Elbox announced Spider USB drivers for Amithlon

[System]

Elbox Computer is pleased to announce completion of the development of the new Spider drivers. New drivers for the Spider USB 2.0 PCI cards extend the range of supported hardware with computers running AmigaOS under Amithlon.

'Amithlon users have overwhelmingly and repeatedly told us they absolutely wanted the features of the USB 2.0 standard as soon as the Spider USB 2.0 card entered the market,' said Darek Smietana, support manager at Elbox. 'We are proud to deliver our sophisticated and innovative USB hardware to Amithlon users. Now they can enjoy all the benefits of the USB 2.0 Hi-Speed functionality in their systems. Needless to say, we are again following our basic business rule with this step: to give to users more than they could expect.'

The new USB driver is enclosed in the Spider CD bundled with the new version of the Spider USB 2.0 card, whose availability will be announced in the coming days.

For more info about Spider, see the Spider USB 2.0 card website -- http://www.elbox.com/products/spider_usb_20_pci.html.

Mariusz Wloczysiak
ELBOX COMPUTER, Press Department
contact: press@elbox.com

[ikir]

WOW! Great!!

[Kronos]

Now what a pile of BS .... (no suprise)

Why didn't they just write a driver for the onboard USB
that every mobo has (only 2 possible chipsets) ?

Well, because they want to sell us their overpriced and
dongled HW, which is just a relabeled OEM-card worthe 20$ ....

Priracy ain't the cause, as I would still need to buy a licence
for Poseidon, oh wait I forgot Elbox are only interested in
their IP, and have no respect for someones elses......

The whole point of Amithlon was an is to get away from over-priced
"special" HW, but this is just insane !

Don't get me wrong, I would like to buy Poseidon for it, and I
would even be prepared to pay some extra $$ for the low-level
driver, but no way I would put such a card in my sys when I
allready got USB in it ....

/sorry for ranting, but has to be done has to be done  :-x

[odin]

Yes....but...Kronos...this thing is ment for Amiga PCI users right? And not a single Amiga has built in USB......so there is a point in this thing. (Although why it's not possible to stuff  a standard PCI USB card in an Amiga  PCI busboard is beyond me......).

-edit-
DOH...didn't see the Amithlon bit....feel free to ignore me .

[bhoggett]

April fool.

[redrumloa]

@Kronos

Theoretically not all X86 computers have built in USB. Actually just a few years back many motherboards didn't have it standard. This theoretically is just one more option, and options are good.

Elbox did the work, now people can pay them if they like. If no one else has an alternative it's not Elbox's fault.

[redrumloa]

April fool.

DOH! :-o

[Kronos]

@Bill

 :-D

But it really sounded like a typical Elbox-PR-stunt  .....

[AmiDelf]

It is a April fool

AmiDelf

[bhoggett]

@Kronos

But it really sounded like a typical Elbox-PR-stunt .....

It is a typical Elbox PR stunt, in that they highlight a feature that their products support and Amithlon does not and also the apparent lack of driver development and support for the emulation product.

...not that I have any inside knowledge about it being a joke. It's just that any announcements made on the morning of April 1st need to be treated with extreme suspicion, specially if they lack important details (in this case, which pci library would it use and which USB stack is it tested with?).

Since the story got an airing here and on the amithlonopen list too, I guess the PR stunt worked.  :-)

[Kronos]

Well it is also on amiga-news.de .....

Petra's april-joke for the last year was an add-banner,
switching between AmigaDE and MicroSoft .....


oh oh

[Paul_Gadd]

Who gives a damn about Elbox, we have seen their true colours and they clearly DO NOT deserve support from the Amiga users.

[platon42]

Well, I reckon this is no april's fool. However, I think Kronos is right about most people having USB onboard already anyway. So why not wait for Titan or me (now that I've got a Pegasos, I actually could do some PCI driver development) to write a PCI driver which is not bound to the IMHO overpriced hardware Elbox is selling.

Heh, does anyone mind Elbox not having a licence for using Poseidon? Their development keyfile has been revoked and they never registered the program.

Does anyone mind Elbox not stating anywhere that they only provide the low-level hardware driver and that the USB support only available through Poseidon?

Well, I guess not.

[Targhan]

I don't know what to say.  Here's the facts, as I know them... Even
though most of them are personal facts :-)

1. Platon42 has a legitimate gripe.

2. Elbox is a sponsor here.

3. The Spider isn't that badly priced ($10 more than a normal USB 2.0
card).

4. I'm getting a Pegasos.

5. At the same time, I happen to like my Amithlon. (which only has
USB1.1 built onto the m/b)

6. I really don't give a rip about USB until someone writes a driver
to run my TDK USB-based CD-burner.

7. I don't want to give up my A1200 (w/ Mediator either).

Golly, does everything Amiga have to be morally confusing?

:-( :-? :cry: :-? :-( :-? :-?

[ikir]

Elbox did the work, now people can pay them if they like. If no one else has an alternative it's not Elbox's fault.

Right. Stop flaming against Elbox.