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[Rant] PEGASOS'ANN.lu
Posted on 24-May-2001 21:04 GMT by Christian Kemp20 comments
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.jon writes: I am a wondering why the PEGASOS is 'pronounced' as 'modular'. It is not. It is just a standard MicroATX board. Now, if you call PCI slots 'modular' then it might be okay for you. For me it isn't. When the PEGASOS was announced I was happy about the word 'modular'.
Because, so I hoped, we would get the long awaited modular system.

What we get is an (admittedly very nice) DUAL PPC MoBo (and I will get one if I do not find an alternative). I have been searching for a MoBo that has Firewire in addition to IRDA and Ethernet and all the other standard plugs onboard. I did not find one in neither CPU world, something was missing, either it had Firewire onboard but was missing the LAN or similar) so I was really lucky when I heard of the PEGASOS.

But: What is the userbase for such a board ? It is quite universal, true. But, regarding the fact that it has IEEE1394 (FireWire) onboard I would target it in first place to Video people, who, in addition, will benefit of dual CPU power. Plans I have are somewhat similar. I'd personally define the PEGASOS as a multimedia mobo.

Today I read about the release of the final IEEE1394b specification, which, at its best, means FireWire at four times the current max-speed. It will require new cables. New plugs. But remain compatible to the old signals in a special compatibility mode. First products are awaited in late summer/Q4.

So, when I buy a PEGASOS system ('cause, as it seams, you will not be able to buy the mobo solo (according to the interview with bplan on Amiga Future, it was only named together with "licensed system" and "pre-built system") I will buy an outdated Firewire I/O. Sure, not much outdated, just a little. It is not of a big concern, since Firewire itself is quite new. But where is the modularity ? Exactly this would be a case for modularity. If it would be modular, the Firewire could be replaced easily. Can it ? I guess not. Sure, I might be in error. Then I appologize. If not, I hope this will be read or told by/to someone responsible. Maybe the final Pegasos will include already the new standard ?

PCI/AGP is just not what I would name 'modular'. Then every and any PC is modular. Why name it than as a special feature ?

And I hope for a bit more fanatsy in future PPC mobos, by whoever they might be designed. World is changing... PPC is a bit 'special'. It is not an everyday's CPU. So I hope the underlying hardware will be special as well.

Since I am at it: My ideal PPC mobo would look like the PEGASOS.

  • 2 more PCI slots
  • IEEE1394b (even better: make the IO ports some module)
  • modular DSP option ?!
  • (modular) onboard U2WSCSI (option)
  • wake-on-lan/modem
  • special port for output of system diagnositcs and perhaps other data to LCD

Why not put all the extras on PCI ? Well, the PPC can be suficient at low speeds with less cooling. If I get a real modular mobo, that has anything onboard, I might even leave the PCI cards out and get a perfect multimedia/homebox. Noiseless, powerfull.

P.S.Christian, what about another PREVIEW button after the first preview ?

List of all comments to this article
Sorted by date, most recent at bottom
Comment 1Joe "Floid" Kanowitz24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 2Anonymous24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 3Fran24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 4Fran24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 5David Scheibler24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 6Amifan24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 7David Scheibler24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 8Anonymous24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 9Ralph Schmidt24-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 10Joe "Floid" Kanowitz25-May-2001 22:00 GMT
PEGASOS' : Comment 11 of 20ANN.lu
Posted by Ralph Schmidt on 25-May-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Joe "Floid" Kanowitz):
Yes..i`m the morphos "guy"..sort of:-)
I`ve looked at the VIA datasheet and it contains this
"PCI-toPCI bridge configuration on the 66Mhz PCI Bus", so
the additional 3 PCI Slots are on a bridge.
Yep..cirrus logic..i always mix them up with the ex x86 cloner cyrrus:-)
Yes..another reason is the formfactor as mini atx gives us a lot
possibilities.
About busspeeds...
As you probably know DDRRam boards for the PentiumIII have no real effect
instead of the AMD(expecially with the new SIS DDR chipset).
The reason is that the PIII memorybus only runs with 100/133mhz and not
with 200-266Mhz like AMD, so it can`t make any use of the DDR 2x clock.
Sure you could give AGP the additional bandwidth but well...up to now
i haven`t seen significant speed differences between 2x/4x in real
usage so it`s possible that there's also an interface bottleneck in
the gfxcards.
Besides that the primary reason 1997 for AGP was the usage
of the dma system to fake a UMA system where textures are kept in
the system memory but that`s too slow for gfxcards anyway so the only
data you usally send over a lot are the vector datasets and these
are processed with the cpu first which has to write them back to
the ram anyway before they can be send...chicken&egg situation:-)
I don`t really expect DDR support in Macs before there aren`t new
PPCs which have a new system bus and IBM's roadmap shows some
entries there.
Jump...
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List of all comments to this article (continued)
Comment 12.jon25-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 13.jon25-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 14.jon25-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 15.jon25-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 16Joe "Floid" Kanowitz25-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 17sutro26-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 18Anonymous26-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 19Casey R Williams26-May-2001 22:00 GMT
Comment 20Anonymous26-Feb-2004 01:07 GMT
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