Genesi announces completion of April (TM) chip for Pegasos

[Hattig]

Yeah, what does this "April" chip do?

Guesses: hardware dongle for MorphOS - MorphOS will only run on motherboards with an April chip on-board, i.e., the Pegasos.

Maybe it is a PCI chip that offers USB2, Firewire and something else?

Or AGA on a chip?

Who knows. The whole press release is fluff. I bet they are orgasming over on ANN over this chip that no-one knows the purpose of.

[Hattig]

The current southbridge on the Pegasos only offers USB1, and the Firewire is on another chip. So by making a single ASIC with both USB2 and Firewire, and perhaps other functionality on it, they can add more features to the motherboard without needing more board space.

However I don't expect this to be what this Fool(tm) chip does.

[Hattig]

2. The April can do more than the Articia alone -- did you guys miss the AA part?  It is a lady's name! OK, seriously, we will clarify this in Aachen.

What does it do? Simple Question. No Answer. All too familiar.

And OpenFirmware - who cares. At least the AmigaOne will properly initialise all PCI cards with x86 ROMs.

"Better" form factor and layout? Says who? If a case is ATX then it can hold both ATX and MATX boards, so there is no problem there. And at least an ATX case gives you enough space to put drives. And better layout - surely this is subjective, and I had heard rumours that the "better" layout had caused some issues in the past that needed to be fixed.

And that is how most computers work. Nothing special with Pegasos.

And finally, what does this vapor "Alice" chip do? Otherwise what is the point of the press release, apart from to create threads against bThenesidicfranceplan?

[Hattig]

Oh, right, so I would want to use a £300+ Pegasos for x86 instead of a £100 motherboard with USB2, Firewire, Serial ATA, 5 PCI slots, APG8x, etc, for what reason exactly?