Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Gulliver on September 06, 2009, 05:21:44 AM
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Despite what we believe nowadays, about Minimig being the first true available Amiga clone, there was a very old Amiga cloning development which actually materialized in a commercial and successfull way, the so called "DraCo" or sometimes "Dracovision", named after a later model.
It all happened around 1994, in Germany, when a group of talented developers working for what was called at that time MS MacroSystem Computer GmbH, started to deal with the fact that Commodore was going bankrupt and the supply of Amigas would eventually dry up, finnishing their commercial venture.
They were not rookies, in fact, they had, at that time, already designed and commercially sold a dozen or so of different Amiga hardware devices, ranging from accelerators, framegrabbers, soundcards, scsi adapters, to graphic cards, etc. So yes, they had plenty of knowledge on the Amiga platform, both on hardware and software fields.
The design
In 1994 MacroSystem took the decision of building an Amiga clone geared towards affordable digital video. The task was accomplished in a period of nine months by a group of sixteen people.
It took them four months to have a booting prototype and five more to finish it.
They cleverly integrated, and then slightly modifyed most of the hardware devices they already sold in the past, in this new computer.
The CPU card called "Eltanin" was designed Steven L. Kelsey of CompuWise Technologies, designer of the CSA Magnum and the Warp Engine accelerator boards. He used a 68060 processor at 50 Mhz and on some special models he even used a 68040.
The computer bus had some peculiarities. The "Rastaban" was a passive motherboard full of expansion slots. It had 5 Zorro II compatible slots, and three "DracoDirect" slots. There was also a special cpu slot for an Alpha processor, that never saw the light. Zorro II slots offered a fair degree of Amiga compatible hardware. On the other side, the DracoDirect slots provided faster speeds and 32 bit transfers, as they were merely created by putting the majority of the microprocessor signals in those slots.
The graphics card was a slightly modified Retina Z3 now called Altais, that used the DracoDirect slot instead of the Zorro III slot, as it provided faster transfer rates. It was supported by the Operating System by the then new Cybergraphics retargetable graphics subsystem.
The soundcard and framegrabber ( modified Tocatta and Vlab Motion), were eventually built together in a standalone DracoDirect card called Dracomotion.
DraCos featured a Fast SCSI II interface to provide fast disk access with minimum cpu usage (transfer speeds were aproximately 9 MB per second).
The case was a standart PC AT one, later replaced by the "cube" shaped one, which provided more space, better shielding and improved PSU. The marketing goal behind it, was to give the sense, by its different shape, that the machine was not an ordinary PC.
The 1´s and the 0´s
On the software side, it ran AmigaOS 3.1, and had a full range of applications and utilities that came as a bundle, and on a cd-rom since version 5.
Curiously, it used original Amiga 3000 kickstart roms, along with a different setpatch command which did some serious patching to the former at boot ups.
It used a custom, but otherwise powerfull software to manage digital video editing. It was called MovieShop (From MovieShop 4.0 to latest MovieShop 5.3 BETA 3 (jun 13th 2000), and was really flexible, flexible enough so that many studios adopted it as their primary editing suite.
The price of the DraCo was a little steep, at about 14.990 US dollars, and a lot cheaper in Europe.
MacroSystem sold and supported DraCos upto the year 2000 when, as the clever company they are, they tryed to redesign the DraCo to produce a more affordable system, so was the successfull Casablanca, now called Casablanca Classic, born. But that is just another story!
The team
This is part of the talented group of people that made it happen:
MS MacroSystem Computer GmbH 1994-2000
General Manager & Vlab Motion designer:
Jorg Sprave.
Hardware:
Steve L. Kelsey
Hartmut Sprave
Layout:
Bernd Gronemann
Software:
Claus Bönnhoff
Klaus Deppisch
Henning Friedl
Other:
Edwin H. Bielawski
I hope you enjoyed the story:)
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Thank you, Gulliver, that was a neat post.
