Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Marketplace => Topic started by: cynkronyze on August 26, 2006, 11:00:58 AM
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Hi Gang,
Just a few question,
1) Do you need any specific piece of hardware to play mp3 on the amiga desk top already fitted with with Blizzard PPC 603e scsi and a bvision graphics card.
I mean with all these installed i dont think there will be more space to install anything else in there. i want to keep it in the original desktop case.
2)what is a power flyer? what does it do
3) what is a scan doubler?
4) IS there a better expansion card than the one already mentioned.
5)will any cd-rom or dvd rom work with the A1200?
thanks guys,
Cynk
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1. No. You can play it with software. But a MASPlayer or clockport sound card would decode the MP3 through hardware and take the load off the CPU.
2. It accelerates the IDE port. You don't need it unless you have some IDE devices.
3. Allows you to display native Amiga screenmodes on any VGA monitor.
4. What 68k chip is on your PPC card? (040 or 060?)
5. Yes.
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moto
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1) A BlizzardPPC card is more than capable of playing MP3 without any additional hardware. Although a sound card would give you better sound quality than Paula.
2) A Power Flyer is an IDE interface for the A1200 giving you faster hard drive performance than the A1200's built-in IDE (which is notoriously slow)
3) A Scan doubler doubles the horizontal scan rate of the Amiga's PAL / NTSC screen modes from ~15Khz to ~31Khz, so that they can be displayed on a standard VGA monitor.
4) No, there is currently no faster expansion for the A1200 than the BlizzardPPC. There are some projects that have been 'in progress' for some years, like the SharkPPC, and the PowerVixxen, as well as a couple of Coldfire boards, but nothing has yet been seen and I wouldn't hold my breath for any of them (The ratio of new Amiga hardware announcements vs actual hardware being made available to buy is very low)
5) Yes. any IDE CDROM or DVDROM will work connected to the A1200's internal IDE via a IDE splitter or buffered IDE interface. You just need to install a CDROM filesystem like CacheCDFS.
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1) the PPC should be fast enough to decode mp3 in software.
2) a PowerFlyer aka FastATA is an IDE controller. It connects to the internal IDE controller and to some other chips on the mother board. It is much faster than the internal IDE bus and it offers two IDE channels (for a total of four devices).
3) a scandoubler doubles the horizontal scan frequency of the Amiga's video output so that the video signal can be displayed by a standard PC monitor.
4) the BlizzardPPC is the best accelerator for the A1200. The only faster Amiga CPU card which is currently available is the CyberstormPPC, but it is only available for the A4000.
The BlizzardPPC also is the only card where the BVisionPPC can be connected to, the only graphics card which fits into the A1200 desktop case.
However, Elbox have promised two new CPU cards, the Dragon which is equipped with a Coldfire CPU and the Shark, equipped with a PPC G3 or G4 CPU. Both need a tower case, though.
5) Yes, you can use any CD/DVD-/+ROM/R/RW drive with the Amiga. But you need an adatper because the A1200 motherboard has a small 44pin IDE connector (like in a laptop) while the CD drives need a bigger 40pin IDE connector (like in a desktop PC).
Bye,
Thomas
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THanks Everyone.......you guys are good!!!!!!!!!
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Just another note about the PPC accelerator. If your PPC card only has an 040 on the 68k side, then a PPC card with an 060 will make non-PPC code run more quickly.
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moto