@AlexDran

I think the G3 development might be outsourced nowdays ... and that couls mean that there will not be altivec for it. So there is no point in waiting for it.

Also even if IBM still handles the G3 R&D, some things might be discarded in favor of the PPC970 development.

Let's see. Not "wait and see". Better put your ??? where your mouth is, today (in this case that's the same as october/november).

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@Crumb

The price wich is quoted on Eyetechs site is a suggested end retailers price wich has got includued in it the margins needed for Eyetech and the dealers to survive.

The price of the product in the simple model I'm using is:

Xtot=(Xpart1 + Xpart2 + Xpart3 ... Xn)*Ymargins

In other words the total price is the same as the cost of all the separate components put together multiplied with something which Eyetech feels that they and the dealers need in terms of margins to survive.

The model can be concidered atleast somewhat valid as there is no specified margins in the calculation given by Eyetech. So if the "margins" on the final price makes up 40%, off it, you'd need to see to it (for an easy calculation) that there is a 40% margin on each product or price factor given in the numbers given by Eyetech.

Now, what I did above is to try and calculate a Xcpuboard given the Xcpuboard*Ymargins price by Eyetech.

I hope I make sence

mini board info @ MAI ...
http://www.mai.com/products/BRV854R1.0.pdf


Is the "BIOS" rom really 4M bytes?

There must be room for a modern Radeon700 rendered "boing demo", right?
To replace the "insert disk" animation and/or amuse during the boot prosedure !!!!!!!!!!!!

_________________
- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
//
// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

@KimmoK
it's 4Mbits... not 4Mbytes..., so it'd half a megabyte (MB)

This is really good news!

The I version is almost perfect :)

The things missing from it that I would want is:

* Digital audio output
* AGP bus (real one)
* CPU bus (MEGArray bus)

Other than these things it's really good!
If you look at it from the AmigaOS point of view these aren't
really big stuff missing.
You can live without digital audio output, if your not an musician
and need it for optimal audio quality. Also it's needed for 5.1 DD/DTS
sound when playing DVD movies from your computer.
AGP bus we have, although not a real one but I suppose for the
Amiga it's not needed to better gfx these next couple of years.
CPU bus though is something I REALLY miss in the motherboard.

Why not make an full ATX version adressing these issues and
also add some PCI & PCI-Express busses?

Is it possible to add a fan to the soldered CPU and speed it up?
Maybe to 1GHz?
Does the Gx version have Altivec? I remember reading that IBM
was planning to implement it to their G3 series of CPU's.


/Harry

_________________
/Harry

[SOLD] µA1-C - 750GX 800MHz - 512MB - Antec Aria case

Avatar by HNL_DK!

@Samwel

Quote:

Does the Gx version have Altivec? I remember reading that IBM was planning to implement it to their G3 series of CPU's.

No. The 750VX (Mojave) will have Altivec support.

_________________
www.amiga4ever.de

@Samwel

Eyetech mentionned on their pages that they're gonna do another batch of XE G4. That one would fit your musical meeds (Digital audio output) better. You could add a cheap Creative Labs Sound Card. Plus you can get upgrades later on.

As for the overclocking, Articia S doesn't have proper circuits (SMBus?) for hardware monitoring of the temperature.

@Hyperionmp

No, the Eyetech site clearly states it as 170 UKP (£). At 170EUR I wouldn't be complaining, at 170UKP I at least reserve the right to be sceptical. 170UKP for an 800MHz CPU is completelyfrigginginsane. You could get a 3.4GHz P4 for that. I kid you not. Verilog thus and so.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

Why do people still complain?

Eyetech is gonna stay alive and the Amiga motherboard/OS market by selling to the industry segment and not to home user. If the Mini-ITX A1 aren't suitable for you then get the ATX A1.

Cut them some slack.

@BigBentheAussie

Quote:

I was daydreaming of creating a website where people could interactively build such a knowledge base, including tutorials. It would be moderated of course. It would probably be turned into a book and authors would be credited according to their contributions.

I think you need to get a website and install a CMS type system check out tiki or wiki some such thing allows users to manage content of site .

Wiki (Site)

_________________
Aldur
------------------------------

@angrybrit

I think people get miffed when you have a product that on the whole is good but in some bits let down by strange decisions.

It's a bit like when the A1200 came with a DD DD instead of a HD DD. Or that they put in a 68020 when for a few quid could have put in a 68030 like the Falcon.

_________________

@Intuitioned

A1200?s weaknesses was off set by its graphical capabilities. Anyway, the performance deltas between 16Mhz 68030 on 16bit bus vs 14Mhz 68EC020 on 32bit shared bus would be similar. The performance jump between 68020 and 68030 is minor compared to 68030* vs 68040* or 68000* vs 68020*. 68030 in the Falcon would be classified as ?blue crystals? i.e. near useless performance enhancing add-on(relative it?s direct competitor) but a marketable feature.

*On an appropriate fast memory bus.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@olegil

Quote:

No, the Eyetech site clearly states it as 170 UKP (£). At 170EUR I wouldn't be complaining, at 170UKP I at least reserve the right to be sceptical. 170UKP for an 800MHz CPU is completelyfrigginginsane.

First, if you read the article again, you'll see that this is just a notional breakdown to show approximately where the main cost elements lie . As far as the cpu module is concerned these include the component costs, the subassembly manufacturing costs, testing, an amount for R&D recovery, and a moderate level of shipping, profit and support costs for us and the dealers.

