Two New Mainboard with MPC7448 Soon?

[Matt_H]

Perhaps someone could explain why the UD Tech board's PCI slots are facing in opposite directions?

The specs are nice, but the board layout doesn't look ready for the consumer market - hopefully this will be addressed.

[Matt_H]

This is an Evaluation Board which is aimed for Developers and not for Enduser.

Exactly, but if I'm reading that article correctly, Troika is going to be selling *that* board to OS4 endusers, not something based on it. To me, that says "bad idea" - no one will take the Amiga seriously with hardware like that.

And ACK's board doesn't sound so great either. A bare board with a gazillion slots on it is a huge step backwards - that's how PCs were sold in the 286 days. Hopefully their "2007" board will be better.

That being said, the prices seem fair given the insanely low production volumes.

[Matt_H]

@ SHADES

Yeah, it is just my opinion :-)

It's just what i'm looking for. If you want high speed USB, plug it in. if you want a mulit I/O plug that in. Dual NIC? Firewire?
Digital Tuner, Hi Res toaster etc etc etc.

Okay, suit yourself. I'd rather have things onboard, though. And here's why:

At least people won't have to pay for features they won't need or want, they just add in what they do want to use. A most perfect solution for me and i don't have to pay for that stupid on board slow firewire port that perhaps you do want.

The problem is we're still locked in to specific components - none of these boards ship with Amiga drivers, so we need Amiga developers to write them for us. And when the manufacturers phase out and replace their cards with new designs, well, there goes the argument that PCI hardware is cheap and plentiful. Amiga drivers don't exist for the new card - I still need the old one. And I can't go to my local PC megastore and get an SIL680 card - I still need to get it from an Amiga dealer. Look at how much trouble people have had finding a Radeon compatible with OS4. Mounting essential items onboard eliminates these problems.

I totaly dissagree with you here I'm afraid. Just because something is expandable doesn't make it old technology either. I'd like to see a G4 expandable mainboard that's from the 286 days
Nothing backward about it.

Don't get me wrong, I love slots, it's just that I'd rather be filling them with fun things like MPEG decoders and TV tuners, rather than essential system components like IDE and USB.

[Matt_H]

@ SHADES

I think you misunderstood my argument a bit. I'll try to be a little less convoluted:

1. Dozens, if not hundreds, of different IDE PCI cards exist. Dozens, if not hundreds, of different USB PCI cards exist. Dozens, if not hundreds, of different Firewire PCI cards exist. Etc.

2. With the limited resources of the Amiga developer community, we'll see Amiga drivers for one, maybe two, IDE or USB or Firewire cards, tops.

3. The manufacturers of those cards don't give a damn about the Amiga.

4. The manufacturers of those cards stop producing them in favor of new ones - for which the Amiga driver is incompatible. This has already happened with PCMCIA Ethernet cards.

5. Thus we're back to tracking down old, compatible parts on eBay and paying far more than they're worth.

But, by putting all those things on the motherboard, the Amiga hardware manufacturer would have to be insane not to ship drivers for them. The user only has to buy one item - the motherboard (er, and hard disk) - to have a ready-to-go system.

My Z3 fastlane wasn't made by commodore and it came with it's own driver.

Right, but it was designed from the beginning to be an Amiga product. PCI cards aren't. See points 3 and 4.

It won't make a difference if a new mainboard gets produced with a new ATI on board that's not compatible Vs a new ATI graphics card put in to the PC.

If the ATI circuitry is to be integrated to the Amiga motherboard, the manufacturer sure as hell better make it compatible! Look at the A1 (controversy aside): drivers exist for all its onboard components. Look at the Pegasos: drivers exist for all its onboard components. But with all the subtle variation between AGP Radeon cards, Amiga developers have had a really hard time making everyone's card work 100% properly.

The good thing about the expandable PC is u can always put your compatible card back in till the new driver is released.

In the case of this hypothetical Amiga, IF you already have a compatible card. IF a new driver is ever released. See points 5 and 2.

And with an expandable system, you could do that.
Better than 1 or 2 slots and having to compromise on what's going in to them.

Yes! Right! See, I think we actually do really agree here. I'm saying that a board should have essential components integrated AND have around 4 slots. That way, developers can focus their efforts on producing drivers for fun expansion cards rather than trying to support all the different IDE/USB/Firewire cards that people might end up buying.

[Matt_H]

@ SHADES

I think we're getting closer to understanding each other :-)

If you're talking about supporting existing IBM-clone/PC hardware, that's a totaly different story, but it wouldn't be developed for AMIGA then or by an AMIGA - HARDWARE company would it.

Yes, it would be great if we could have different manufacturers producing competing IDE cards for the Amiga, but our market's far too small. Plus no Amiga hardware gurus are going to develop their own IDE boards when so many exist already.

Who says u have to buy a PC graphics card. Someone may make Picasso07-3d that is AGP complient or PCI-X form factor. Nothing to do with ATI. Or perhaps NewTec make a toaster to plug in to pci-X. They provide their own drivers.

That'd be totally cool, but not economically or competitively viable. ATI, nVidia, etc. literally have armies of researchers and engineers at their disposal. An Amiga developer couldn't possibly match their collective capabilites.

So? will those cards be somehow inferior because they are from AMIGA H/W manufacturers? perhaps those cards will have USB/FIREWIRE/Paralell/Serial/PS2 all on one card?

No, they're not inferior, they just don't exist. If an Amiga developer were to produce such a board, it'd cost just as much as an expensive Zorro board because of the low production volume. The point of PCI is that it's a universally accepted, cross-platform standard. If Amiga hardware people are going to be building their own PCI cards (unique products like the Catweasel excepted), we might as well just go back to ZorroIII.

Oh, but a motherboard manufacturer does?

If they're intending to sell that board as an Amiga they should!

I'll have a USB3 card thanks. And it will be just as compatible because the manufacturer will be designing the card for AMIGA OS and provide the driver with the hardware or they wouldn't make the card.

In this case, it'd be cheaper for a developer to write a driver for an existing card.

So plug in a card that does work.

Got to find one first.

If it was soldered to the mainboard, you be stuffed.

No, because the motherboard would have been sold with drivers.

My point is that by offereing add-on cards as another avenu for development wil encourage further hardware to be made for AMIGA by AMIGA hardware companies and allow those companies to compete for better and better designs

And my point is that the pool of Amiga developers is stretched far too thin - if we don't have the resources to write drivers, how can anyone be expected to design and manufacture redudant PCI hardware from scratch?

[Matt_H]

Amendment to the above: The short, short version

We can't possibly support all PCI hardware, so that which can be supported should be integrated into a new motherboard to preemptively solve eventual supply shortages. This applies to critical system elements only: IDE/SATA, USB, basic sound. This frees up developers from the task of writing drivers for basic operation and allows them to work on interesting peripherals and expansions.