New PCI board for A1200: Mediator 1200 TX

[cv643d]

If it is indeed faster than previous Mediator bus boards I am definitely interested in one.

I would love to see some support for newer graphics boards to. DVI support is needed since higher resolutions are so fuzzy (at least for me).

[redrumloa]

I don't know if this is the case, however I would find it even sadder if anyone actually cared!

If it is for the Amiga market, it is ok to break the law :-?

[justthatgood]

Aye, I guess that's one good reason for living in most of the states in the United States.

-We may have a really crooked administration in our White House most of the time.

-We may have inflated fuel prices to help line the pockets of the fat-cats with gold.

-We might not even have good jobs or money to be able to attempt at paying for our bills.

But we can buy and sell all the electronics that we want!!!!!!!!!!!!

[itix]

I don't know if this is the case, however I would find it even sadder if anyone actually cared!

DDT should be made legal again.

[adonay]

Interesting  :-D I like the idea it will be better drivers for os4 :-) "hmm should start installing that soon" .
Anyways i am curious about the Higher gfx speed ...

[A1260]

okay so elbox have alot of mediator cards and now they have updated them with soldering a atx connection burnt new chips with new faster code.. great way to refurbish old stock eh...

what the should have done is releasing a card with  1 agp2x slot,3 pci slots, 2 ata100/133 & 1 sata connections,atx connection(dropped the at connection), build in network card and dma with enough ram to handle things....

then they should have released a ppc card at 600mhz with option for max 1gb ram....

but i guess that would only happen in a perfect world....  

only good thing with this was the info about aos4.0 support for all mediator boards :-)

[AndrewBell]

okay so elbox have alot of mediator cards and now they have updated them with soldering a atx connection burnt new chips with new faster code.. great way to refurbish old stock eh...

That was my thought about this new Mediator.
________
Lincoln Mkx

[mboehmer_e3b]

If you compare the picture of the TX in the shop, and the picture of the SX model (removed from the shop, but still available on other sites) you will see that even the silkscreen print on the top board side is the same, watch left side with the "MEDIATOR 1200 SX" line - a "TX" would look like different.
Even the component placement is the same...

So IMHO it is a nice marketing gag: you fix some parts of your programmable logic code for the CPLDs, make some speedups, announce this as a new product and charge 20EUR more for the physically same boards which you have (even after several "free shipment" events) plenty on stock.

Other companies would call this a firmware upgrade and offer it as user service, not as new developments :-)

About the DMA discussion: not again. At least on A3000/A4000 Mediators it would be possible from the bus interface, but not with just some old MACH chips. Real Zorro III DMA needs more logic, especially when working around Buster bugs.

Michael

[DamageX]

If it is for the Amiga market, it is ok to break the law?

Well, at least Amiga stuff won't threaten the environment, since it will all end up being hoarded or put on ebay instead of thrown out.

-We may have inflated fuel prices to help line the pockets of the fat-cats with gold.

If you're comparing Europe to the USA and you think WE have inflated fuel prices you need to get with the program.

[mboehmer_e3b]

Well, at least Amiga stuff won't threaten the environment, since it will all end up being hoarded or put on ebay instead of thrown out.

At some point in time, every piece of hardware will end up in the trash. Some take longer, some take shorter time to reach their End Of Life, and at this point someone will have to take responsibility for recycling.
Is this "someone" the last person who owned it, or the person who earned money with producing this piece of hardware, in your opinion?

Even if the special version of the German EAR law is at some points not very well suited to fit to the needs of small companies (like me), the fundamental idea behind it is right, in my opinion.

We have nowadays options to get rid of lead, for example, in electronic parts, and we should take this opportunity.

Michael

[derringer3]

Dudes! My brand new 9600GT vga card has ROHS compliance, but if you carefully reading the small warnings in the box, you can read something like this:

"this product contains chemicals, including lead...Wash hands after handling." Funny isn't it? A lead free product contain lead.
And Gigabyte sells more product than elbox, so get yourself happy with the new amiga hw, i rather read  some benchmark or sg like this abot the new board.

[adonay]

okay so elbox have alot of mediator cards and now they have updated them with soldering a atx connection burnt new chips with new faster code.. great way to refurbish old stock eh...

Errr that ATX socket has been there since the Sx board "I know i have and use one". As for the SX-TX update i think it will be the same way as people could upgrade their original mediator1200 boards to LT4 ..

[downix]

Oh gee great, keep pushing a now out of date and dying standard.

PCIe is the current gen, and classic PCI is fading fast.

[alexatkin]

But would there be any point at all supporting PCIe?
The existing bottlenecks due to the Amiga expansion bus (as detailed above) make it pretty pointless.

PCIe would just cost a lot more with each port being seperate from the next, whereas PCI being a bus must be a lot easier/cheaper to do.

Just about any old PCI card is going to be vastly bottlenecked by the Amiga itself so why bother with PCIe when the cards are only just becoming available and VASTLY too powerful to be much use in the Amiga anyway?

I would much rather use PCI cards if I were to ever tower my A1200.  I would just stick an old S3 Virge in it or something (assuming I could find one, not sure if I threw em out years ago).

PCI cards that are perfectly fast enough for the Amiga can be obtained for free as they would be considered retro for PC.

[downix]

The reason is availability.  PCI is where ISA was 5 years ago.  Have you had any luck sourcing new ISA cards lately?

[Methuselas]

Oh gee great, keep pushing a now out of date and dying standard.

PCIe is the current gen, and classic PCI is fading fast.

What are you complaining about, Nate? Seems to me that Elbox is keeping with Amiga Time and Standards.

*snort*

When PCI-XIV comes out, I'm sure we'll get a PCI-e setup from Elbox. Remember, Amiga hardware has to be 10+ years out of date to be "current"  nowadays.  :crazy: