prototype board question

[JetFireDX]

ATL stands for "Advanced Technologies Laboratories" and Atlantis was a group within the company that built Ultrasound devices (model HDI-1000) out of Amiga 4000's. (I know, I worked there before they were bought by Phillips Medical.) They are still right down the street from me.

When I was working there they had their machines powered by custom built 060 boards for the 4000's. That picture is one of them. Underneath the ultrasound software you see on an HDI-1000 Workbench 3.1 (at the time) was running alive and well. Their keyboards have been redesigned to make finding the Amiga keys along with the "real" ctrl key difficult. But Should you figure out the key set, you can control it just like any other Amiga and get the mouse pointer to let you scroll the screen down and go to Workbench.

They were working on an custom in house PPC card to make their HDI-1000's faster when I quit (bad bad management) and it was apparently using tech licensed from Phase5. (I can't confirm that one though) I do know that ATL and the Atlantis group built their A4000 motherboards in house and had Commodores approval to even make the custom chips. When I was there they were having to do talks with Gateway when they bought the Amiga IP to make sure they would be in the free and clear to continue their business with it.

I was wondering when I would see one of those cards show up after one of the company "garage sale". I don't know if you will be able to get it to work or work well. I think they had a custom 060 library that you would have to swipe off one of the ultrasound machines. Anybody know a doctor?

(Oh yeah, they had a custom daughterboard for special DSP's for the ultrasound equipment that looked like nothing else out there. A huge thing that only fits inside an Ultrasound machine)

[JetFireDX]

Can't say for sure now if I knew him. This was in 1998 and I had a pretty bad taste in my mouth from that place when I quit so I have pretty much put it all behind me. If I remember right the board will probably boot up but have serious stability issues. However, don't hold me to that because I was testing all kinds of "unknown" hardware of theirs when I was there to find out what worked and what didn't. Litterally dozens of different 060 boards, 040's and 030's from A4000's both original and towers. Nobody seemed to know what worked and what didn't as it was all just stacked in giant drawers, on static free workbenches, and in closets.(There were stacks of A4000(d)'s in closets like people wouldn't believe!) I do recall it being indicated to me though that their boards needed their special 060 and 040 libs to run right though but this could have been specifically for debug purposes. Nothing you can do but plug her in and see what happens though!  :-D I hope it works! I always wanted one for my A4k at home when I worked there. (No chance it would fit in a desktop though unmodified.)

[JetFireDX]

I have no idea if 3.9 would run on it, but if it boots and runs fine under 3.1 its certainly worth the shot. When I was working there only 3.1 was out. There was certainly a lot of seriously custom hardware there. I wish I could have seen the end results of their PPC based systems. Oh well. Wonder they have any of that hardware still hanging around in that place? I'd love to get another A4000 again. I hope it works out for you.