Excuse my ignorance guys....

What is the difference between the Teron mini and the microA1?
Are they the same thing?
Is the daughterboard that Eyetech were talking about a certaintly or a nice to have in the future?
When they say daugherboard, do they mean a card mounted horizonatally, taking up an AGP or PCI slot?

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Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

Quote:

...the ArticiaP...

The question is when

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

Hmm, feels like ArticiaP is getting more and more too late for building A1's. We need to get into 9xx PPC cpu's. Bringing in a generation of pre 9xx A1's at this point will just delay any move to 9xx even more ... the circulation of different A1 generations hasn't exactly been very speedy.

/Björn

Yes, there's little point in using the ArticiaP considering that the thing hasn't even sampled yet. We need a PPC970 system and if that means ditching Mai and going to IBM for the North Bridge and board layout, then Eyetech should do it.

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Who do you serve, and who do you trust? - Galen

I guess we need a new licencee for AmigaOS compatible hardware if Eyetech doesn't want to burn any bridges.

/Björn

Quote:

I guess we need a new licencee for AmigaOS compatible hardware if Eyetech doesn't want to burn any bridges.

They don't exactly grow on trees.....and then even if someone was interested Eyetech would sue Amiga Inc for breaking their exclusive contract.

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Leo Nigro, CTO Commodore USA, LLC
Opinions expressed are my own and not those of C= USA.
Commodore/AMIGA "Beautiful, High-Performance, Home Computers for Creativity and Entertainment."

HMMMM! give me something interesting first...like an AMIGA!!!!

damn boring to read about news which is like ages into the future....

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@BigBentheAussie

Quote:

They don't exactly grow on trees.....and then even if someone was interested Eyetech would sue Amiga Inc for breaking their exclusive contract.

I don't think there is anything exclusive about Eyetech and Amiga Inc. It has always been said that anyone could apply for a license to have thier hardware approved and running OS4. So I think that we will start to see other vendors come forward with an interest once OS4 is closer to release. But that should now be a KMOS/Hyperion choice, I would think they want as many systems running the OS as possible.

Please also pardon my ignorance in these matters but Eyetech boards look like rebadged MAI Teron boards to me. So what do Eyetech do and would it not be better for AInc to cut out the middle man? (This is not intended as flamebait, but someone who's Amiga knowledge has a gap between 1996 - 2003.)

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@Intuitioned

it is my belief (note - none of the following statements have been verified by me) that the differences between A1s and Terons are:

A1s have additional code in Das U-boot (nee PPCBoot) to run AmigaOS.

It is also my belief that the original TeronCX had a different layout than what became the A1SE. There used to be many headers surrounding the Articia, and I think there wasn't an AMR slot (it was a developer board, after all). I can't find an original picture on MAI's site and all the current pictures of the CX are the same as the A1SE. Even the (Wayback machine didn't archive the pictures.

It is my belief that it was Eyetech's input (and maybe other clients as well) that transformed the CX into something that could be used as a prototype board (the A1SE/TCX) to finalize the specs for the production board (A1XE/TPX).

Sorry for the excessive (and nearly off-topic) rant. I've been screaming this at my monitor every time I've read certain posts on a certain other Amiga site.

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Tony T.

People who generalize are always wrong.


1989 - 500 / 1991 - 3000 / 1997 - Genesis Flyer 1200T / 2003 - A1XE

@DrBombcrater:

From http://www.mai.com/news&events/PressRelease122103.html:

Quote:

FREMONT, CA. December 21, 2003. Mai Logic, Incorporated, a leading global semiconductor provider of bus-interface controller circuits, embedded platforms and total system solutions, announced today it is licensing IBM®'s ultra-high speed PowerPC? 970 Elastic Interface technology. Mai Logic plans to incorporate IBM®'s Elastic Interface technology within its Articia I chipset and Teron I series system product offerings, working hand-in-hand with the PowerPC? 970 microprocessors to help improve the performance of next generation embedded applications in consumer electronics, multimedia, storage, main-stream computing, servers and networking application for consumer, industrial and military implementations.

Patience, grasshopper...

Besides, G5s are kindof expensive still. Even if there was a G5 Amiga for sale right now, I'd rather wait a year or two until the CPUs drop in price a bit before buying one.

@DrBombCrater:

Do IBM actually have a PPC Northbridge available, or is it merely mooted?

It would be good if there were three suppliers instead of just two.

tony

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tony

Hyperion Support Forum: http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.biz/index.php

@DrBombcrater

Actually I would be rather content with the ArticiaP's specs if it's CPU bus would support RIO and the MCU would be able to double as a PCI-X interface(like MCUs on the Articia I and Is are claimed to be able to do).