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Love that kind of historical posting. Were you part of the team, or just friends with one or more of them?
I have the VLab Motion and Toccatta cards and Movie Shop software, but have never set it up to try them out yet. Hopefully before the end of the year I will try them out (after having them for several years it would be about time :lol: )
It was amazing what they created and according to a few reviews, it was superior in some ways to NewTek's Video Toaster/Flyer system. I know that the Draco was much more advanced than my VLab Motion, but it is still incredible what was accomplished on the A2000's ZorroII bus.
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@amigadave
I was never part of the team that designed it. I just feel admiration for them: "The task was accomplished in a period of nine months by a group of sixteen people. It took them four months to have a booting prototype and five more to finish it."
How can anyone feel but respect their work?
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How do you define "true" clone ?
The Draco did not run anything that relied on OCS (or AGA) graphic and sound, what little compability it had was reached by featuring orginal Amiga-CIAs so the OS could setup it's timers. Think of it as Amithlon done in HW. Far from what I would call a "true" clone.
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Draco had no Paula chip therefore it is not a clone.
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@Kronos
I mean it could run AmigaOS and RTG applications quite nicely, and was not a motherboard redesign like the Phoenix, it was a completely new design. Of course, games, demos and application which hit the native chipset, failed on it, as pointed out. But cannot be compared to Amithlon, a special linux kernel running in a x86 architecture that emulates an Amiga, DraCos were no emulation, as said, were a complete new hardware implementations.
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IMHO it is a clone, it runs 3.1 and it runs it in hardware on a different hardware.
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@ChaosLord
It had no paula, but you can use AHI to get sound thru the tocatta soundcard without no problems at all.
@cv643d
I agree with what you say about being a clone.
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@Gulliver
No list of contributors would be complete without mentioning at minimum, the following:
Douglas Nakakihara - Probably the best amiga manual writer I ever knew
Sherwood Stockwell - Beta testing co-ordinator Macrosystems U.S.
And *cough* the testers themselves, who never got to meet one another until years later. That IS, how it was done back then.
Oh...and Eric, Bohus, and others might have a different spin on the public history you summarized, but I doubt you'll see them post. Eric was Macrosystems U.S., better known as Noahji's. Bohus still works in the video editing business and was on the Draco team in the U.S.
And, although Casablanca was ahead of its time, we can see that time marches on with this page, which might have been written by Steve..dunno. We had a lot of "Steves".
http://www.kernersville.com/casablanca/index.html
More info:
http://www.kernersville.com/draconet
Macrosystems U.S.:
http://www.macrosystem.us
Some Macrosystems history:
http://www.macrosystem.de/e/history.html
Sadly, the group is gone now at:
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/MovieShop
Prior to that there was a listserver, which contained a wealth of Amiga audio/video knowledge. Sadly, that was all lost.
I'll stop now before I start sounding like Bernie, telling old war stories. Heh.
#6
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Thanks @number6 for your contribution. Really apreciated!
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@Gulliver
Another thing people today might appreciate knowing is the general co-operation amongst the top firms back then. Most old timers will remember MainActor, so this tie-in with Macrosystems might be of interest.
Macrosytems-MainConcept (http://web.archive.org/web/20071108140848/http://www.mainconcept.com/site/news-9/news-archive-130/macrosystem-1022.html)
Interesting to also note that the last version of AdPro (unreleased) contained a new file viewer, MainView, which was also a part of the MainActor package.
Added: btw-I don't recall anyone working on these projects ever discussing whether we were a "clone".
#6
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I'd love to get my hands on a Draco sometime...Its seems that their impossible to find, even on ebay.
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How do you define "true" clone ?
The Draco did not run anything that relied on OCS (or AGA) graphic and sound, what little compability it had was reached by featuring orginal Amiga-CIAs so the OS could setup it's timers. Think of it as Amithlon done in HW. Far from what I would call a "true" clone.
Agreed. And the price was way too high. I don't think Toaster cost that must. I could look back at my Amiga magazines... But if you (Gulliver) are in love with it thats fine. Whatever makes one happy.
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@terminator4
I don't see that as a fair comparison since the Draco was a non-linear editor and the Toaster was not.
I think you mean a Video Toaster/Flyer system, and it was quite easy to spend a small fortune on those. 5-10 grand not uncommon. After all, certified 9gig SCSI drives were almost a grand alone back then and you needed several..
#6
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I mean it could run AmigaOS
Draco does not and cannot "run AmigaOS" as you claim.
Draco runs "part of AmigaOS" and it just fails on all the parts of AmigaOS 3.1 that it doesn't feel like being compatible with. :ExplodingComputer:
@Kronos
We need a smiley of an exploding computer :)
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Draco does not and cannot "run AmigaOS" as you claim.
Draco runs "part of AmigaOS" and it just fails on all the parts of AmigaOS 3.1 that it doesn't feel like being compatible with. :ExplodingComputer:
@Kronos
We need a smiley of an exploding computer :)
And what am I supposed to do about that ? Actually I can't find a single smiley right now....
Back to topic:
Offcourse it does run AmigaOS.
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Agreed. And the price was way too high. I don't think Toaster cost that must. I could look back at my Amiga magazines... But if you (Gulliver) are in love with it thats fine. Whatever makes one happy.
I remember the Draco was expensive, but don't think it was any more than a complete A4000 w/accelerator and NewTek Video Toaster & Flyer cards installed in it. Actually, I think it was a good deal cheaper, but both were out of my price range back then.
I know for sure that the VLab Motion card was much cheaper than the Toaster & Flyer card combo and the VLab Motion claimed to work without the need of any TBC's to work with VCR inputs, so that would have been another savings.
The biggest advantage of the VLab Motion and the Draco was that they could work with both NTSC and PAL video formats, which the Toaster/Flyer could not. NewTek made a huge mistake by not making a PAL version of the Toaster & Flyer cards. After all, the number of Amiga users that live in areas that use the PAL video standard out number the Amiga users in areas that use NTSC and NewTek could have possibly almost doubled their sales, which would have helped them even now, as the number of LightWave users would be much greater as well.
Edit: It is a bit of a stretch to call the Draco a "true" Amiga clone, as it did not have the Amiga's three custom chips and could NOT run most of the Amiga software and games available then, or now. I wonder what happened to most of those Draco systems after the EU TV stations stopped using them and moved on to something more advanced?
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@amigadave
Regarding differences between classic and Draco...I would sometimes get software on a Draco DRDD or DRHD formatted disk. All I had to do was run the Draco driver on the A4000 to access the disks.
Most of the dedicated graphics packages of software for Draco were backward compatible with the A4000. In fact, that was part of what I tested. At the time they were looking at making some of the Draco software available for the 68k machines running Movieshop, but I think the thrust had already changed to focus on Casablanca by then.
Dunno if the general public saw most of these addons like Monument Designer and such for classic Amiga, but they were quite advanced for their time, imo.
Added: Yes, the Time Base correction with VlabMotion worked quite well actually.
#6
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@amigadave
Regarding differences between classic and Draco...I would sometimes get software on a Draco DRDD or DRHD formatted disk. All I had to do was run the Draco driver on the A4000 to access the disks.
Most of the dedicated graphics packages of software for Draco were backward compatible with the A4000. In fact, that was part of what I tested. At the time they were looking at making some of the Draco software available for the 68k machines running Movieshop, but I think the thrust had already changed to focus on Casablanca by then.
Dunno if the general public saw most of these addons like Monument Designer and such for classic Amiga, but they were quite advanced for their time, imo.
Added: Yes, the Time Base correction with VlabMotion worked quite well actually.
#6
I don't disagree that much of the software for the Draco could run on an A4000 with a VLab Motion card and Toccatta card, but for the Draco to be considered a "true" Amiga clone, I would expect the Draco to be able to run most Amiga software, certainly much more than just the software that does not access the Amiga's custom chips.
So, to compare the Draco to the MiniMig as the original poster did and claim that the Draco was the first "true" Amiga clone, is not accurate in my point of view.
I think the Draco and Casablanca were both great products and sold well in their time, but their focus was video production and an early kind of TIVO, not being an Amiga clone to run Amiga software.
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I think Amiga compatible would be a better description.
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Despite what we believe nowadays, about Minimig being the first true available Amiga clone, there was a very old Amiga cloning development which actually materialized in a commercial and successfull way, the so called "DraCo" or sometimes "Dracovision", named after a later model.
It all happened around 1994,
Nice but Amiga 1000 compatible phoenix motherboard was shipping in late 1990... so beats it by at least 4 years.
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@amigadave
Regarding differences between classic and Draco...I would sometimes get software on a Draco DRDD or DRHD formatted disk. All I had to do was run the Draco driver on the A4000 to access the disks.
Most of the dedicated graphics packages of software for Draco were backward compatible with the A4000. In fact, that was part of what I tested. At the time they were looking at making some of the Draco software available for the 68k machines running Movieshop, but I think the thrust had already changed to focus on Casablanca by then.
Dunno if the general public saw most of these addons like Monument Designer and such for classic Amiga, but they were quite advanced for their time, imo.
Added: Yes, the Time Base correction with VlabMotion worked quite well actually.
#6
I have Monument designer here somewhere, and also Movieshop. I ran monument designer on A4000 with CV 64 ages ago, but Movieshop complained that I had no VLab, which I didn't.
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Nice but Amiga 1000 compatible phoenix motherboard was shipping in late 1990... so beats it by at least 4 years.
Good point!
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And the Phoenix actually did run AmigaOS unlike the Draco.
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IMHO some of you guys are ridiculous.
How can you say the Draco is just a hardware Amithlon? Draco runs AmigaOS 3.1 on a real 040 or 060 68k CPU, it runs Workbench on a Retina graphics board connected to a special bus, it has Zorro slots and runs all system friendly software.
Macrossystem created the Toccata 16-bit soundcard, the Warp engine turbo board and the Retina gfx-board. Those are essentially the different parts of the Draco.
The Phoenix ran AmigaOS and the Draco did not? Care to explain?
Remember that back when the Draco was released there was a move in the industry to RTG/AHI based applications, this was viewed as the future of the Amiga. By not integrating custom chips the Draco could be made much faster than any Amiga 4000 with RTG/060 could ever be.
Draco was so fast a Swedish magazine even recommended a Draco if you where to purchase a new A4000 with 060/RTG and if you primarily wanted to run sys friendly applications.
There are some Draco systems from time to time on german ebay.
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Well, given the fact that the Draco runs AmigaOS, but not hardware hitting programs... And this is a feature of the "NextGen" Amiga machines... Perhaps te Draco should be considered the first of the NextGen machines?
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Yes, that was what some people considered the Draco to be back in 1997.
In their point of view, the Draco was the future. They took modern (1997) hardware from the Amiga world and created a new computer from it without being stuck in C= Amigas, too bad the idea never spread out to normal Amiga users though.
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Hi there, if interest still exists and if there are people out there with Draco's and Casablanca's i'd be glad to share thoughts with you in the group i started a few weeks ago! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Draco-Casablanca/?yguid=345414320
I just hope this isn't considered a show-off.. :-) Strangely enough, nobody seems to have visited!
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Thanks, I've joined. I'm looking to figure out how to get to the workbench on my Draco Casablanca. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions
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@aperez
An approach which MAY have some result:
1-Take out the harddisk from the casablanca put it in a PC, make a backup (disk image).
2-Run WinUAE and add the harddisk to it
3-Format the disk using FFS
4-Instal workbench 3.1
5-Install Picasso96 or Cybergraphx Altais drivers
6-If casablanca is a 060 install a proper 68060.library
7-Put the harddisk back to your casablanca
8-Cross your fingers and pray... You may be able to watch something on the screen.
NOTE: Check the motherboard of the casablanca for the graphics chip it is using, and change the driver accordingly (If it exists). I dont know which chip it is using, i am assuming it is some Altais variant!
GOOD LUCK!
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I played with the Draco cube in Germany in 1995. It was a cool system.
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Well, given the fact that the Draco runs AmigaOS, but not hardware hitting programs... And this is a feature of the "NextGen" Amiga machines... Perhaps te Draco should be considered the first of the NextGen machines?
Good point.
What if it could run UAE, would that then make it an Amiga clone because it would run all Amiga software. Hmmm....
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IMHO no, WB needs to be able to run in hardware at least.
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@aperez
More on the Casablanca: you wont have audio, sound chip is unsupported by current AHI drivers, Chip is an Analog Devices AD1845JP more info on it at http://datasheet.octopart.com/AD1845JP-Analog-Devices-datasheet-21662.pdf
Tocatta soundcard uses Analog Device 1848KP chipset which may be compatible with the 1845JP
details at http://datasheet.octopart.com/AD1848KP-Analog-Devices-datasheet-117009.pdf
About Casablanca floppy format:
The floppy disk is a pc one and it uses special pc format (blocks of 1 Kb with specially encoded mfm values to protect against copying on pc), but the file system is a typical amiga file system adapted to this format (changed block sizes).You can easily mount an image of this floppy disk using simple mountlist on a real amiga.
ROM/Kickstart: It uses Amiga 3000 kickstart roms plus other custom made, that heavily patches the first ones.
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There's still an Amiga VLabMotion & DraCo group on Yahoo:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amiga_vlabmotion/
DraCo can run AmigaOS3.9:
http://www.cash-multimedia.com/ms5.html
DraCo is the only Amiga device/clone/whatever that supports Firewire. It was available as an add-on board. I can use HD cameras with my DraCo. HD camera downconverts to SD, connect to DraCo via Firewire and get a very high quality image.
DraCo was expensive but so was the VideoToaster/Flyer once you added all the pieces to make it usable (Amiga box/accelerator card/TBCs/etc). DraCo & MovieShop offered much more than the Digital Broadcaster NLE. The MovieShop NLE has essentially unlimited tracks of video & audio, fx, titling, etc. MovieShop is Avid-ish. With the multi-play feature, I can play up to 6 synced clips in a window and click the ones I want as it plays in realtime, from there it creates a basic timeline with my edit decisions. It's like a virtual switcher. Great for multi-camera coverage of events.
Video partition size on DraCo isn't limited as it was on the little brother VLM. I have 180GB SCSI drives in my DraCo. Partition it large or small. I'm not sure if Toaster/Flyer had size limits.
DraCo works with USB cards & ethernet. It has a ZII bus. The other expansion bus is the custom DraCo bus, which is faster than Z3, but only supported by MacroSystems custom DraCo cards.
I have used multiple display cards on my DraCo with CyberGraphX. I can have MovieShop on one monitor and Monument Designer open on a 2nd monitor.
If I render something more complicated on my Mac, I can export a JPG stream of images to an ISO9660 DVD and then read that on my DraCo into MovieShop.
The DraCo Cube is slightly faster than the Tower version.
AmigaOS 4 is sadly missing video editing capabilities. Even a direct port of MovieShop to OS4, without any new features, would be a big improvement and enticement for running OS4. You'd have to work a way around the custom hardware though.
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Der Draconer (German resource):
http://draconer.gmxhome.de/
Yahoo DraCo Group (German):
http://de.groups.yahoo.com/group/draconer/
Scene-Handler group:
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/scenehandler
MovieShop group (Italian):
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/moviework
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Yes, I'd call Draco an Amiga clone even if it was designed for nonlinear video and couldn't run all your game software. After all, it was 040 or 060 and ran OS 3.1. BUT their next system, the Draco Casablanca (which I own), is a black box that doesn't even read Amiga disks, or have a CLI as far as I can tell. It runs some type of patched OS 3.1, but it's not a computer IMO unless I can figure out how to get into it.