Considering that the CPU modules are really an accelerator card in Amiga terrms, comparing them with the wholesale price of a raw cpu (even if you could actually buy the cpu's at that price withinin a reasonable lead time) is course completely irrelevant.

The last Apollo 1260 accellerators we sold were around £215 ex VAT and we still get enquiries for them every week. I really do not understand how you can possibly consider a 750Fx@800 accelerator at 80% ot the price of a 1260 one expensive particularly when the absolute size of the market for the former is a fraction of that for 1260 acellorators when they were designed.

For those niche markets we are addressing outside the Amiga marketplace the overall cost breakdown is completely irrelevant.

Quote:

You could get a 3.4GHz P4 for that. I kid you not.

You could also get a washing machine, a fridge freezer or a week in Skegness for £170. That's not relevant either.

Alan

@Eyetech

Hi Alan!

Firstly I would like to say that you're doing a great job for the Amiga!

I also like to ask you some questions about Micro A1.

What was the decision in using USB 1.1 in favor of 2.0?

Why no digital audio out? Especially now that you've added 5.1 sound
to the A1.. How do you output Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS sound???

When will we see G4 soldered to the Micro A1-I?
Preferably a +1GHz one..? Why I want it? Altivec of course!!!
I could also go for a PPC750VX

Will there ever be a full ATX board with the same specs as Micro A1-I
but without onboard gfx and with PCI+AGP busses & MEGArray?
That would be my buy for sure!

The rest about CPU bus, AGP bus, price of the board I think you have
already answered..


Thanks for all your hard work..

/Harry

_________________
/Harry

[SOLD] µA1-C - 750GX 800MHz - 512MB - Antec Aria case

Avatar by HNL_DK!

Dammit! I just realised the price is excluding VAT.

Quote:

µ-A1-C - gbp349/euro499/USD599 (ex VAT/sales tax) µ-A1-I - gbp399/euro599/USD699 (ex VAT/sales tax)

µ-A1-C += £61.07

_________________

@Eyetech

Quote:

Considering that the CPU modules are really an accelerator card in Amiga terrms,

Well, they?re similar to Slot 1/Slot A solutions in X86 terms or to "Socket 370 to Slot 1" adapters (missing cache modules due core integration).

Quote:

As far as the cpu module is concerned these include the component costs, the subassembly manufacturing costs, testing, an amount for R&D recovery, and a moderate level of shipping, profit and support costs for us and the dealers.

Your CPU partner doesn?t make things easy....

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

Quote:

Samwel wrote: What was the decision in using USB 1.1 in favor of 2.0? Why no digital audio out? Especially now that you've added 5.1 sound to the A1.. How do you output Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS sound??? When will we see G4 soldered to the Micro A1-I? Preferably a +1GHz one..? Why I want it? Altivec of course!!! I could also go for a PPC750VX [.. more questions ..] /Harry

Samwel, Eyetech is tied with MAI Logic, they dont build the motherboards, they use MAI reference ones, you can find them here: http://www.mai.com/

look in the motherboard section, currently the AmigaOnes around are based on "Teron CX" and with MicroA1 they are using "Teron Mini", so its not eyetech who put there USB 1.1, its MAI.

We have to wait for a new amigaone model, based on "Teron PX", then we'll have *possibly* USB2.0 (its listed as optional), while for ddr, a more modern agp slot (4X) and even sone PCIX support(not for the videocard, just for the card slots) we'll have to wait for 2005/2006, as they need to build a reference motherboard which will use ARTICIA P chipset (currently not available):

http://www.mai.com/products/articia p.htm

There are better alternatives to articia chipset (DDR already, gigabit ethernet, agp 4x) , like the Marvell Discovery II MV64360 or 1 o 2, they are much better, but on this side of the amiga fence we are in bed with MAI (as previously stated) so we have to live with it.

http://www.marvell.com/products/communication/discoveryII/MV64360.jsp

@Intuitioned

What advantage does a 68030 give over a 68020 if it's clocked at the same frequency? Increasing the frequency of the 68020 would have been more useful.

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@Eyetech

Sorry, I do not see how a CPU module for a board with no CPU can be called an accelerator. An accelerator is optional, a CPU module is required. An Apollo 1260 at 215£ is damn expensive for the performance, but thats expected when purchasing expansion kits for obsolete hardware. The 750FX is a rather new CPU from IBM. The idea that using it would come at such a cost was a complete suprise to me.

Also, I do NOT see how comparing the price of a CPU with the price of a different CPU can be irrelevant, what I'm saying is that if it costs so much to go the PPC way (800MHz at the same price as 3400MHz in that other market), then maybe we're on the wrong road here.

I live in a free country, so I have the right to say things like that.

I also question the idea that an 800MHz 750FX somehow beats that 1400MHz 7447, performance wise. And the question of cooling should be left up to the user. If he wants a big noisy cooler he should be allowed to purchase this board with a 74xx CPU. Do not mess with the Altivec!

That last bit is of course just what _I_ would do, if you feel you have good enough reasons you don't even have to comment, as I don't have much of a say, anyway

Also, would you be willing to publish (or hand them out under a "will not make a competing motherboard" clause) the pinout on the MegArray so third parties could make the CPU modules you don't wanna do? Just wondering...

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@Eyetech

Any chances for G4 module for MicroA1-C? (as an option)
maybe 1.4 GHz? )

_________________
Sam440ep-flex 800MHz 1GB RAM R9250 128MB SB Live!