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[News] Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers'ANN.lu
Posted on 29-Jun-2001 12:02 GMT by Christian Kemp19 comments
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Merlancia Industries wrote: Merlancia Announces strategic alliance with 'individual Computers' for the design of 'CLeo' circuitry...
Merlancia Press Release #MMC29062K1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

29th June 2001

Merlancia Industries
3516A West Cactus Road
Phoenix, AZ 85029 USA

1-877-53-AMIGA | ++1 602-789-0956
http://www.merlancia.com | merlancia@merlancia.com
--
individual Computers -Jens Schönfeld
http://www.jschoenfeld.de | jens@jschoenfeld.de
 

'Merlancia Industries' Announces Startegic Alliance with 'indiuvidual Computers'


Merlancia Industries is pleased to announce a strategic relationship with 'individual Computers'; to design a controller device that will be utilised on our Torro series systems.

The device, a custom chip controller, named 'CLeo' will be available as an add-on kit for the Pilot release systems (to be included with all systems shipping after it's release, and to be sent to all developer systems sold before-hand).

The 'CLeo" custom device is based on technology first implemented in individual Computers' 'CatWeasel' disc controller, and will allow the reading and writing of Amiga native disc formats (880k and 1760k) on our Tsunami system as well as future directives. Other formats will be supported as well including PC-DOS, and Macintosh-HFS.

We expect to have a prototype of this design at AmiWest Conference (28th to 29th July 2001- Sacramento, CA; USA) as well as our prototype Pilot system.

Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 1 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Mark Smith on 28-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
That is a good move, Jens seems to be a guy who trys to deliver on what he promises.
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 2 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 28-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Mark Smith):
I have a Zorro Catweasel and it works much better than the HD floppy
built into the A4000. And that is with a low price floppy drive from
the local shop.
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 3 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Ralph on 28-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
Ehhhmm - what is all the fuss about? It is nice - granted. Maybe it is faster than
the original Chinon-HD Floppy used in the A4000 - granted.
But what the heck - who is using Floppy discs anyway these days (except for emergency
boot discs). Most things run on Zip, LS-120, CD-R and Network these days. I do not want
to be one of those guys yelling "What for?" - but in this case i really wonder! If such
a chip could do a kind of Super-I/O and not only FD, it may be worth a word. But until
those mysterious "future directives" and "other formats" are not mentioned more precisely
i am asking myself how desolate the situation in the Amiga market must be if such a tiny
thing is worth a big press announcement ...
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 4 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Darrin on 28-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Ralph):
I assume that "most" Amiga users who upgrade to OS4.x+ via whichever method they chose will still want to play games like "Zenon 2 - Megablast" or "Speedball 2" under "classic" emulation AND load them from their good old 880kb floppy disk.
There is a huge amount of games/utilities/applications/demos out theer that people don't want to lose and that will not install on a hard drive to run.
I assume the AmigaOne will read Amiga floppies via the floppy controler on the A1200 board... correct?
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 5 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by HammerD on 28-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
I'm still looking for a firm "Yes" or "No" on the question of running Amiga OS 4.x and ZICO compliancy on this Merlancia machine...which is really a bplan motherboard.
HammerD
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 6 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by HammerD on 28-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (HammerD):
Scratch my last comment, I just saw the other news item posted by Merlancia!
BYE!
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 7 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Troels Ersking on 28-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (HammerD):
I guess we will have to wait until Amiwest to know if they want to use AmigaOS on the Pegasos MB. Their wait and see attitude in the other newsposting doesn't sound too optimistic:(
""AmigaOS 4/5:
We are unfortunately unable to release details on this currently, however, we hope to do so shortly; most likely at the AmiWest conference.
Let it be said currently that our system both meets and exceeds the Zico specification,as do all of our 'in development' systems.""
They don't even say that they would like to do so, just that their system exeeds the Zico specs.
Anyway I hope Amiga Inc, Merlancia, Eyetech, MorphOS, Haage & Partner and other relevant companies will get toghether and work something out. We can't risk to split the community once again...
Troels Ersking
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 8 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Casey R Williams on 28-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Troels Ersking):
I thought it had been apparent all along that they want to produce a machine which will run whatever OS Amiga produce. But, maybe they need to be more explicit when dealing with people who've put up with all we've gone through in years past. As for calling this a major announcement, I did not get that impression. I do feel that any system capable of running classic software and marketed to current Amiga users should be able to read Amiga disks. Otherwise I'd have just tossed out those many hundreds of disks years ago... Just goes to show that people (as a group) don't always even want what they claim to and trying to please them is almost an exercise in futility. I say to Merlancia: "You've got my attention, now bring out the product!"
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 9 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 29-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Darrin):
If it's running under emulation then there would be no problem
running the game from a disk image file - there wouldn't be the
problem that non emulated systems have at the moment, ie. OS killing
routines, goofy trackloaders.
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 10 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 30-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Ralph):
I've just been setting up an A4000 from scratch.
It couldn't have been done without floppies. Many of the programs I
wanted to install came on floppies.
A HD floppy is still a very convenient way to move stuff between an
Amiga and a PC. You can get all of a small web site on one floppy.
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 11 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Darrin on 30-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Anonymous):
I'm sorry, but to me "Disk Image File" mostly equals "pirate software". I still want to be able to read/write a real Amiga floppy disk by either attaching it to my AmigaOne (or similar) or by adding extra hardware that will enable a PC type HD drive to operate like an Amiga drive.
One of apples biggest mistakes with the IMac was thinking they could release it without a floppy drive as they thought floppies were redundant.
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 12 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Michael Taylor on 30-Jun-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (Don Cox):
Ack, man, I tried to leave you mail becaused I wanted some more info on the Zorro Cat you have. But since you put characters in the Email area I wasn't able. Anyway, where do you get that "hardware"?? My A4000 High Density floppy is going bad & I's REALLY like to have a GOOD drive again. Thanks.
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 13 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Mark Smith on 01-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (Michael Taylor):
Errrm, read the main article and click on the http://www.jschoenfeld.de/ (Individual Computers) link :-)
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 14 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 01-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (Michael Taylor):
Try the various Amiga dealers for Catweasel. Eyetech list only the
A1200 model but might order one for you.
As for the A4000, I am told by an expert that the likely cause of this
is failure of the buffer chips. The chips U353 &/or U355
( 74LS125A ) requires changing. This could be done by any repair
place that can handle surface mounted chips.
But the Catweasel gives much better performance. To boot from it, you
also need a Kylwalda (sp?).
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 15 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Marcel on 01-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (Don Cox):
Could also be dust in the drive. My A3000 floppy started "failing" a while ago. I took the drive out and noticed a whole bunch of dust in there. Cleaned out the dust (real carefully) and the drive worked perfectly after that.
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 16 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Michael Taylor on 01-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (Marcel):
Thanks for the info. I don't want to turn this into a Q&A or Hardware help section but the problem is my HD Floppy will "turn off" while a floppy is in the drive & (sometimes) back ON again. It won't do a correct format, & only Reads decently well. I've already pulled it out & cleaned it. Anyway, thanks for the info. I'll check into that. (Would prefer a HD in the A4K floppy area..)
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 17 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Phill Wooller on 02-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Anonymous):
sorry but thats a load of tosh.
one of the big problems with running from a disk image ( and I know people who are actively imaging 1541/1581 disks too ) is you need something to read them in the first place.
Having an old a1200 + monitor with software to transfer the disks isn't a very attractive option if you could build in support for free. It also gives you the ability to transfer disks from loads of other systems too ( old 800k mac disks etc ).
http://www.tim-mann.org/trs80.html was updated quite recently with a piece of software that uses catweasel ISA to read trs80 disks. so there is a demand for built in hardware support.
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 18 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Bob Washburne on 02-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Darrin):
>I'm sorry, but to me "Disk Image File" mostly equals "pirate software".
You are probably correct in the same way that "photocopy machine" mostly equals
"copyright infringement." But the fact that (many?) people use technology for evil
does not mean that it cannot be used for good. That is why photocopy machines
(and VCR's) are leagle in the US.
I am more concerned with the other side of the story. To me "floppy disk" mostly
equals "gone in a decade." I still play the games from my C64 and my Atari 2600.
But the media is close to the end of its life and the hardware won't be repairable
for much longer either. So what am I doing to preserve my property?
1) I purchased a CatWeasel. I will be using it to move my collection of
**PURCHASED** software from my extensive collection of C64 and Amiga floppies
onto CD Disk Image Files. The CD's should last much longer than the introduction
of the next generation storage technology. My software shall have gained immortality.
2) I am installing emulators on my Linux system. Stella for the Atari 2600,
VICE for the C64, UAE for the Amiga. Still a lot of work to go, but the initial
results are very encourageing.
3) Unfortunatley, emulators and DIF's can't handle disk based copy protection
schemes. So I will be searching the web for cracked versions of the software
which I own, just so that I can continue to use it once the floppy dies. I won't
have to do this for manual or code wheel based protection.
Eventually, the last Paula, Denice and Agnes will die with no spares to be found.
All that will be left will be the emulators. And without CatWeasel-like
technology there won't be any software. Unless you rely on the Pirate sites...
All that to say, "I think bridging technologies is a Good Thing."
Bob Washburne - Who is now going to take a break and play with his old
Gottlieb pinball machine, Abra Ca Dabra.
Merlancia Announces Strategic Alliance with 'individual Computers' : Comment 19 of 19ANN.lu
Posted by Franklin Cheney on 03-Jul-2001 22:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Ralph):
...this was a "big press announcement"?
bBWAHHAHAHAHAhaha!!! Sorry, I missed
the stunned look on Dan Rathers face... the
concern in Tom Brokaws voice...the stir at
the Pentagon... 8'0
Was this not an appropriate mention of
an existing, useful product, that is to
be enhanced to make transition to the
new PPC systems easier and more efficient
for those who still have and use floppys ?
CD-RW might be fine for 20K drivers and
and 200K utilities, but remember the size
of the Amiga pond, Nothing here is big...
yet...
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