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Offline DJSTopic starter

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Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« on: December 17, 2015, 06:46:34 PM »
We are pleased to inform about new versions of the Mediator 1200 TX and Mediator 4000 Di models:

Mediator PCI 1200 TXblack and
Mediator PCI 4000 Di 3V.

New version of Mediator 1200 TX has the additional logic for signalizing the power management states. The red LED of the Mediator PCI 1200 TXblack indicates when PCI cards cannot be removed or inserted. The solder mask of this Mediator is black.

New Mediator 4000 Di is a busboard in format of the daughter board for Amiga 4000 in the desktop case. It is equipped with four PCI 2.2 slots and four Zorro III/II slots (one of them used by the Mediator 4000 Core Logic card). Mediator 4000 Di 3V allows to use the wider range of the PCI cards, including cards which require 3.3V power rail. The solder mask of Mediator PCI 4000 Di 3V is also black.

Availability: from 21 December 2015.

Information on the current versions of Mediator drivers is available in the DOWNLOADS | Mediator section. The current list of supported PCI cards is available in the Mediator Driver Guide. Information about Mediator-related sources you will find in the COMMUNITY section.
 

Offline kreciu

Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #1 on: December 17, 2015, 09:00:25 PM »
I wish there would be AGP slot or something like SATA, memory slot... after 15 years of "development", but lack of competition kills innovation in some cases.

I'm still happy to be able to use Mediator :), but...
Re-A1200inE/BOX/3.2/AmigaOS3.2/TF1260@66Mhz/256Mb/MediatorTX/R9200SE/SpiderUSB/LAN/SB128/16Gb-CF/DVD-ROM/FDD-HD
 

Offline mechy

Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2015, 09:44:38 PM »
Quote from: kreciu;800386
I wish there would be AGP slot or something like SATA, memory slot... after 15 years of "development", but lack of competition kills innovation in some cases.

I'm still happy to be able to use Mediator :), but...

Why would you need a agp slot, there are no drivers for agp cards, besides,pci is still way faster than the zorro3 bottleneck. that bottleneck will always be the problem.
I seem to recall drivers for sata cards under os4x,but dont recall them for 3/x. I think it was non bootable anyway.

if anything i would like to see pci-e..

I dont think its so much a lack of competition as its become such a small market no one wants to take the chance since they won't sell enough. its a monsterous investment to develop stuff like this.  The grex was the best idea of the bunch since it had a true pci bus,and didn't suffer from the zorro3 bottleneck.
 

Offline billt

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Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #3 on: December 17, 2015, 10:07:22 PM »
Does the 1200 version also support 3.3V PCI cards? or does only the 4000 one do that?
Bill T
All Glory to the Hypnotoad!
 

Offline carvedeye

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Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #4 on: December 17, 2015, 10:30:14 PM »
Quote from: billt;800390
Does the 1200 version also support 3.3V PCI cards? or does only the 4000 one do that?


I have a Radeon 9200 card in my towered 1200 and I think mine is 3.3v but I will have to check to be certain.
A1200T: M1230XA 50Mhz 68030 w/64mb,DVDRom, 80gb hdd, Realtek LAN Card, Mediator LT4 + Radeon 9250 128mb(used for fast ram), Spider USB Card, Voodoo 3 3000 OS 3.9 +bb 1-3
 

Offline Rob

Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #5 on: December 17, 2015, 10:30:51 PM »
Quote from: mechy;800389
Why would you need a agp slot, there are no drivers for agp cards, besides,pci is still way faster than the zorro3 bottleneck. that bottleneck will always be the problem.


The existing Voodoo 3 and Radeon R200 drivers would work but as you said, the bottleneck is elsewhere and there would be no performance advantage whatsoever.

Quote
I seem to recall drivers for sata cards under os4x,but dont recall them for 3/x. I think it was non bootable anyway.


They may be bootable on a soft reboot once OS4's kickstart has loaded but otherwise there is no way for the OS to know that about PCI cards until the pci.library is loaded.  
They could license 3.1 ROMs and source from Hyperion like Individual have.
Parts of kickstart could be moved to hard disk but would there actually be enough space in a 1MB ROM for pci.library, a SATA driver and the necessary OS components to actually be able to boot from a PCI card?

The other question is would PCI SATA or IDE card actually be any faster than Elbox's FastATA cards and it still wouldn't offer DMA.

Quote
if anything i would like to see pci-e..


Still pointless since compatible PCI cards are still easy to source.

Quote
I dont think its so much a lack of competition as its become such a small market no one wants to take the chance since they won't sell enough. its a monsterous investment to develop stuff like this.  The grex was the best idea of the bunch since it had a true pci bus,and didn't suffer from the zorro3 bottleneck.


They did actually innovate with the Dragon but I can only assume that they never achieved the CPU performance necessary to make it viable.  Without a CPU and RAM being local to the Mediator or it's PCI bus, there isn't really much more worthwhile you can add to the existing design.  It will always be limited by the bottle necks of the Amiga it's plugged into.
 

Offline tonyvdb

Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #6 on: December 17, 2015, 10:42:30 PM »
$500 is a bit rich for my blood and Im sure others.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2015, 10:49:55 PM by tonyvdb »
Amiga 2000HD Indivision ECS
Amiga 4000D towerised OS 3.1 and 3.9 on CF cards
Indivision AGA, Mediator 4000
Video Toaster 4000 Flyer v4.3 Millenium.
202gig of video drive space & 5gig audio.
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #7 on: December 17, 2015, 10:47:03 PM »
Quote from: tonyvdb;800394
$600 is a bit rich for my blood and Im sure others.

?

Current EUR --> USD exchange rates are the lowest they've been in a decade.  These would be $346.64 USD not $600.  If I owned a 4000D I'd snap one of these up in a heartbeat.  :hammer:
Amiga 500: 2MB Chip|16MB Fast|30MHz 68030+68882|3.9|Indivision ECS|GVP A500HD+|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|Cocolino|SCSI DVD-RAM
Amiga 2000: 2MB Chip|136MB Fast|50MHz 68060|3.9|Indivision ECS + GVP Spectrum|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|AD516|X-Surf 100|RapidRoad|Cocolino|SCSI CD-RW
 Amiga videos and other misc. stuff at https://www.youtube.com/CompTechMike/videos
 

Offline tonyvdb

Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #8 on: December 17, 2015, 10:49:19 PM »
Sorry, your right although to CAD its still $480
Amiga 2000HD Indivision ECS
Amiga 4000D towerised OS 3.1 and 3.9 on CF cards
Indivision AGA, Mediator 4000
Video Toaster 4000 Flyer v4.3 Millenium.
202gig of video drive space & 5gig audio.
 

Offline Bennymee

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Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #9 on: December 17, 2015, 10:51:31 PM »
At last this makes it possible to try a Sonnet card in the Amiga 4000 3volt version.
Amiga 500, 1200, 4000, Amigaone, Morphos, CyberstormPPC, Blizzardppc, OS4.x
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #10 on: December 17, 2015, 11:13:04 PM »
Quote from: tonyvdb;800397
Sorry, your right although to CAD its still $480

I saw the "$" dollar sign and just assumed USD.  Sorry!  :(
Amiga 500: 2MB Chip|16MB Fast|30MHz 68030+68882|3.9|Indivision ECS|GVP A500HD+|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|Cocolino|SCSI DVD-RAM
Amiga 2000: 2MB Chip|136MB Fast|50MHz 68060|3.9|Indivision ECS + GVP Spectrum|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|AD516|X-Surf 100|RapidRoad|Cocolino|SCSI CD-RW
 Amiga videos and other misc. stuff at https://www.youtube.com/CompTechMike/videos
 

Offline mechy

Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #11 on: December 17, 2015, 11:27:55 PM »
Quote from: Oldsmobile_Mike;800399
I saw the "$" dollar sign and just assumed USD.  Sorry!  :(

the one driver i would of liked to see was for the mpeg/dvd decoder cards...

Any old style mediator can be hacked to use 3.3v if you are using a atx psu with 3.3v .. i simply ran a wire to the baqck of my board to the proper place on the slot, i run a 3v radeon in my mediator pro tower.

the new boards must simply use a vreg or more likely dc-dc comverter to make 3.3v from 5v rail.
you could also build a small regulator board to do the same if you only had the original amiga psu.

Also the reason i suggested we get pci-e is just for futureproof...and usb3 might be available(but not its full capable speed of course).
The mediator could of had a flashrom on it that installs itself with pci.library etc like any zorro card i would imagine, i always wondered why this was not done- It would of made the pci cards bootable and available at boot time.

I wonder if it would be possible to put the mediator stuff in the deneb flash rom or a eflash,romy,etc?
« Last Edit: December 17, 2015, 11:30:06 PM by mechy »
 

Offline slaapliedje

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Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #12 on: December 18, 2015, 01:34:16 AM »
I was just thinking the same thing Mechy, with romy, adding in the pci.library.

I was not aware of how you'd mod an older Mediator with 3.3v, and was actually wondering if Elbox would sell the parts, or upgrade older models to support it.  Of course for me it's kind of pointless, since I finally found a 5v Radeon, but still would have been nice.

But definitely would be nice to have pci.library from boot up.  I ended up getting some custom roms when my Cyberstorm MK1 kicked the bucket, but I'm not 100% sure on what was put in it besides basically the kickstart from 3.9.  Is there an easy way to tell?
A4000D: Mediator 4000Di; Voodoo 3, ZorRAM 128MB, 10/100mb Ethernet, Spider 2. Cyberstorm PPC 060/50 604e/420.
 

Offline kreciu

Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #13 on: December 18, 2015, 01:44:10 AM »
Quote from: mechy;800389
Why would you need a agp slot, there are no drivers for agp cards, besides,pci is still way faster than the zorro3 bottleneck. that bottleneck will always be the problem.


Try to by PCI graphic card? Drives? Someone can write drivers.

Quote
I seem to recall drivers for sata cards under os4x,but dont recall them for 3/x. I think it was non bootable anyway.

if anything i would like to see pci-e..


...but what about drivers and bottlneck for pci-e ;)

Quote
I dont think its so much a lack of competition as its become such a small market no one wants to take the chance since they won't sell enough. its a monsterous investment to develop stuff like this.  The grex was the best idea of the bunch since it had a true pci bus,and didn't suffer from the zorro3 bottleneck.


Can anybody actually tell how many Amiga users is "there"? They are selling Mediators for VERY long time.
Re-A1200inE/BOX/3.2/AmigaOS3.2/TF1260@66Mhz/256Mb/MediatorTX/R9200SE/SpiderUSB/LAN/SB128/16Gb-CF/DVD-ROM/FDD-HD
 

Offline Darrin

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Re: Elbox: Black MEDIATORS Available
« Reply #14 on: December 18, 2015, 02:25:29 AM »
@ Kreciu:  I've got one in my A4000.  Great piece of kit.  I've got the Radeon card with most of the card's RAM assigned to the system and a great 1920x1080 Workbench.  I have two "Spider" USB cards and a Soudblaster 128 taking up the PCI slots.  On the Zorro side I have a FastATA board for all of my drives and I need to see if I can cram my Emplant card in there too.
A2000, A3000, 2 x A1200T, A1200, A4000Tower & Mediator, CD32, VIC-20, C64, C128, C128D, PET 8032, Minimig & ARM, C-One, FPGA Arcade... and AmigaOne X1000.