What about an A1200 accelerator with built-in USB 2.0?

[Piru]

 b) Would run MUCH cooler than the BPPC and BVPPC solution we have now and would need less power.

PWRficient PA6T‎ produces more heat than the 603 CPUs used in BPPC. You also need to consider the support chipset power requirements.

e) I don't believe that. How? they would in effect be using parts they  already have, or have access to.

Parts are only part of the problem. There are much larger problems with trying to convert a full blown mobo to an accelerator. Also, the company producing the card has no amiga experience at all, which would make it much harder and more expensive.

d?) I think this would sell more than the X1000, but thats just my  opinion. so more 3 figure. it could be a more simple PCC only  accelerator for even cheaper. It was only an idea.

As far as I can tell BPPC already was a borderline at being profitable at all. These days the potential market is only a fraction of the old one. No way would such an expensive and complex board be profitable now.

f) The current PPC cards (if you can find one) cost more than what I  mentioned, and it would effectively be the "cheapest" OS 4 solution on  the market.

I very much doubt your price quotes.

[Kronos]

a) look at the space required by the CPU alone on the X1000
b) you may want to back up that one
c) it's still pointless for most NG-uses and won't be compatible enough for most classic-uses
d) see above
e) there is no way one could just shrink the current X1000 layout to that size, not without replacing most of the parts with varieties used in laptops and going seriously multilayered on the board (which adds even more design problems). So yes it would be a seperate design and production is gonna be costly
f) we would atleast be talking about inflation corrected prices for the orginal PPC-cards back in 1997 .... read >3000Euro IF the boards would be produced in a similar amount. But given that the market shrank by atleast 90% in the past 13 years we could easily be talking about 10000 or more.

And yes a crapshot remains a crapshot and deserves to be called a crapshot.

[Kronos]

I very much doubt your price quotes.

Yeah allmost missed that one were he wants to tell us that a miniturized version of the 1500Euro Xena-board could be sold for 500 Euro or less.....

[B00tDisk]

No offense meant but in classic amiga-land what does USB2 get you?

Most amiga apps clock in at a few megs, at most.  Moving those off of or to a memory stick at USB1.1 speeds (even through the clock port) isn't a big deal.  A stock Amiga really can't do H.264 video, or MP4, or AVI, so you're not moving multi-hundred megabyte or gigabyte files around.  CD burning or burning DVD images needs to be done at lower speed on m68k Amigas anyway, so you don't need it for external optical drives.  You certainly can't type or move the mouse fast enough to oversaturate the 1.1 USB bus!  I don't think classic Amiga systems can boot off of USB; even if they can there's no swapfile or any such thing being used so it's not like the transfer speed of 1.1 will affect you there.

Would it "be nice"?  Of course it would!  About the only real "need" would be if you wanted to do USB ethernet.  

Now, on that x1000 thing, assuming it ever comes out?  For it to even be considered a starter USB2 has to be standard.  With an eye to USB3.

[hardlink]

Ofc it's feasible. The question is WHY would someone do it

Why? Because it would be easy to throw in, not as easy as the IDE port on the X-Surf, but similar idea. With a full speed USB 2.0 port built in, you could boot from a small CF, then run your hard disk, DVDROM, even network, off  USB. Speaking of which, how are you going to interface your CDROM when using the new accels coming out?

[orange]

Now, on that x1000 thing, assuming it ever comes out?  For it to even be considered a starter USB2 has to be standard.  With an eye to USB3.

I don't care much about usb3 even on PC. esata is a lot better when it comes to external hdds.

[kolla]

Rather build in ethernet than USB.

[tone007]

Rather build in ethernet than USB.

Why, when a USB ethernet adapter is so cheap?

[Khephren]

No offense meant but in classic amiga-land what does USB2 get you?

Most amiga apps clock in at a few megs, at most.  
Would it "be nice"?  Of course it would!  About the only real "need" would be if you wanted to do USB ethernet.  

USB cup warmer and christmas tree?

Seriously though, I would just like to see ANY extras on future accelerators (USB1 would do me), we know the ACA's are tiny, there's space there for extra abilities, rather than squeezing umpteen different expansion boards at extra cost into various Amiga orifices.
As for USB2, maybe your right. I still render large anims and bulk copy MODS -but I have the PCMCIA for this, and it's fast enough.

[alexh]

No offence meant but in classic Amiga-land what does USB2 get you?

Nothing. You can do everything that USB can do with alternatives. Most alternatives actually work better because the way that USB is shoe-horned into the OS.

[alexh]

I don't care much about usb3 even on PC. esata is a lot better when it comes to external hdds.

Nah, eSATA is too slow for RAID and cannot provide power so you need yet another power supply or a USB vampire cable. Had the eSATA connector had power things may have been  different.

[Tension]

What about the SCSI connector on the Apollo 1240 boards? Could somebody use those signal lines to make a USB daughterboard rather than a SCSI one, and just use that??

