PROMETHEUS

[vk3heg]

I'm after some information on the Prometheus board for the amiga 3000/4000 Computers. I've been on the Matay website, and looked at the amiga-hardware website.

What I'd really like is some user feedback on the board?
Is it any good, does it take three weeks to get going?
What is the support like?
Are they still made?

etc.... am I  :horse:

[redrumloa]

What I'd really like is some user feedback on the board?

Great hardware! The driver support is still fairly limited. 100% support ATM is limited to AFAIK:

Voodoo 2000/3000/4000/5500 (get the 3000, specific support)
RTL8029AS 10Mbit ethernet
Catweasel MK4

Is it any good, does it take three weeks to get going?

Not really. You should be able to get it up in a night. If you get one, come here for guidance as the software that shipped with it new is outdated. There are plenty of Prommy users here, as I sold most of them one ;-)

What is the support like?

You're looking at it, Amiga.org is the place. The community is the best place for support.

Are they still made?

No. I secured the last of them from Matay in ~2003 and sold my final ones in late 2004. You may be able to find the odd new one in a shop though, try Amigakit.

[Plaz]

Mine works great but it did take a couple of days to get all the configurations worked out with the prometheus, nic and video drivers. Mine is installed in an A4000 desktop running OS3.9. Hardware support is limited to the specific video and nic cards Red mentioned, but new firmware has been promised that will probably support more hardware as drivers become available. The dev team is still active and working on the updates, but I don't know if there is much stock available. I was told that in the first run about 100+ were made and sold. Maybe when new firmware is ready there will be another production run? I've been very happy with mine so far (thanks Red for selling it to me :-)) though my 060 card died and I haven't used it much lately. I've waited and watched for news on the A1 boards and AckContol boards.

Plaz

[MskoDestny]

I was never able to get hardware accelerated Warp3D working with it (but others seem to have no problems in that area so it's probably something peculiar to my setup), but other than that it's worked great. I think I've managed to fry my Voodoo 3 (not in my Prometheus, I was testing an old dual processor Pentium board and one of the traces on the PCI connector got burnt off) though.

[redrumloa]

@Plaz

Thank me? No thank you for buying :-) I don't know if I'm at liberty to say how many were in the first production run, but I can certainly say it was much higher than 100. Actually, the buyout I did from Matay was about 100 pieces. I sold those 100 pieces in about 15 months, through very aggressive pricing and guerrela marketing :lol:

[vk3heg]

Thanks for the input. One thing I forgot to ask. What's a second hand board worth?

[ChaosLord]

How does Prometheus compare to my Mediator?

In other words: Was I stupid not to buy a Prometheus when I had the chance?

[yogisumo]

Once the firmware gets updated in the near future, the Prom should be great.  It works well now with a limited amount of hardware.  For example, Quake2 on a Voodoo3 with CSPPC233 works really well.

[kas1e]

can someone with prometheus, just run ppc-gears tests from warp3d 4.2 arhive, and post here fps output ? i am very interesting how it will be over mediator / bvision.

[Lemmink]

Technically it should be on par with an A3/4000 Mediator and slightly faster then an A1200 Mediator.
Just take a look at here:

http://www.amigaspeed.de.vu/

[justthatgood]

So far, I haven't really had the money, nor the time to really do much with my stuff. Maybe when I have the time or funds I can get my stuff up and running. Until then I dream.

[Plaz]

but I can certainly say it was much higher than 100. Actually, the buyout I did from Matay was about 100 pieces.

Thanks for clarifying. I may have had info on just that last batch of cards with the latest firmware.

In other words: Was I stupid not to buy a Prometheus when I had the chance?

I wouldn't think so. Currently Mediator supports more cards and there's still vendor support for mediator, correct? I thought the price comparisons at the time I bought mine were similar. Mediator cost a bit more, but had more support. The prometheus was priced better but only supported certain cards and looked like it might be at the end of it's life. Since I only was after a 10/100 ethernet card support at the time, it was a good choice for me. Once I got the Voodoo3 installed, it was certainly a nice bonus. If a new firmware is released and prometheus winds up being compatible with a new ACK card, then I may have made out with a very nice deal.

Plaz

[Failure]

One other interesting thing about the Prommy is that it might, perhaps, maybe, someday, possibly be working in MorphOS for PowerUP systems.  While I was trying to get my Picasso IV working I encountered some hangs caused by the Voodoo3 driver attempting to init the card, and you can see some Prometheus info in the debug messages.

Nobody has said they are *still* working on it, granted, but obviously at least some attempt has been made.  That would sure be nifty :-)