Power Design Details from ACK Software Controls and Amiga

[System]

Issaquah, Wash USA – Fonthill, ON Canada May 7, 2007 – ACK Software Controls, Inc. and Amiga, Inc. are pleased to announce the specifications for the new Power System.



“While targeting the needs of today, we wanted to challenge ourselves to design for the future as well.”, said Adam Kowalczyk President of ACK Software Controls, Inc.

This new system will be offered at a suggested retail price of $ 1498.00 and be a complete offering excluding monitor in a finished design that will provide customers with everything they need to get started.

Power Design Specifications PowerPC board:

•   Based on the P.A. Semi PWRficient PA6T-1682M dual core 64 bit CPUs clocked at 2GHz.
•   RoHS compliant ATX form factor.
•   Four (4) DDR2 DIMM slots.
•   One (1) PCI Express x16 slot for high performance graphics cards.
•   One (1) PCI Express x2 slot for high performance I/O cards.
•   One (1) PCI Express x1 slot for standard I/O cards.
•   One (1) PCI 32 bit slot for legacy cards.
•   Six (6) USB 2.0 ports.
•   Two (2) Gb Ethernet ports.
•   Two (2) UART ports for serial connectivity and debug.
•   One 8Mb Flash EEPROM containing U-Boot firmware.
•   Four (4) SATA II ports based on the Silicon Image SiI3132 (x2)

“This new design offers the Amiga user a new choice in hardware. Amiga believes that this new system will address the needs of the Amiga user today and into the near future.”, said Bill McEwen of Amiga, Inc.

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About Amiga
Amiga, Inc. is the world’s premier provider of multimedia enabling technologies. For almost two decades its award-winning software has been a mainstay for motion picture studios, multimedia creators, and digital entertainment enthusiasts around the world. Today Amiga builds on this legacy leading the way in multimedia development by providing developers with hardware-independent technologies for writing and porting applications to new platforms and interactive devices. For more information visit www.amiga.com.

About ACK
ACK Software Controls, Inc. specializes in the area of embedded controls design for use in automation systems where low-power consumption and reliability is an absolute must.  Concentrating on design for manufacturing with local manufacturing facilities has allowed ACK to quickly and cost-effectively develop solutions for customers with low-volume requirements.  By integrating hardware, firmware, and device driver engineering capability in-house, ACK can provide complete turn-key solutions to customers.

[koaftder]

I knew they'd pull through. Go Amiga!

[amiga_3k]

Now if this materializes than this would be a beast of an Amiga. And that at a price comparable to the first A500 we bought (now, I can have the prices mixed up a bit as that set up came with a Commodore 1084S and a Star NX1000 Rainbow printer).

I'm not a hardware expert but I know what I like about it: No onboard sound (this does mean that the Amiga OS to run on it needs good support for various soundcards), no onboard graphics (hope PCI-E is supported with the Amiga OS) and looks as if finally the old school 'serial' and 'parallel' ports are gone.

What still worries me a bit is that these are Design Specs. Where I work (Dutch biggest light-bulb manufaturer ;-), a design spec is the result of the first brain-storm sessions and should lead to a final product spec. I hope it won't take all too long to get these specs into a ready to buy product. Guess it is again a game of 'wait and see' (while keeping the old school Amigas ticking).

[HammerD]

@ Ack

Nice specs!!! but...

Why no onboard sound ? Sound card goes in the PCI slot leaving you with no legacy PCI slots for example, a wireless card or a TV Tuner...

Also why did you leave out the 40-pin IDE connector that was on the eval board? Would have been nice for legacy DVD drive.

[Tripitaka]

My house is for sale!
No, but seriously, it is. The timing couldn't be better.

[Argo]

Yeah, I wonder what sound and graphics card these systems will come with.
Oh, will the keyboard have Amiga keys?

[jiffydos]

Now that's a new Amiga!  woo!

[Piru]

Does/Will it run any OS? ;-)

Who is going to make the 64bit OS4?

Who is going to make the SMP OS4?

Who is going to write drivers for PCI Express gfxcards? Or will it be Radeon X300 only?

How is this faster than 4-way Mac?

Are you going to get this HW released to the market, too, rather than just making yet another broken promise?

[xeron]

*if* this materialises into an actual product with OS4, and *if* its available at the same price in the UK (IE, £750 instead of £1500), then I'll buy one. Oh yes indeedy.

So now i guess i'll just wait and see...

[Matt_H]

Now we're talking. That's a very fair price for these specs.

[Boot_WB]

Funny, I don't see this in the "news" section of amiga.com.

Wayne, it's the 7th May, not the 1st April. Where did this announcement originate?

[Damion]

“While targeting the needs of today, we wanted to challenge ourselves to design for the future as well.”, said Adam Kowalczyk President of ACK Software Controls, Inc.

:roll:

[ajlwalker]

F*** it, I think I'll buy em both!

[Plaz]

I don't know why some basic built-in sound wouldn't be included, but I'll point out that most mid-high level sound engineers use external USB sound equipment.  I need to look at the entry level specs again. Does that have sound?

Plaz

[amiga_3k]

@Plaz:

From the entry machine spec:

... Onboard sound provided by a C-Media CMI8738....