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Hi there, if interest still exists and if there are people out there with Draco's and Casablanca's i'd be glad to share thoughts with you in the group i started a few weeks ago! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Draco-Casablanca/?yguid=345414320
I just hope this isn't considered a show-off.. :-) Strangely enough, nobody seems to have visited!
That group has been around for a couple of years, right? Anyway, I'm still hoping to get an answer to my question there about the Casablanca (from Oct. 23), but I'm not holding my breath.
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more on DraCo history here:
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/draco.html
amigau
http://www.amigau.com
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I seem to remember a company selling bare Casablancas for rebuilding old systems.
I'll have to see if I can find the site again.
If I remember right the price was in the $4000 to $600 range.
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@Iggy
http://templates.earthstores.com/1147/list.asp?id=4D434E414C4C5953504C5547414E44504C4159&cat=144517
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I have/use a draco vision, and it runs a remarkable amount of rtg amiga software etc.It uses real 3.1 roms and works with a real workbench 3.1(i have 3.9 installed on it currently).
They actually built custom version of the amiga (vlab,retina z3,tocatta)boards that use the dracobus,which is fatser than Zorro3.CPU board(named eltannin iirc)has the 68060,3.1 roms,and other stuff on it,its the size of a zorrocard. and the retina is called Atlaise.
Close or not its a remarkable amount of engineering.
sadly the draco cubes came out originally here in the usa at $15000.luckily i got mine cheap from a friend.Support was always horrible from macrosystems and many needed chip upgrades to work right,some bad solder joints(the one i got originally had a small oak stick pushing on a card for it to operate reliable lol.
It does operate well,i still have a old movie on the harddrive i pulled in and never did edit or mess with it.. heh
One of the amiga mags had a great review of the draco cube.. here: http://amr.abime.net/issue_2867_pages <-page 40 on....
mike
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@Iggy
http://templates.earthstores.com/1147/list.asp?id=4D434E414C4C5953504C5547414E44504C4159&cat=144517
That would be the site! Thanks Gulliver.
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That would be the site! Thanks Gulliver.
Very expensive. Go to eBay for cheaper (and complete) Casablanca systems if you want one.
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Very expensive. Go to eBay for cheaper (and complete) Casablanca systems if you want one.
I saw a Draco go for about £300 on ebay around 5 or 6 years ago. I was tempted to buy it at the time, wish I had done now.
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Cassie Classic is probably cheaper to acquire than a DraCo. They seemed to me to be more of an easier to use DraCo-lite targeted at consumers rather than a higher end market. After stepping onto the scene with the expensive DraCo, it'd make sense to try again with a lite version that was less expensive.
What's the Cassie Classic look like on the inside? Anyone have pictures? Are any chips compatible with the DraCo? Could be a source of parts.
Anyone have documentation for the DraCo expansion ports/sockets, like the socket for the DEC-ALPHA accelerator?
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@jaesonk
The inside of the Casablanca
http://www.amiga-hardware.org/images/d/d2/Casablanca_2_big.jpg
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I saw a Draco go for about £300 on ebay around 5 or 6 years ago. I was tempted to buy it at the time, wish I had done now.
Yes I would have grabbed it. However, the Casablanca is cheaper and far more common. If you're patient, you should be able to pick one up for about $150-200 complete with 060 and 18 GB hard drive.
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Yes I would have grabbed it. However, the Casablanca is cheaper and far more common. If you're patient, you should be able to pick one up for about $150-200 complete with 060 and 18 GB hard drive.
Wow! Good price indeed!
Never see any one Ebay UK though.
