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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Hardware News => Topic started by: Seehund on October 27, 2002, 09:44:49 AM

Title: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Seehund on October 27, 2002, 09:44:49 AM
Individual Computers (http://www.jschoenfeld.de/) are announcing the Catweasel MK3 PCI/Flipper (http://www.jschoenfeld.de/products/cwmk3_e.htm).

This is a PCI and a Zorro card which will ultimately let your computer access more than 1100 different disk formats (of course including 880kB/1.76MB Amiga floppies) with a normal PC floppy drive!
It also has two 9-pin digital Amiga gameports and an A4000 keyboard port.

As if that's not enough, you can also install an on-board C-64 SID chip!

Listed price: 84.90 Euro. SID chip: 20 Euro.
Shipping starts Nov. 25.


Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: System on October 27, 2002, 10:02:30 AM
Sounds like a very useful addition to the AmigaOne I am intending to buy. I am sure alot of PEGASOS and AmigaOS XL fans/users have been waiting for such a great solution as well!  :-D
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: L8-X on October 27, 2002, 10:23:38 AM
Yep....I`ll be buying it too!

EXCELLENT!!!! :-D
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Orgin on October 27, 2002, 10:37:56 AM
Nice :)

Even just for the digital joystick support :)

/Björn
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Nick on October 27, 2002, 10:47:40 AM
COOL!! This board sounds damn cool. It does so much stuff. Shame I don`t have Zorro slots. Please
people. Buy one, buy loads of them. We need people to buy stuff and not just save for AmigaOne
stuff. I can imagine some time in the future some body like Eyetech will probably come up with some
PCI->Zorro converter anyway. Buy them!!
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: AmiGR on October 27, 2002, 10:53:36 AM
Well, it's a flipper card.
PCI/Zorro. A Zorro connector on one side, a pci
connector on the other side and a clockport
header somewhere in the card. You can connect
it to systems with either of those.
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Piru on October 27, 2002, 10:55:33 AM
@Nick

Err...

Why do you need zorro->PCI converter for this card? You can plug it to PCI and clockport directly.

...Just wondering if you read the actual news item.
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Quixote on October 27, 2002, 11:28:56 AM
;-) Now here's another useful item from the creator of the X-Surf card!  Cool.
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Seehund on October 27, 2002, 12:17:17 PM
This seems to be something truly awesome!

Apart from the impressive technical feat, it's got relatively promising commercial potential too. UAE on every platform with PCI slots, Amithlon, heck anyone with the need to read/write something on a crapload of different old floppy formats, using the el-cheapo floppy drive they've already got installed.
Plugging in that nicely cigarette-tar yellowed keyboard with the LED glowing friendly in the caps-lock key and no Windows symbols to some nice modern hardware is tempting too. And the old Wico joysticks... And those old electronic projects that should go in the joyport...

Maybe some musicians who are looking for a SID-station could be interested as well.
 
85 Euro is not too steep either.
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: seer on October 27, 2002, 12:24:05 PM
I hope they are not going to target this only at Amiga users... I'm sure other platform users that now run their favorite computer as an Emulator on a Wintel system would like a change to load their old floppies on it.. The more people buy this the better..
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: J on October 27, 2002, 12:32:12 PM
Cool! er....whats wrong with it? Seems too good to be true!!

I'll be getting at least one of these. I think it's a good price.

Now just need a good source of 'old' Amiga joysticks in the UK.

cheers,

J
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Kronos on October 27, 2002, 12:43:51 PM
I would really like if bPlan (and Hyperion for that matter) would
try to intregrate a kbd-driver into their flash so you could live
without any PS/2-keyboard at all.
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Bezzen on October 27, 2002, 01:35:41 PM
Wow!

The coolest card ever?  :-D
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Orgin on October 27, 2002, 01:45:04 PM
Hmm I wonder if it would be economical to either make A4k keyboards or standard PC PS/2 keyboards with Amiga layout.

Hmm, nah, would probably cost a fortune.. Would be neat to have though.

/Björn
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: System on October 27, 2002, 02:18:44 PM
@ Björn

What's wrong with the layout of PC keyboards?

However, there are PC keyboards available for which easily alternative keys could be created. Then it's a relatively easy task to create alternative Amiga, Boingball or help keys etc. They are easily replaced.
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Orgin on October 27, 2002, 04:46:32 PM
Nothing wrong with them really.  It's more of a Amiga-own-identity-feeling kind of thing.

Problem is that every country has its own layout so making like 20 keyboards for each country makes no economical sence.

