AW96 - Things Peter Bondar said.

OK - There seems to be a lot of confusion about what Peter Bondar of ART said and didn't say at his presentation at Acorn World 1996. He 'announced' (this was probably not an official announcement in the IT commitment sense but anyway) three major products that ART are working on. These three are:

1. A new OS

   Codenamed Galileo, it will (and this is from memory):

   • be based on a microkernal
   • be real-time
   • multi-threading (including some 'new' feature that involves ATM like service levels for different threads)
   • pre-emptive multi-tasking
   • be portable to other chips
   • be more modular than RISC-OS
   • be able to run as much RISC-OS stuff as possible (migration will be easy!!!)
   • be out in about 2 years.

   A road-map of where OS's are going was shown. RISC-OS looked to have 3.8 and 3.9 releases, probably including the merging of NCOS and STBOS into RISC-OS, while simultaneously Galileo is developed through one major release before RISC-OS merges with it in its second major release.

2. The RISC PC mk II

   In the last quarter of next year a new computer will be launced and it will have (just read this and be unimpressed, go on I dare ya!!):

   • 2 (possibly 4 or more) 300+MHz StrongARMS (est. 1,200 MIPS) These SAs could be of an unannounced variety.
   • A new controller chip, being developed with Cirrus logic. Apparently this will have lots of other applications.
   • Support for 64bit alien processors (Pentia and PPCs)
   • Support for EDO and SGDRAM, or equivilent
   • Graphics to shake a stick at - three interleaved VIDCs that each have control a gun (r, g, and b) hence a possible 24MB of VRAM!!!)
   • PCI bus (I didn't hear anything about DEBI, but it has been reported that it will piggyback onto the PCI bus) - NEW
   • A non-standard PC case, the same as an RPC if physically possible.
   • DVD support possible.

3. A new Portable

   This is themost mysterious of the new announcements. It is codenamed 'Artisan' and is a result of the Stork demonstrator impressing some american. It will:

   • come in both colour and grey-scale.
   • have either ARM7500FE or possibly some strongARM (I would have thought this was almost essential for higher end models to sell)
   • 8hrs life with lithium battery.
   • Full size QWERTY keyboard.
   • weight of about 3lbs
   • An interesting case that nothing can be said about due to contractual obligations.
   • PCMCIA 3 slot
   • in-built telephony (not sure if this means GSM)
   • video-conferencing capability (VC over a mobile?)
   • be available around the middle of next year.

   There seems to be a lot they can't say about this, it is apparently part of a deal with a VERY rich american who wanted a laptop with 'an operating system that no-one in the states used' and allegedly in numbers of about 100,000! (not sure if I believe that)*

   * - This piece of information is second hand, I can't remember where I heard it.

   I have now been told by a couple of people that the original US order was definitely for 150,000 units. - NEW

These three projects should see the ART product line very well in 1997/8 and beyond. I have probably forgotten some things and got other thins wrong, do not take anything here as gospel. If you know anything is wrong here or have any other info please tell me. It is also important to note that all this info is offered by me as 'what I can remember', I am nothing to do with ART at all.