Just checked ebay US and nothing on there atm. I'd really like one to play around with, would be an excellent toy project to try and get OS3.9 or AROS 68k even running on it. :)
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I have 2 draco cubes but never turned either on yet, infact one is still packed (hmmm, 5 years and counting probably LOL). They are certainly well built and look very cool!
I've recently been intouch with the person who sells the modified AmigaOS3.9 on CDRom still... but decided at the end not to get it... he wants 65 euro which I think isn't very fair since you can get the Cybergraphics and AmigaOS3.9 for under 10 euro each... I do own both etc
If anyone can help me in obtaining this I'd be very pleased, PM me :)
He didn't reply to that last email...
Anyway, interesting thread :-)
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Wow! Good price indeed!
Never see any one Ebay UK though.
Just checked ebay US and nothing on there atm. I'd really like one to play around with, would be an excellent toy project to try and get OS3.9 or AROS 68k even running on it. :)
Here's one on eBay with "rendering acceleration" (i.e. 68060) and a 30-day warranty, but cosmetic condition doesn't look so great.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Germany-Casablanca-MacroSystem-Video-Editing-230-115V-/280588142599?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item41545b4807
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You can't install the regular Amiga OS3.9 on a DraCo, or OS3.5. DraCo requires special patching for OS3.9 or OS3.5 installation.
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Here's one on eBay with "rendering acceleration" (i.e. 68060) and a 30-day warranty, but cosmetic condition doesn't look so great.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Germany-Casablanca-MacroSystem-Video-Editing-230-115V-/280588142599?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item41545b4807
Thanks! Hmmm... Feed my kids or make a bid? Lol
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You can't install the regular Amiga OS3.9 on a DraCo, or OS3.5. DraCo requires special patching for OS3.9 or OS3.5 installation.
I'm thinking more along the lines of AROS 68k. :)
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Well, folks, i'm actually glad you haven't seen what i have seen a couple of weeks ago on the Austrian ebay! I'm saying this, because you would 've been as depressed as i have! There came around the "chance of a lifetime", really! This guy sells a couple of Draco cubes, and a tower, plus all the extra paraphernalia you could imagine of! And i says OMFG! I'm gonna hit this one! Allas, shipping was beyond just forbidding...
Even though he stated shipping within EU would be around 220,00€, when i asked for more details, he said: i don't ship to your country, you gotta find your own courrier! (mind you, the auction claimed Shipping:Worldwide)
So, i started searching for the right courier. To better understand the size of the whole whatchamacall it, it measured 100x100x160cm, and weighted 150kgs!!! Most wouldn't deal with a set like that, and only one of the well-known couriers would do it, for the special price of 2700€.
That ended the dream for me as you can understand...
Although the auction ended rather cheap (ultra-cheap i would say), and i was prepared to spend up to maybe 1000€, the whole deal would simply take off!
And now, hopefully you'll still have some time to browse through this deal until it's erased from the "bay" by clicking here: http://cgi.ebay.at/Macro-System-Draco-Cube-Amiga-Videoschnittsystem-V-Lab-/220685592107
Warning: not for the faint-hearted! I'm sure Draco lovers will understand my feelings after this... :(
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Well, folks, i'm actually glad you haven't seen what i have seen a couple of weeks ago on the Austrian ebay! I'm saying this, because you would 've been as depressed as i have! There came around the "chance of a lifetime", really! This guy sells a couple of Draco cubes, and a tower, plus all the extra paraphernalia you could imagine of! And i says OMFG! I'm gonna hit this one! Allas, shipping was beyond just forbidding...
Even though he stated shipping within EU would be around 220,00€, when i asked for more details, he said: i don't ship to your country, you gotta find your own courrier! (mind you, the auction claimed Shipping:Worldwide)
So, i started searching for the right courier. To better understand the size of the whole whatchamacall it, it measured 100x100x160cm, and weighted 150kgs!!! Most wouldn't deal with a set like that, and only one of the well-known couriers would do it, for the special price of 2700€.
