A new Universal Serial Bus board will be released for the Amiga A1200 at the end of April
AmiSoft, A Belfast based Amiga company has been working on the USB board for some time and is now in the final stages of testing.
. The board connects to the clock port on the 1200, providing a passthrough socket for other cards as well. A small PCB sits on the clock-port header and the 2 USB ports are then accesed through the spare slot at the back of the Amiga. A tower version is also available with backing plate. The unit is expected to ship for around £60 initially, but can be pre-ordered at a reduced rate. AmiSoft are ideally looking for 500 pre-orders to cover development costs, and insure other versions of the board are released. AmiSoft have produced quality, low-cost Amiga peripherals since 1991, including MIDI connectors, multi-port joystick expanders and various software projects. They began developing the interface before PCI boards were available for the 1200, but project manager, Tony Burrows thinks their board should still succeed "The AmiSoft USB board can of course work alongside a PCI/ISA bus, therefore eliminating the need for a USB PCI card and leaving valuable space free for other more demanding cards." Amisoft currently has no Web-page, but have set-up a mailbox for enquiries:
here