/Björn
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: System on October 27, 2002, 05:04:52 PM
I believe German and US keymaps and layouts are the most commonly used, among Amiga users. So IMO there isn't a big obstacle here, so only a minority of users would need to familiarize themselves with German or US layouts if only such keyboards would be manufactured.

I know many people here in the Netherlands, who use a German keyboard layout, meanwhile using a US layout is common in my country.
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Kronos on October 27, 2002, 05:15:57 PM
Shortly after Amithlon had been released someone asked Cherry about
it, and the result was that it would only stay affordable if
more than 10000 units were produced.

NO chance  :-x
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: redrumloa on October 27, 2002, 05:58:13 PM
Quote
NO chance


Not in 2002, maybe 2003 or 04.
 ;-)
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: odin on October 27, 2002, 07:30:05 PM
I need 2! One for my 1200 and one for my PeeCee :-D.
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: J on October 27, 2002, 08:16:23 PM
Quote
I need 2! One for my 1200 and one for my PeeCee


No you don't - just stick your Amiga m/b upside down in your PC case  - and use PCI  [color=0000FF]and[/color] Zorro/clockport  :-D  :-D
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: kd7ota on October 27, 2002, 08:23:02 PM
YEA! I just read that it has a port for a SID chip... I love them tunes!  :-D
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Kronos on October 27, 2002, 08:38:55 PM
And now gues who financed this stuff .....

Hint:
Look at the german comments on Amiga-News.de :-D  :-P
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: System on October 27, 2002, 09:09:59 PM
Quote
And now gues who financed this stuff .....


Kronos, he meant funder of the Pegasos/MorphOS project, not funder of the Catweasel MK3 PCI/Flipper board project.

I wouldn't mind if Thendic was though, as long as I will be able to use the board for the AmigaOne I intend to buy, I will be happy.  :-)
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Kronos on October 27, 2002, 09:18:02 PM
@MikeB

Eh right  :oops:  :oops:
Sorry for the misunderstanding  :oops:  :oops:
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: CodeSmith on October 27, 2002, 10:52:24 PM
This sounds like one way cool board - I'm definitely getting one (sid tunes! woohoo!), and I might even get an A4000 keyboard for the 'complete' amiga feel :-D  (my current Amy is an A1200, so I can't exactly use *it's* keyboard).

Edit: Hmmm, I wonder if the attached keyboard will behave exactly like an AT keyboard (as in pressing 'Del' to enter the BIOS setup), or if it will need drivers?
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: odin on October 28, 2002, 12:31:14 AM
J said:
No you don't - just stick your Amiga m/b upside down in your PC case - and use PCI and Zorro/clockport.
 
Hohum.....I dont think that's gonna fit in either my AllPlastic(TM) Micronik case nor my standard crappy PeeCee box :-D :hammer:
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: redrumloa on October 28, 2002, 01:10:47 AM
This may very well be the most cool addon card ever made!!!!(http://www.plauder-smilies.com/party/ylsuper.gif)
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: CyberViking2000 on October 28, 2002, 02:13:10 AM
This product is good on so many levels, someone should give the makers an award, or even dedicate a day to them.  :-D

I was just pondering the other day what it would be like to read Amiga floppies on my PC for my Amiga Forever. This will go far for the Amiga emulation market.
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: System on October 28, 2002, 07:24:01 AM
This one could definitely hit my post-Christmas shopping list.  Picking up AmigaForever after boxing away my A500's, but not the disks, in the last move did not help much.  This should remedy that.
At least until we get some real next-generation Amiga boxes out that I can afford.

g'ben
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: whabang on October 28, 2002, 11:40:12 AM
I got to get me one of theese!
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: Nick on October 28, 2002, 06:39:54 PM
Hehe Sorry about my mad statement before. I was really tired and didn`t notice that it is available
for PCI. It gets better, but not for me. I don`t have PCI either.
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: redrumloa on October 28, 2002, 10:19:50 PM
Quote
Hehe Sorry about my mad statement before. I was really tired and didn`t notice that it is available
for PCI. It gets better, but not for me. I don`t have PCI either.


Still no excuse! (http://www.plauder-smilies.com/rough/twak.gif)

No PCI slots and no Zorro slots eh? Must be an A1200? Well this baby also has clock port interface:-D So BUY ONE;-)
Title: Re: New Catweasel board announced
Post by: System on November 07, 2002, 09:58:37 PM
Supremely smegging fantastic card. I am almost tempted to buy one fo the A1200 I haven't even bought yet and keep it in my PC until I get the a 1200 in a fit state to accept one.

Edit: Can anyone confirm/deny that this thing fits *inside* an A1200 or is it designed to fit a tower cased A1200 system with that clockport cable?