That ended the dream for me as you can understand...
Although the auction ended rather cheap (ultra-cheap i would say), and i was prepared to spend up to maybe 1000€, the whole deal would simply take off!
And now, hopefully you'll still have some time to browse through this deal until it's erased from the "bay" by clicking here: http://cgi.ebay.at/Macro-System-Draco-Cube-Amiga-Videoschnittsystem-V-Lab-/220685592107
Warning: not for the faint-hearted! I'm sure Draco lovers will understand my feelings after this... :(
I am so depressed after looking at that auction! :'(
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Warning: not for the faint-hearted! I'm sure Draco lovers will understand my feelings after this... :(
WAOooAOOAOAREROHHH
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Hey guys
Just so you know I'm selling my Uber Rare DraCo VISION Cube with DV Module and hundreds of gbs of space! (hours and hours of video) Has a nice 060 board and Cybergrafx! Superb condition complete with keyboard and mouse and has tons of software installed Like Dir Opus, Image Fx, Monument Designer and more!
Selling it because I just acquired an a4000T! Let me know if you are interested.
Thanks
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you know you dont have to have things sent by air brought set speakers for usa ebay
was from texas (they do things big there ) l live in new zealand so by austrila
air freight was going cost fortune so he sent surface by sea was okay didnt take too long
thye big speakers too mind yu not 150 kg by any means maybe 40kg
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you know you dont have to have things sent by air brought set speakers for usa ebay
was from texas (they do things big there ) l live in new zealand so by austrila
air freight was going cost fortune so he sent surface by sea was okay didnt take too long
thye big speakers too mind yu not 150 kg by any means maybe 40kg
True, I've shipped to Australia before. It does take significantly longer than air, and its still costly (compared to virtually anywhere else in the world), but it much more affordable.
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Hey guys
Just so you know I'm selling my Uber Rare DraCo VISION Cube with DV Module and hundreds of gbs of space! (hours and hours of video) Has a nice
Thanks
Are you posting it to ebay?
How many drives installed? What sizes?
How much memory is installed?
What version of MovieShop?
Original install disks & manuals?
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jaesonk
Are you posting it to ebay?
I'd rather sell it outside of ebay.. but if no buyer will put on ebay.
How many drives installed? What sizes?
About 4-5 drives.. large sizes many many hours of video and storage(when I set it up for pics I'll know exacxtly)
How much memory is installed?
The max 128mb of EDO ram too! Super fast I think the 060 is at 75mhz too!
What version of MovieShop?
Last known veresion for Draco
Original install disks & manuals?
Yes original install CDs and manuals..
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@Gulliver
No list of contributors would be complete without mentioning at minimum, the following:
Douglas Nakakihara - Probably the best amiga manual writer I ever knew
#6
Best? Gosh, I'm blushing! That was a fun manual to write.
--Doug
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Best? Gosh, I'm blushing! That was a fun manual to write.
--Doug
Hi, welcome, is there an anecdote you could share with us about the DraCo/DraCovision?
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Hi, welcome, is there an anecdote you could share with us about the DraCo/DraCovision?
Honestly I don't remember a whole lot of details--I must be getting old. I do remember getting the unit and thinking it was giant. The part I was proudest of was documenting the RPN editing stack feature. This was probably actually for the VLab Motion not the Draco specifically. (Fuzzy memory here) Originally, it was called something else, but as I started playing with it, I realized it was Reverse Polish Notation. I knew this because I was an avid HP calculator user. I asked them to change the UI to reflect this name change. The German version probably has the other name. I guess they picked the right person to do the manual since this was the core of the effects processing.
I also remember doing this pretty intense video for my daughter and her friends. It had all these video windows flying around and it was pretty easy to do with the Vlab. If you understand RPN it's incredibly powerful.
I also remember that they were happy and surprised that I returned the unit promptly :-)
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Thanks for sharing it with us.