Would be a typical Amiga-style solution.

Look at the clock port ffs.

[Phipscube]

PWRficient PA6T‎ produces more heat than the 603 CPUs used in BPPC. You also need to consider the support chipset power requirements.

Parts are only part of the problem. There are much larger problems with trying to convert a full blown mobo to an accelerator. Also, the company producing the card has no amiga experience at all, which would make it much harder and more expensive.

As far as I can tell BPPC already was a borderline at being profitable at all. These days the potential market is only a fraction of the old one. No way would such an expensive and complex board be profitable now.


I very much doubt your price quotes.

Thanks for providing a more mature response Piru.

a) look at the space required by the CPU alone on the X1000
b) you may want to back up that one
c) it's still pointless for most NG-uses and won't be compatible enough for most classic-uses
d) see above
e) there is no way one could just shrink the current X1000 layout to that size, not without replacing most of the parts with varieties used in laptops and going seriously multilayered on the board (which adds even more design problems). So yes it would be a seperate design and production is gonna be costly
f) we would atleast be talking about inflation corrected prices for the orginal PPC-cards back in 1997 .... read >3000Euro IF the boards would be produced in a similar amount. But given that the market shrank by atleast 90% in the past 13 years we could easily be talking about 10000 or more.

And yes a crapshot remains a crapshot and deserves to be called a crapshot.

a)

Its not big is it? True, I was off on the fact that it runs "MUCH Cooler" what I should have said is Relative to speed. The 603e runs at approx 6W @ 300MHz the PA6T runs at 7W @ 2GHz, so 1.6 GHz could well be quite cool and at least feasable with a similar heatsink and fan placement as the Phase 5 boards.

b) I partly explained above but read here for the ratings:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_600
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PWRficient

And such a chipset as the Radeon Vision for example could be used. I didn't mean the R700, just some form of Radeon MOBILE solution.

c) Why is it pointless if its the direction FORWARD for the NG Amigas according to Hyperion and A-Eon? and if it runs (for example) an FPGA implementation of various 68K cores that is transferred to the PA6T it could potentially boot classic floppy games etc.

d) I actually agreed with you as it stands now... so?

e) Errrm... Where did I mention the WHOLE of the X1000? I said The PA6T and a Radeon Mobility chip, and then a laptop sized DDR slot (or two) SATA port and USB header and POSSIBLE Wifi (if it wouldn't fit, then a connector to add as an option). Didn't expect them to squeeze the whole X1000 mainboard in the A1200! Think about the real estate a 68060 takes up, negate that and you have a heck of a chunk of space. And like I said about my A1200D, if you take the Subway, IDE Express, Delfina etc etc, even though they are seperate and added individually, they all still add up to a virtual system replacement, My idea of the accelerator having these extra features would provide someone like myself something with most if not all those things in a much neater package. And with the advancements in technology over the last 12 years I think what I said is feasable on the amount of space available on an A1200/4000 Accelerator slot. My opinoin, not fact. I also stated it would cost a bit, but I don't believe MORE than the X1000. My opinion again, not fact.

f) And how does that argument hold against the current potential market for the X1000? A-Eon must be CRAAAAZY!

Oh yeah, and a troll is still a troll. Snap! :laughing:

Yeah allmost missed that one were he wants to tell us that a miniturized version of the 1500Euro Xena-board could be sold for 500 Euro or less.....

Ok, now your starting to amuse the hell out of me. 1500 Euro gets you a rather hefty rebranded PC case with an ATX PSU, HDD, DVD Drive, Mainboard, GFX card Sound card keyboard etc... And once again I didn't say "Scuweez Teh X1000 inz da A twelve innit!" For F sake man

I can't be arsed anymore, i'm quite sure you'll respond and have an answer to all my "facts" but I wont be reading.. ta taa for now!

[Kronos]

Ok, now your starting to amuse the hell out of me. 1500 Euro gets you a rather hefty rebranded PC case with an ATX PSU, HDD, DVD Drive, Mainboard, GFX card Sound card keyboard etc...

Nope that would be more like 2000+ for the whole shebang...

1500 will just buy you a motherboard (which won't be available seperatly unless your part of that betatester-prepay-scheme).

[Piru]

1500Euro Xena-board

Wasn't it "north of 1500 UKP" ? Currently something like > 1760 eur.

[fishy_fiz]

PA6T uses more than 7W at 2ghz, heck it uses more at lower frequencies even. According to pretty much every source online at 2ghz it has a TDP of 25W. I was quite surprised by this actually, as this power consumption/heat disappation has now been somewhat surpassed by often criticised x86 cpus (bulldozer variant Llano, AMD current generation cpu for example is significantly faster and proportionally significantly lower consumption while including an HD 6xxx class gpu ondie).
Include a gpu (even a mobile variant), ram, etc. onboard, and suddenly there's little hope of an accelerator card for a1200 even being possible unless it's towered.