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Offline SkippyTopic starter

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e3b Press Release
« on: March 24, 2003, 09:29:03 AM »
E3B is pleased to announce the successor ALGOR of its well known HIGHWAY Zorro USB controller. After several months of development we can present now a Zorro USB controller which is tailormade for Amiga Classic systems.

For reaching this goal we have switched to the most powerful non-PCI USB host controller which is available on the market now.

As usual E3B has tried to implement as much customer requests in this new product as possible. By using the new controller chip we could implement most of the USB protocol handling completely in hardware which reduces system load in the Amiga multitasking system. This is especially important for systems with "small" CPUs.

The request for higher data throughput could also be fulfilled. The ALGOR internally operates completely in 32bit technology and is addresses with 32bit accesses on the Zorro II bus.

As Amigas usually are operated with 32bit CPUs this implementation reaches data transfer rates on the USB side which are near to the theoretical maximum values. The ALGOR compares by this design with comparable PCI DMA solutions, even if only "small" CPUs like the 040 are used in the system.

ALGOR is shipped with an OEM full license of the famous USB stack Poseidon by Chris Hodges. The Amiga Award Winner 2002 is completing the ALGOR hardware with a field-tested software solution operating not only on Amiga Classic systems.
ALGOR is offering next to its USB functionality several expansion possibilities.

The HIGHWAY expansion port is also present on the ALGOR and can be used to operate the NORWAY ethernet module.

Moreover, a 512kB FlashROM has been integrated on the ALGOR to transparently include the USB stack Poseidon right after a system cold powerup.
This allows to boot an ALGOR equipped system right off USB mass storage devices, to use USB mice and keyboards during Early Startup Menu and to include system patches like those from OS3.9.

We have planned an end customer price for ALGOR (including 512kB FlashROM, a full licence of Poseidon and all necessary cables) of approx. 110 EUR.
Bundles together with the ethernet module NORWAY and various USB devices (like already offered with the HIGHWAY) are being planned.

ALGOR production has started right now.
Availability of boards will be announced after production has finished on all Amiga related news sites.

Originally Sourced: Amiga News DE
Homepage: e3b DE
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