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[News] About TwisterPPC and Escena...ANN.lu
Posted on 11-Feb-2000 21:27 GMT by Christian Kemp19 comments
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According to a recent discussion in comp.sys.amiga.misc, Titan Computer's TwisterPPC was cancelled because there were too many PPC projects. Apparently, the Escena board is nearly finished.
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 1 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Len on 10-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
GEEz. I'm glad to see someboby is going to
build a ppc board, my old WarpEngine is getting
very tired. We really only need ONE, as long as
it's a good one.
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 2 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Robert Simmonds on 10-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
PPC cards are not my concern. The amijoe from met@boxshould satisfy most peoples need for speed sufficiently until the amiga boxes are ready. What i am concerned about is the serious lack of ways to add a graphics card the the A1200. I know the A1200 was not designed for what we use it for today, but I feel someone could make some money by making an 040/060 68k only card, with a PPC-style gfx card connector on it. Or, to look at it another way, how about producing a small 4 mb gfx card to fit onto a Blizzard 68k board's SCSI expansion connector?
A fast processor is no good when tied down with AGA.
Robert Simmonds, Editor of AS http://www.amigashowcase.org.uk
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 3 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Paul Laycock on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
Theres supposed to be a 3D graphics card being developed which fits
between the motherboard and an accelerator. Don't know anything else
about it though. Probably just a rumour.
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 4 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Rick Pezzimenti on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (Robert Simmonds):
You are absolutelty right. As a current PPC/cvisionppc owner, there is no way in hell i would consider buying a g3/g4 card if i wasn't able to add a graphics card to it (not a zorroii/iii based one, too slow).
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 5 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Johan Rönnblom on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
Escena board nearly finished? Yeah, that's probably why they didn't
bother to update the webpage since March 12 1999. It says more
information would follow, probably "within the next two weeks". Right!
Maybe phase5 delays were not that bad after all.
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 6 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by ElectroPig on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
Personally, I'd be much more interested in what is going to be developed for the NEXT GENERATION machines myself...I mean, sure it'd be nice to have the ol' 2000 running at warp speed...but if there's GOING to be a replacement, shouldn't we concentrate our investments on add-ons to THAT hardware, rather than the old one? This is not to say that there's no VALUE in the old girl...she runs fine, and I'd LOVE to see it running "a hell of a lot faster" than it does now. It's just that logic has to come into play, as does finance, as does common sense...as does a new platform. I hope the "new" Amiga is it.
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 7 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Björn Hagström on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Paul Laycock):
That would be interresting. Just to get out of the AGA-hell I'm in. I'm not
really interrested in PPC for my A1200 so a BlizzardPPC/BVPPC combo isn't
something I'd spend my savings on to get a decent display. The 'future'
just isn't an A1200 motherboard from the early 90's expanded with a PPC-
board.
A simple gfxcard between the A1200 expansion port and my Apollo 1240 would
be alot more useful to me.
Something like, 2-8MB gfx-memory 1280*1024 24bit Maximum.
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 8 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Jürgen on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Björn Hagström):
Well, that was the Zorro4 board ment to be. It has 2 fast Z4 slots (looking like
NuBus, though) which should be about 1.5-2x the Z3 speed (BTW: that's about what
the through-put of the BVision is about from a 68K side). Mr. Christ was working on
a cheap Picasso4-A-Like board for it (about DM 200,-) but hasn't finished that
yet (though he said the design was ready but no real silicon yet). IMO it would
be more interesting to have a BVision/Z4 available. (Problem on Z4 is, it is
limited to the Z2 adressrange of 8MB! But that's where a BVision/Z4 would
perfectly fit in). Combined with a G3/G4 that would rock - well for a while.
And one could upgrade to that machine step by step. ... well ...
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 9 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Tony Gore on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Jürgen):
But what's the point in Z4? It is a different type of buss so most would have to buy some sort of expansion chassis and probably pay 3 times more for a board that uses chipsets that were outdated 3 years ago, and still have to wait for drivers and software support. Why not use the industry standard PCI or better yet AGP, so you could buy an off the shelf card like the GeForce256 or Voodoo3, 4 or whatever. Then things could stay more current with the evolving market without having to wait for "Amiga specific" versions of these cards years after they have faded from sight on other platforms?
