in the
offing if/when such technology advances come on tap.

I've long advocated a range of RISC OS machines from a range of manufacturers.
Two or three RISC OS manufacturers leap frogging one another with machines
that are better in one or other aspect or are significantly different is what
is required. Together with that though we need a period of calm where any of
us can happily recommend RISC OS machines without the worry of what new people
will think of the state of the market - and these newsgroups. I haven't been
happy to make such a recommendation for years - but that may be changing. I do
hope it is.

NB I can understand how this thread might run and run but I'll probably
restrict any of my replies [a response may need a change of subject] to *how*
to measure differences between current machines (see below).

*Depends how you count of course, and I'm looking for feedback on the Qercus
A9 review for how people use their machines, hence what real-life tasks should
be measured. For the second part of the review I want to concentrate on those
tasks that those using RiscPCs and earlier machines find annoyingly slow. I
want to concentrate on reasons for people upgrading to an A9/Iyonix.

--
John Cartmell john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 0845 006 8822 or 0161 969 9820
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

.

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