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[News] 2 PPC options for the Prometheus?ANN.lu
Posted on 22-Nov-2001 17:06 GMT by Teemu I. Yliselä16 comments
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From the CyberGraphX homepage, originally posted by Grzegorz Juraszek of Matay to the Amiga-Prometheus mailing list: "Filip asked me to pass this information: Matay currently has two companies that are just waiting for busmastering in Prometheus to become true. After that, you won't have to wait more than one month for supporting drivers to appear (if no technical problems occur, which is never predictable). This means two PPC options for Prometheus. One may be the same PPC card as Shark (without a fishy sticker, though ;-). May be - I don't know the details and so, please, don't ask me about them. I hope this makes everything clear. Please note, similar information appeared at Matay's website months ago."
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 1 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 22-Nov-2001 22:25 GMT
"One may be the same PPC card as Shark (without a fishy sticker, though ;-)."
This hinting is not nice. The Shark and the SonnetTech card is obviously not the same. F.ex. the Shark has standard 3.3V SDRAM slots, and thus probably also a different memory-controller chip. BTW, I wonder if the card used by Matay is indeed of the SonnetTech. Just because the latter uses hard-to-find, pricely RAM modules.
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 2 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by James Carroll on 23-Nov-2001 01:04 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Anonymous):
They may not be the same...but the differences aren't that obvious.
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 3 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 23-Nov-2001 06:35 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Anonymous):
I agree.
If Elbox's specs (that I once saw somewhere) are valid, they've updated the Sonnet card.
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 4 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Grzegorz Juraszek on 23-Nov-2001 07:38 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Anonymous):
I see no reason why Shark wouldn't work with Prometheus, provided Elbox doesn't put any protection against it in the flashROM of the card. As for hinting: it is pretty obvious that if not the same, both cards are at least based on the same reference board (by IBM). That's why making drivers shouldn't be a big problem even if Elbox won't want to publish documentation (as usually).
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 5 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Nowee on 23-Nov-2001 11:17 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Grzegorz Juraszek):
I don't think it to be compatible for prometheus does not use the same kind of DMA access and channels. But anywayz, I think both Elbox and Maytay should shut it up. BOTH! We'll afford their cards, as long as it's worth, that's all I want to say. Thoose fratricid wars between all of us Amiga users and wrokers are pure sh*t.
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 6 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by David on 23-Nov-2001 13:46 GMT
Prometheus does not have any kind of busmastering, even between PCI slots.
PPC processor card in Prometheus could not access other PCI cards. So, there is impossible to use any PPC PCI card in Prometheus.
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 7 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Adam Kowalczyk on 23-Nov-2001 14:09 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (David):
If you've been at the Yahoo Prometheus Group recently, Krashan has indicated that Matay has been working on getting bus mastering working on the Prometheus. The board will have to have the PLDs reprogrammed to accomplish this. Looking at the hardware, it's provided with the ability to have them reprogrammed (CN6 and CN7). In my oppinion its a race to see who will have the first G3/G4 running AOS 4.0. I'm not sure who will get their first, bPlan, Eyetech, Elbox, or Matay. Bus mastering would have been a nice feature on the Prometheus out of the box since undoubtedly it wouldn't have been that hard to get it working. But I've been enjoying PCI cards in my A3000 for months now and have yet to hear if Elbox has started shipping the ZIII and A4000 versions of their Mediator. Having a Voodoo card in my A3000 for months will be worth the delay on bus mastering.
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 8 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 23-Nov-2001 22:40 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (James Carroll):
Looking at the images of the cards by bare eyes it is not, but looking at the specs it is..
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 9 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Frank on 24-Nov-2001 02:53 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Adam Kowalczyk):
Speaking of the A3000, I've seen that in order to use the Prometheus in the A3000 and A4000 you have to leave the case open.
Has anyone tried using a PCI riser so as to get the VGA, ethernet etc n a horizontal position? Would that allow the case to be closed? I've only seen the prometheus in pictures so I cannot measure it.
Anyone done this?
Frank
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 10 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by redrumloa on 24-Nov-2001 05:03 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Frank):
Hello there I have a A3000D with Prometheus board. What I did was buy a PC AT
Full tower, and convert it to use my A3000(D). Now I have my GVP I/O card,
Delfina Lite and Prometheus installed, all with the case closed. With this setup
I only loose 1 zorro slot with the case closed. This was my first attempt at a
tower conversion, and everything went pretty smoothly. I'm planning on doing
another conversion, this time using a PC ATX Full tower because most ATX Full
towers are a bit wider. This will allow me to use the Prometheus in the top
Zorro slot with the tower closed so i don't loose any slots at all.
I'd recomend all A3000D owners do a tower conversion. The A3kD case really is
too old of a design, there is no room for anything inside. With a full tower, you
have room for EVERYTHING. It's sweet.
Regards,
redrumloa
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 11 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Darrin on 24-Nov-2001 18:49 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (redrumloa):
This is really interesting. Would you mind conacting me directly via email to share the information on what you did and what problems you encountered? I intend to upgrade my A3000D with a PCI/OS4 solution and your experience in towering your A3kD would be invaluable.
Regards,
Darrin
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 12 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Frank on 24-Nov-2001 19:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (redrumloa):
Sure the A3kD case is small and old but there's no way I'm putting another tower in my room :)
I like the A3kD case's style too :))
That's why I was thinking about the PCI riser.
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 13 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by redrumloa on 25-Nov-2001 09:52 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Darrin):
NP, I am off to email..
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 14 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by AMIGA FANS on 25-Nov-2001 11:12 GMT
THE BEST CARD PPC IS: TOTAL IMPACT CARD
http://www.totalimpact.com/G3_MP.html
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 15 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by redrumloa on 25-Nov-2001 11:15 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (AMIGA FANS):
Total mPower 4 X 500 MHz G4 with 128 MB of SDRAM - TPG4-4500-128 $4,600
YIKES!!!!!!!!
2 PPC options for the Prometheus? : Comment 16 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Adam Kowalczyk on 25-Nov-2001 15:59 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Darrin):
Darin / Jim,
I've Towered my A3000D in Jan 2001 (before the Prometheus). I'd reccomend it to anyone, but using the Full Tower Case in the manner that I converted my machine, I loose 3 Zorro slots when using the Prometheus card (one obviously occupied by the Prometheus). The case is completely closed though with a Voodoo 3 card installed and room for the other 3 PCI cards. The case is just shy of 8" wide (an AOpen HX-08). If you're requirement is to use more than one Zorro slot, then look for something wider than 8". Note that at just shy of 8" I could almost have 2 Zorro slots left for personal use. The other thing to keep in mind about using the A3000D with a Prometheus card is forget about the Video slot (if youre going to use the original a3000 riser card).
It would have been nice to see someone have made a generic A3000/A4000 riser card replacement. This would be possible if it didn't include the video slot. I'm not totally confident the need is high for Zorro slots either. Personally, I would have liked to see a board similar to the GREX 4000D minus all but one zorro slot and minus the Video slot. Something that I described should have been easy to do and would have opened up more A3000 owners to usable PCI without having to tower their case (not that heat wouldn't have forced you to tower though). Once you tower an A3000, buying an A4000 motherboard and one of the off the shelf solutions looks like the easier path.
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