If someone could build a replacement "riser card" for my A3000 which replaced the Zorro slots with PCI and AGP, I would say goodbye to Zorro instantly. Think of what it would be to be able to instantly have use of the latest AGP 3D cards on the market like the Geforce or TNT2 Ultra and plug them into your existing system without costing 4-5 times as much. No more waiting on companies for _years_ to produce a graphics card. Just go down to the local PC store and buy the latest and greatest board of choice. Combined with even the current PPC board they would truely make your Amiga rock! And as far as drivers go, I've heard it said that reference drivers can be written by a good programmer with the board specs in a few hours time...I'm not a programmer, so I cannot even say how accurate that is, but it would be nice.
But if anyone could figure out how to do such a thing, even if it's possible, there would probably be new Amiga POP based systems or Boxers on sale before it would see reality. Oh well, it don't hurt to dream.
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 10 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Tony Gore on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (ElectroPig):
>>Personally, I'd be much more interested in what is going to be developed for the NEXT GENERATION machines myself...I
mean, sure it'd be nice to have the ol' 2000 running at warp speed...but if there's GOING to be a replacement, shouldn't we
concentrate our investments on add-ons to THAT hardware, rather than the old one?<<
For most, the answer is probably yes. In fact, I just recently built my own PC with an ABIT BX-6 mother board with 100mhz fsb, 400Mhz Celeron CPU,64MB Ram, Dual USB, 56k modem, 3Com 100T Fast Ethernet card, Adaptec 2940UW card with ultra wide scsi drives, Internal ZIP (scsi), 16-bit sound card, and 128 bit 2D graphics card(already had the sound an PCI graphics). Next I plan to replace the sound card with a Diamond MX400 (128 voice, surround sound, dolby digital 5.1, hardware wavetable, etc..), and a next gen AGP 3D graphics card...either the Geforce256, Savage 2000, or Voodoo 3. Still got to decide. I was reluctant to put money into the PC, but you see, this probably _will_ be my next Amiga! After all, the Amiga/TAO OS will run on this exact hardware! So while I may really want a PPC machine, this whole system complete with a new ATX case has given me every single modern convenience that I want in my next Amiga, and I can use it right now. And while it is a PC running that crappy MS OS right now, in a few short months, it will morph into a Next Generation Amiga. It may not be the Ultimate Amiga system, but it's a hell-of-alot more powerful than my old A3000 (which has an 040/25Mhz, 16MB Ram, 4GB HD, CV64/3D, and Ariadne II ethernet card).
For less than what I would have had to pay for a P5 PPC card alone, I've constructed my own next gen system. Now all I need is the Amiga/TAO OS...And if that falls through, I'll just run BeOS or Linux on it. :)
Sorry, didn't mean to rant...
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 11 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Robert Simmonds on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Jürgen):
To be honest, I dont want a Zorro Expansion. I have a network card, i have a faster serial port, I have the option to fit a Sound card and SCSI 2 expansion. I just want a Graphics card. currently, it is impossible to add a gfx card to a A1200 for less than £300. This seems extornionate to me. I was considering getting a PPC card JUST for the nice little graphics card that comes with it. However, I am not a gamer, and my main use for my amiga is internet (IRC and Email, plus HTML design) and Graphics. All the graphics packages i use are 68k anyway. A Graphics card that goes between the 68k board and the amiga on the expansion port would be ideal for me, and i hassen to add a lot of other people too.
Robert Simmonds, Editor of AS http://www.amigashowcase.org.uk
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 12 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Robert Simmonds on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Tony Gore):
Unfortunately, a new "Riser Card" with AGP and PCI is nearly impossible. the amiga runs on a 14mhz motherboard. Now the slowest PCI runs at 33mhz, so the bottle neck would be quite bad. secondly, AGP is fairly closely tied to the Intel Architecture, and licences for AGP are nearly impossible to come by, even if you CAN afford them. most non-Intel PC motherboards have been reverse engineered to get AGP compatibility, hence some boards not liking some AGP cards. AGP x2 runs at 66mhz, and AGPx4 runs at nearly 133, which pushes even PC motherboards to the limit. These are just not feasible on current amigas.