Plus wouldn't it be kind of fitting for vapourware(ArticiaP) to support vapourware(Freescale e600)

@Intuitioned

Given this is in your sig ( accessible from your Profile ):

http://amigapop.8bit.co.uk/index.html

I question your ignorance claim.

Amiga Inc ain't selling hardware, and if they were people would only b1tch at them and A1s for being from Amiga.

MAI don't give a toss about Amigas they are really about designing boards and building prototype systems to promote development using their chips.

Quote:

Teron mini Evaluation Board is available now with PowerPC 750FX CPU module card. Quantity limited. Order Quantity Price 1 $3,900 2-5 1st board: $3,900; additional board: $2,340 each 6+ email us for quotation For quotations or other inquiries, please email us at marketing@mai.com.

They aren't manufacturing them, Eyetech arranged to get them manufactured and resold and all the other things that turned it from a developer board with very little in the way of support and usefulness and with Hyperion and a couple of hotshot developers at Mai turned it into a viable proposition for resale.

You see someone would still need to buy in quantity ( e.g. someone like Eyetech ) and arrange with KMOS and Hyperion about getting AOS4 running on it ( e.g. someone like Eyetech ). Someone has to take the up front risk or negotiate a deal with MAI where the risk is shared, someone with a business. Then that someone has to provide some level of warranty and a support package, has to PAY Hyperion for the porting costs or accept an agreement ( license again! ) where Hyperion takes the up front cost of porting and recoups it through board sales.

So cutting out the middleman in this case would mean absolute zip, you can't this is the real world where Amiga manufacturers dont own their own high volume fab and assembly plants. I really dont understand what the problem is, amazing really we scream for generic hardware for years and then turn around and complain when someone re-uses someone elses design and gets it manufactured even though that design is 90% what we want.

The days of big bucks being in the savings bank for Amiga producers has gone, the cost has to be shared somehow, the writers and maintainers of AmigaOS4 need to contain their costs somehow.

More generally, as mjohnson said on another thread, its the Amiga community, so we bitch and moan rather than realise that simple market economics and lack of large scale investment puts those who actually get on and try to build a viable market have a road ahead of them that means partnerships.

I find the argument that removal of the license scheme would somehow magically solve all problems, make AOS4 sell gadzillions more copies and the developers would magically be able to cope and that manufacturers would leap on board like it was 1989 hilarious.

Spot on, DaveP. I really couldn't have said it better myself.

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There is also the Articia Sa which seems to be positioned inbetween the S and the P when it comes to performance and capability!
Perhaps this particular chipset is more feasable to be used as the next ramp-up step in AmigaPPC hardware?
Quote:

Harnessing the industry-leading CPU bus speed of 166 MHz, the cutting-edge 333 MHz DDR SDRAM, the stunning graphic capability from AGP4X, and the extended data throughput of 64-bit PCI, the multi-missioned Articia Sa brings down system cost while offering phenomenal performance.

Though I might be more impressed if MAI used a spell-checker for their website?!?
Quote:

. . . a most powerful and yet affordable "toal solution" for the innovative pervasive computing markets . . .

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-vortexau, who's A1 XE-G4 remains at half-RAM !
A2000HD (from 1991) 060 64Mb PicassoII with OS3.5 . . . still working.

Quote:

Though I might be more impressed if MAI used a spell-checker for their website?!?

Well, not only MAI, AmigaWorld too. Look at the title of this topic: "ArticiaP specs uppdated"

ROFL I love typos!

When I was studying Theology, we had a guy there who had just come over from Greece, so his English was somewhat lacking (he was from Australia). Anyhow (a great kid mind you), one morning he had woken up in a crappy mood, and said to me, "Nick, is there any International Roost left?" He was meant to say "Roast" the coffee brand. So all mistakes he made, we would term "Roost". eg. Windex (Window cleanng formula) became "Kleenex", Demestos (detergent), became "Declension", Bikini, became "Biniki", "Schooner" became "Snooker". I swear the laughs we had!

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Giancarlo Piscitello, author of: Ami Crystal

@Syrtran, DaveP

Quote:

I question your ignorance claim.

I am still a bit ignorant. I think I understand who makes what but I was a bit unclear on how the manufacturing was organised in this way. Still reckon the choice in platforms should be opened up a bit as I can't see any other way of OS4 selling more than 10,000. But that is a long running debate best left in another thread.

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