Very interesting interview.

Radfoo wrote:
Quote:

I doubt it, I expect he is talking about a PCI card to fit in the one slot. If that is the true, then there seems little advantage to buying the MicroA1 (Unless the price is really good)

I really doubt that they are going to use a pci board. Because he wrote:

Quote:

We are currently looking at the feasibility of adding the 'enhanced I/O' (RAID, gigabit ethernet, USB2, IEEE 1394 etc) on a separate plug-in daughter board. This is to keep the cost of the basic board down for industrial applications which do not need these capabilities. This standardisation will allow us to benefit from economies of scale on the basic board, without inhibiting expansion flexibility.

Key sentences are:

on a separate plug-in daughter board. - instead of - on a pci board.
without inhibiting expansion flexibility. - instead of - using the pci connector.

But I could be wrong

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Totally agree

Eyetech:

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ikir

Interesting that "Other" magazine journo's are reading AW.

btw .... Welcome to AW .Jon

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Great interview, thanks !

Amiga forever !!!

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Quote:

The contrary! Mini-ITX is not cheap at all.

Well, price structures on the Wintel market isn't nesessarily transferable to the Amiga market. Since Alan hasn't announced any prices yet, we'll need to see where these boards are placed price-wise.

Quote:

Only Amiga enthusiasts and afficionados will buy under-powered Mini-ITX solutions, I believe.

"Under-Powered" is a relative term. The MicroA1 can take the same CPU modules as the big-box AmigaOne's, so you can perfectly well use a 7447 at 1.3 GHz on that thing.

Like I said, no prices have been announced so far. I don't claim to know them either (I just work here ), but it might be a good idea to wait with judgements until these are public.

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Quote:

Key sentences are: on a separate plug-in daughter board. - instead of - on a pci board. without inhibiting expansion flexibility. - instead of - using the pci connector.

Yeah fjudde, that's the way I read it too. And I was trying to figure out where in the world they are planning to connect it on that tiny real estate. :)

Of course they'll be using a custom riser board, just like *I* suggested!

...


*cough* *cough*

Quote:

Let's see a P IV should be available then that runs at 5.7 GHz!!!!!!!

Actually Intel's plans for October 2004 are only for a 3.8GHz P4, although they do plan to release a 4.0 GHz P4 during the last quarter ... although with their skills at delaying releases recently, I wouldn't be surprised if that was 2005...

@mike B
Thanks

[pessimism]

Quote:

We are also working with Hyperion to try to make a hard-disk installable version of OS4 beta available to all existing A1 Earlybird customers and developers, hopefully before this Christmas.

It would be fantastic and would make an excellent christmas present. However, I remember this quote about the A1 orders this time last year.

Quote:

(and, yes, for the cynics out there, we really do mean Christmas 2002!).

"two more weeks tm"
[/pessimism]

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I'm looking forward to PPC/OS4 powered rickshaws!
I think he meant that is how he is making inroads into Asia. You know, by car, by rickshaw, by machete (where necesssary).

@Mr A . Redhouse. Just a minor point.

Quote:

In addition the AmigaOne has a major inbuilt bandwidth benefit compared to normal PC architecture. This is because the transparent synchronous design of the Articia S allows direct memory-AGP transfers without suspending cpu-memory operations as is required in the x86 world. Just ask any user who has installed the same version of, say, PPC Linux on an 800 MHz AmigaOne and a PC of 3x that clock speed as to which is the most responsive. The A1 wins every time.

- Mr A . Redhouse, Nov 2003.

To quote nVidia's IGP TwinBank Memory Architecture for the AMD K7(X86-32) platform.

III. The TwinBank Architecture
Crossbar Memory Controller
TwinBank consists of two independent 64-bit DDR-266 memory controllers (MC0 and MC1) to deliver a
whopping 4.2GB/s peak memory bandwidth**. This is four times the memory bandwidth of PC133 SDR
memory and over two-and-a-half times of single RAC 800MHz DRDRAM. The radical crossbar memory
controller enables CPU and GPU to concurrently access the two 64-bit memory banks and is optimized for
64-bit CPU and GPU accesses to ensure near perfect bandwidth utilization. The two memory controllers
are interleaved so that consecutive CPU memory requests can be started before the previous one is
completed, reducing CPU read latency. The TwinBank architecture allows the two independent 64-bit
memory controllers to access 128-bits of data on each clock cycle using DDR memory, effectively fetching
256-bits of data total on each clock cycle. Since the high-performance CPU and GPU data types are
optimized for 64-bit access, both can access the two memory banks simultaneously and independently,
fully utilizing available memory bandwidth. The average read latency of the CPU is now greatly reduced,
which increases both graphics and system performance. Without this type of architecture, there would be
tremendous bottlenecks in the system with the high-performance CPU and GPU both struggling for
access to valuable system memory bandwidth.
- (1)