Robert Simmonds, Editor of AS, http://www.amigashowcase.org.uk
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 13 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Mark Olsen on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (Robert Simmonds):
> Unfortunately, a new "Riser Card" with AGP and PCI is nearly impossible. the amiga runs on a 14mhz motherboard.
Who says it has to be directly connected to the motherboard ? Why not add it to the cpu board ?
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 14 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Robert Simmonds on 11-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 13 (Mark Olsen):
True, it could be added to the CPU card, like they are doing with the G4 systems. But i assume to replace the "Riser Card" it has to interface into the Motherboard, onto the motherboard Bus? hence it would be limited to 14mhz.
But i see what you are saying! =)
Robert Simmonds, Editor of AS, http://www.ammigashowcase.org.uk
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 15 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Bolton Peck on 12-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
Greetings
I believe that ZorroIII is not directly tied to mobo timing, at least not like ZII.
It can be made to go as fast as the CPU and cards on the bus can handle, up to a practical max of about 50MB/sec
on current implimentations. (Dave Haynie please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), up to a theoretical max
of 125MB/Sec. or so, not too shabby! What needs to happen, but probably never will, is for the current, crappy Buster
chip to be fixed. That, I believe, would also make the CPU slot alot faster. Also, ZorroIII timings are based on the master
clock crystal at 28.xxxMHz. In other words, ZorroIII could achieve PCI speeds with a new Buster, so that and a new PCI/ZorroIII
riser card would very much strike my fancy. Such an enhancement would make a faster PicassoIV expansion 3D card (than the VoodooI unit
planned) a practical reality as well. Or, for that matter, the promised PPC expansion for said PicassoIV, as long as we're dreaming...
That, or the BoXeR board. I hear its coming soon..
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 16 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by XDelusion on 12-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
I agreee with that one dude up there, Amiga has some very Very nice Hardware, and on top of it all, it is very stable, but on the other hand, he is absolutly right, we are not going to capture the market by making new hacks to up the BUS speed, and use AGP (which I am now seeing as not necessary ATM, VooDoo3 and up supports PCI just fine), for a limited amount of computer users who still choose to cling to there old, duck taped hardware, despite how well built it may be, and renovating it may or may have been.
I myself build my own PC's and have them doing everything from being networked, to having tons of Gb's of storage space, to watching TV, DVD, Real Audio, Playing Mp3's Emulating about any Game system or computer to one degree or another, to generating my own musick with virtual realtime synthesizers, drum machines, ect. I can burn CD's, Digitize Video, play the latest & greatest video games with little or no Lag, ect. ect. ect., And all this for a meat phew hunred dollers, given that I build the machines myself, and get the parts at whole sale which is not hard to do for anyhow if you take the time to browse the web.
Anyhow, my whole theory on this is, that 1, Amiga can not rely on it's old hardware, and if you think about it, I think they should leave the old Amiga clones up to 3rd party companies, and while Amiga Tech themselves, focuses on making the OS a Monitored Open Source, gaining 3rd party, and hardware support, advertisement (Linux can even be found at Wal-Mart of all places), and decision making on who's hardware to focus on and when, like right now, Transmeta and IBM seem to have things going on pretty well with there Hardware. If the stuff sales as cheap as the myths I am hearing (and prices will drop fast, they always do in the PC world) then these two companies would be a good place to start to implement Amiga OS on, in this way, we already have a qucik choice in out new AMiga, We have A: The Standard PC or Mac, B: THe Boxer, or and old schoool Amiga, or C:A revolutionary IBM/Transmeta super computer with multi-processors to take full and absolute advantage of the Amiga OS! This way we have choice, and we have the ability to make the most of our OS, no matter how poor we may be.
