| Posted on 24-May-2001 21:04 GMT by Christian Kemp | 20 comments
View flat
View list |
.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with bplan on Amiga Future, it was only named together with "licensed system" and "pre-built system") I will buy an outdated Firewire I/O.
Sure, not much outdated, just a little.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 |
| PEGASOS' : Comment 16 of 20 | ANN.lu |
| Posted by Joe "Floid" Kanowitz on 25-May-2001 22:00 GMT | In reply to Comment 15 (.jon):
With regard to Ralph Schmidt's response... general agreement, and a minor 'ouch' on the PPC bus speed front... Obviously, the whole chipset scene is utterly different from Wintel, and I suppose I do get to run my Thunderbird 850 at 133MHz DDR ("266MHz") because the officially-133MHz Athlons exist (there'd be no KT133A without them)...
Now, to the issue at hand-
>Zaurus - It gets dealed by several naive people like a "new Amiga".
>"Content Delivery" - this is very thin ice. There is no fixation involved.
>I would not be surprised if I'd hear somewhere that Sharp has abandoned the >'kiddy' Amiga market.
Amiga Inc. has a tough mission; Bill and Fleecy want to support the legacy crowd while also making steaming piles of cash. :) I really liked the sound of the DE, as initially announced, although it was always obvious that it'd be hard to pull off. So, between the lack of real cooperation from Tao (and Tao's apparently found protected mode to be enough of a headache to avoid for a long time, now) and the whines from some of the community, it gets officially niched to make room for OS4.
The thing is, the DE really is marketable; it's what commercial developers always wanted from Java. (Hopefully, it'll be up to speed before regular Java implementations fully catch up to it.) It's an Elate 'distribution' at heart, but when they finally get the APIs in place, it's the difference between running... say, FreeBSD 3.5 and OS X. [Not quite so, but effectively so for the user- and if Amiga Inc. can become Tao's #1 client, they'll really acheive the 'partnership' status they hope they have, and Tao will be friendlier when it comes to extending their system for Amiga... Apple was able to 'evolve' much faster, since they could just take the BSD codebase and spit out Darwin.]
Think about this- services like i-Mode really *are* popular in Japan; American and European users don't get to play with all the weird games and applets (i-Mode makes a good example, because it's proprietary to NTT DoCoMo) because nobody's running an i-Mode service in those regions.
If the DE gets established on Zaurus, it not only enters a niche where it's welcome, but all that software ("content" works here; the first wave of popular DE programs will probably be equivalent to Macromedia Flash-based games and such) becomes accessible to, say, Palm/WinCE/Psion users elsewhere, and to anyone with Windows/Linux/BSD/whichever who feels like fiddling with it on their desktop.
Eventually, the system will be mature (or Amiga will go bankrupt ;)), it'll become a no-brainer for the development of bigger games/entertainment projects (count the number of ports that have to be made per year in the games market, versus those for applications software- a game has to run on PSX, PSX2, Dreamcast, XBox, Gamecube, GBA?, Windows, MacOS (now two flavors), and Linux to cover the full market- at least applications developers only have to worry about the *computer* platforms, not the consoles too..)
It does seem a bit specious, but you have to remember that Jay Miner always said the motive was to bring better gaming to the masses- making the Amiga into a computer over a console let people write it off on their taxes :) 'Kiddy' stuff can be big business.
>80iesHomeComputer, 00ies = HomeServer ?
I'd say it's more like- 1980sPersonal Computer; 1990s = Internet; naughts = Personal Network.
Even normal people are wiring their homes for ethernet (watch any home-improvement show, at least on US television)... Eventually, Bluetooth will come out of vaporware, cellular/PCS/3G data networks will stop sucking (and that doesn't stop some people from using them now)... In the '90s, it was impressive to connect to the global network; now it's about people taking their own data, and their own systems, and making them interconnect in a useful manner. People were doing this in the 90s, but it was mainly a business thing- just as computers themselves were, before Commodore and Apple showed up to the party.
Home servers are just one (optional) part of it all. After all, we can multitask- my personal network, such as it stands, uses only 2 servers- one is on the other side of the country, hosting a website, and the other is a grungy 486 serving DHCP and getting rigged up for some routing. Everything else is a peer. The existence of a server is not, in itself, the sexy part- it's what the server can enable.
Woah. That's a long rant. No more ANNing for 24 hours, I swear :) |
|
| List of all comments to this article (continued) |
|
- User Menu
-
- About ANN archives
- The ANN archives is powered by #AmigaZeux. It was updated daily (news last: 22-Oct-2004; comments last: 18-May-2005).
ANN.lu was created, previously owned and maintained by Christian Kemp, www.ckemp.com.
- Contribute
- Not possible at this time!
- Search ANN archives
- Advanced search
- Hosting
- ANN.lu was hosted by Dreamhost. Sign up through this link, mention "ckemp" as referrer and he will get a 10% commission on any account you purchase.
Please show your appreciation for any past, present and future work on ANN.lu by making a contribution via PayPal.
|
