I hope the dragon is released, or else this site of yours will be all in vain...

I would have been excited if the dragon was a standalone machine which could have the custom chipset emulation flashed to it.. I wonder if a PPC card is intended for this. I'm trying to fathom out why they would attempt to launch such an expansion - I dont see how they can recoup R&D with the classic market alone.

As with a plethora of gadgets these days it is hard to see where one product ends and another starts. Especially mobile phones / cameras / PDA's are such device ... s?

I wonder if maybe the Dragon would be better of, just as Bobson mentioned, to be the main unit and perhaps making the A1200 the addon for it's custom chips.

Anyway, I hope it comes out, and that it has a nice and low ... umm reasonable price.

Well I'd definately consider getting one for my classic Amiga. I'd rather get the Shark though, so I'll have to see. Maybe I'll get both and run two A1200s, one as purely a classic system and then the Shark as an OS4 system.

I hope both these expansions see the light of day.

Brian Hoskins

How very 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.

What's the level of compatibility with this thing on running 68k software?

_________________
Sam

I think compatibility will be pretty good. Only the missing instructions will have to be added but as I saw that the manuals for the chip talked in length about the chip and there is a developper kit I won't be surprised if Freescale allready had emulation code in the developper kit.

I mailed Elbox and according to them the thing is allready finished. With the new FastATA mk-III speeds of 16 MB/s are possible if you have a modern harddrive.

Also the Dragon has a diagnostic jumper to go back to A1200 mode so you can flash the BIOS if it has gone wrong( power faillure or something). That is a very important feature in my Opinion.

The release date of the Dragon is end of january because Freescale begins shipping the 4e halfway January.

The 4e is the most compatible by far because it has supervisor/user mode back and an MMU and FPU.

_________________
AmigaOne-XE G3 OS 4.
A4000 PPC
A1200 PPC

Why not use an embedded PPC like the MPC8540 and run OS4 instead of having 3.9 forever?

Sorry, I would have seem this interesting 2 years ago, but now it sounds as an expensive add-on.

An embedded PPC makes much more sense...

_________________
The only spanish amiga news web page/club: CUAZ

@Crumb

This piece of kit is for people that would like to see their old Amiga 1200 perform at an extraordinary rate. I'm one of those people and would like to have it.

This thing wasn't even possible half a year ago because the appropriate Coldfire wasn't available. As a path to the fututure it wasn't sensible 2 years ago. For that we need the PowerPC platform and a native OS 4. Phase 5 understood that in 1997.

I already have an AmigaOne-XE, I am a betatester and program for OS 4 which I don't intend to do for OS 3.9. Fact of the matter remains is that I wan't to see the old OS 3.9 run fast with hardware specially made for it.

_________________
AmigaOne-XE G3 OS 4.
A4000 PPC
A1200 PPC

I'm the same. I don't actually have an AmigaOne yet but I intend to get one either during January or February depending on how quickly I can pull the money together for it.

That said I wont be abandoning my classic Amiga equipment either and would like to continue to expand those machines for as long as it is possible. I understand the opinion that PPC would be better because then you can run OS4, but that's the end of the market that the Shark is aimed at isn't it?

I wonder what prices we're talking for the Dragon and Shark expansions...

Brian

I have AmigaOne and OS4 - and they are my main machine. But I also have a heavily expanded A1200, and don't mind pushing it to limits (again) with Dragon. There are few things missing in A1 software catalogue (like Radeon driver for VHI Studio) and I like the backwards compability A1200 motherboard allows (E-UAE is great but until it gets a joystick support I play my WHDLoad games on my A1200).

And before anyone whines "money spent on Dragon is money away from OS4/AmigaOne" - not true (at least here). I will happily support both original Amiga and AmigaOne/OS4 with my money

_________________
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." (Groucho Marx)