One other point of note. One thing Amiga needs to focus on is that there life could be very very short term, so we need to rush Amiga OS into Open source, before it potentially gets too late and it is lost forever, and totally lost all honor as a logical step towards the future.
There is my piece again, may not be written well, but I am tired and I iche, but seriously, think, Amiga was revolutionary back in 85 and up, but now we need to look where the experience and creativity is, apparetly the present Amiga staff is not over flowing with new hardware concepts, and they have to be aware that to focus on that first would mean instant death, also how are they to compete with the present, all ready thought out, totally revolutionary brilliance of Transmeta, and IBM?!!??!
Simple, and plain.
Amiga needs to be where Linux is now, but how are we going to get anyone to take it serious, when are Server capabilities are nill, we do have down time, we do not have much support for Jave, Flash ect., and the list goes on. It is going to be a long haul as far as I can see, lets start with open source, port it to standard PC as a start, and grab ahold of all the major open source drivers I.E. 3dfx Creative labs, ect. ect., And on top of this, Push the Netscape Amiga project HARD, and grab those Linux sources!!!!!!
Do what ever it takes just don't buy into Microsoft, keep it real, and keep it desireable!!!
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 17 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Frederik on 12-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
Never ever just use standard...
That is the PC solution, we do not need that on our AMiGA..
What we need is some new revolutionary HW, some thing that the PC wount ever have.
We can ofcourse use PCI and AGP, but in 6-12 month or so, the AGP will probably be replaced
by some thing new.
We have to invent our own HW, not just use the excisting, nothing new in just using
something that the PC industry wont even bather with...
Or maybe use the S-BUS..
/Frederik
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 18 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Tony Gore on 12-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
>>Never ever just use standard...
That is the PC solution, we do not need that on our AMiGA..
What we need is some new revolutionary HW, some thing that the PC wount ever have.<<
That is okay for a solution down the road. But too much time has been wasted. Amiga needs hardware to run on immediately as it is available. The only thing that won't take more _years_ of developing _is_ industry standard components.
If Amiga wants to develop proprietary hardware again and tie the OS to it, then in my opinion they are doomed. If the last six years hasn't been enough to convince people that proprietary hardware is the death of a system then I don't know what will. The chips and technology that are today concidered "standard" are hundreds of times more powerful than the classic Amiga hardware. The new Amiga OS may well be able to take better advantage of them than what WinXX can, and that is yet to be seen. Things have changed since the original Amiga's were introduced. People now _expect_ to be able to drive down to the nearest Best Buy Store and pick up the newest graphics card, or whatever it is they want to add to their system.
So, can Amiga introduce a new hardware platform that is truely revolutionary??? Maybe, but not at the present time. If they do, it will likely be down the road a few years. But then again, it will probably be using emerging industry standards or maybe even creating new ones. But there has to be enough users and confidence in Amiga as a company before the industry as a whole puts faith in them to define new standards. To get to that point, they have to show that they can push current hardware standards to their full potential, and I don't think we'll have a problem doing that.
The PC (i.e. Windows/MS) stole the thunder from Amiga years ago. They laughed at us for using GUI interfaces and a mouse. Then they took it. They laughed at us for being so "artsy-fartsy", and they took that too. They laughed at us for being just a "games machine", and they have taken that too. So, what do we do now.....We take their reasonably powerful hardware, and our great new Amiga/TAO OS and we take their _platform_ away from them! Once that's accomplished, then we can set new standards once again. Be patient. I think good things will come. I may be dreaming, but I hope I'm right.
About TwisterPPC and Escena... : Comment 19 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Tony Gore on 12-Feb-2000 23:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 13 (Mark Olsen):
>>Who says it has to be directly connected to the motherboard ? Why not add it to the cpu board ?<<
That is what I meant. I know it would never work going through the Amiga motherboard. But the riser could draw it's power that way, with some connecter (cable maybe?) that runs the PCI/AGP buss back to the PPC board. Then you could use standard full size PCI cards. I mean, if you are stuck with using "mini pci", that just drives the cost back up again. How many "mini pci" devices do you see on the local computer store shelves???
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