Ok, maybe I'm thinking outside the box, or maybe someone slipped me some crack, but what I would like to see is an amiga to PC bridge / Emulater adaptor.
I don't mean a bridge card like C= offered, I mean a connecter that would plug into the Zorro, PCI, or whatever on the Amiga, and the other end plug into a PCI socket on a PC. From there the Driver and emulator writers could do whatever they want.
Via makes some nice mini-atx motherboards that when loaded with the right software, would basically be a large add in card. Some even without fans.
Here is how I would see it working:
Write a driver on the Amiga to access the vCard. (Virtual Card)
Load linux onto the PC.
Write a driver that gives access to your application via the PCI port that is connected to the Amiga.
So, if you want a wireless/gigabit network card, you write a PC driver works with the aleady existing linux software router. Tada! One driver works with every network card that the Linux community is supporting.
Want a 3d grafics card? Write one driver, and you have support for every 3d grafics card that the Linux community supports.
Want a 300gig hard drive? USB 2.0 support? Firewire? Scanners? If the Linux community supports them, a generic driver can be written that would support any brand make or model. (Obviously a different driver would be needed for each class of hardware.)
This could work just as easily for emulation on the PC side. Do you want a super fast 68040 accelorator card? A driver and hack to UAE, and it's a PCI accelorator card. Heck, there is no reason that you couldn't even add a command that would allow the Amiga to change which CPU the accelorator is acting as.
Benefits to your company include:
*Your cost of development would be limited to a handful of interfaces. As little as one.
*The same technique could be applied to PC and Mac products for added revenue.
*Once the PC board is purchase by the customer, your product gives them an almost unlimited amount of inexpensive expandability. (Many people may even have a spare PC laying around that they could use at no extra cost)
*Solves the PCI "problem".
*Leverages the huge Linux community to add capabilities to the Amiga.
*Offers a great deal of flexability to the end user. Do they want a low power EPIA based fanless "vCard", or do they want one in it's own case that runs at a blistering 3 ghz?
*Your solution gains power at exactly the same rate that PC solution do.
*Your solution should be fairly simple, so it could be developed relatively quickly, and at a relatively low cost.
There is no reason that multiple bride cards couldn't be used to allow for multiple devices in a single add-on PC Just bridge to different PCI ports on the PC.
Does this sound like the rambalings of a man who was hit too hard in the head?