the end-user has the option of using an even more powerful
external AGP GPU, such as NVIDIA?s GeForce3, which also takes full advantage of the TwinBank dual
independent 64-bit memory controller architecture for dramatic increases in performance.
- (1)

This optimization is on top of NVIDIA's "dynamic adaptive speculative pre-processor" (DASP)(2).

Applying generalization in relation X86 markets is not recommended in the light of intense competition in the X86 market.

Reference.
1.
NVIDIA nForce IGP TwinBank Memory Architecture, Pages 5,7.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/LO_20010528_5545.html
2. http://www.nvidia.com/object/dasp_tech_brief.html

**Minor updates; Corresponding bandwidth increases with PC3200 and DDR400 FSB.

Can one realistically apply "The A1 wins every time" (in regards latency) for the Opteron/AthlonFX/Athlon64 X86 based systems?

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This is because the transparent synchronous design of the Articia S allows direct memory-AGP transfers without suspending cpu-memory operations as is required in the x86 world.

I don?t think one could fit both CPU?s bandwidth (e.g. 3.2GB/s) and AGP?s bandwidth (e.g. 2.1GB/s for AGPX8) on a single channel 64bit bandwidth (e.g. 3.2GB/s). The Northbridge?s bandwidth must at least equal the aggregate bandwidth of CPU and AGP for concurrent access. NVIDIA's dual channel controller enables this for AMD K7?s case. Bad luck for VIA K7 KTxxx users.

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Quote:

Let's see a P IV should be available then that runs at 5.7 GHz!!!!!!!

Market forces dictates that Intel has to respond to AMD?s current K8 and future 90nm K8s (demoed at Comdex)?

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Oh for the love of god Hammer, put your self in the shoes of the person you are critisizing before you hit the reply button.

Now what is Alan, he's a sales person, and when talking to the general and unwashed public he can't mention every eception to his statements. Kind of like a Scientist holding an open and public lecture can't be 100% precise and has to use sweping approximations and such to try and explain what he means. Just think of how it would look if he'd mention all the exceptions to each and every statement he would make, or if Apple would mention every manufacturer that might theoretically have released a 64-bit desktop before them in there commersials.

If he was talking to Arstechnica then you might have point, but even so making those kinds of generalizations are still utmostly human. Even thoug in that particular case they do would be most unfortunate.

Quote:

Oh for the love of god Hammer, put your self in the shoes of the person you are critisizing before you hit the reply button. Now what is Alan, he's a sales person, and when talking to the general and unwashed public he can't mention every eception to his statements

That was not an exception since nForce core logics is currently in use in MS?s X-BOX (consumer electronics) and X86 PCs (AMD K7 Athlons). Also, the supplied quotes were from the NVIDIA?s marketing materials (sigh). Integrated Northbridges in the latest Transmeta and AMD K8 complicates the situation.

I did recognize Alan?s statements which corresponds with the statements from Motorola/MAI?s marketing materials (1). .

I didn't presume Alan to be ?just a normal salesman? (or a ?shopkeeper? as labeled by a certain group of people). A good sales person has to know some of the basics in his/her industry.

Reference.
1. http://e-www.motorola.com/files/sndf/doc/reports_presentations/SNDF2003_DALLAS_A2513.pdf

Quote:

If he was talking to Arstechnica then you might have point, but even so making those kinds of generalizations are still utmostly human. Even if it in that particular case they, should be most unfortunate.

The quotes was not Arstechnica...

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I wonder what naya have planned

Good to know that at this stage, there will be some form of identity Here is hopeing they sell in there thousands so that we can have a proper case

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Let us all start pushing Alan so we can see ATI's Mobility 9000 being used in the mini ITX!!!!

Pushing? I thought shoving wads of cash into his pocket would be more effective!

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Quote:

I think he meant that is how he is making inroads into Asia. You know, by car, by rickshaw, by machete (where necesssary).

er I realised that. Merely bending his answer as he bended his answer to the original question.