Aminet 33/Aminet 33 - October 1999.iso/Aminet/docs/mags/AIOV26.lha/aioissue26/data/fe9

Text File | 1999-07-19 | 10.0 KB | 215 lines

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{subhead} AMIGA Technology Brief, Continued...{def}{p}
Article by AMIGA
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{bold}Pervasive Networking{nobold}
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The near future will bring more high-speed broadband Internet service
to homes via cable modems, xDLS and other new technologies. The
industry is standardizing on technologies for home networking, giving
consumers the ability to connect products throughout the home using
standard home wiring and wireless digital high-speed options.
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Amiga-enabled products will support these standards and seamlessly
connect to each other while leveraging the entire home through our
distributed object technology. We are integrating emerging standards
such as HomePNA by Broadcom/Epigram into the Amiga Operating
Environment, using standard phone lines in North America homes.
Several initiatives are also being pursued in Europe and Asia, which
we continue to monitor. We are also investigating the front-running
technologies for digital wireless networks for the home environment.
Most regions of the world will standardize on a form of 2.4Ghz
digital wireless networking like that of Proxim's which we will
support as they become adopted by the industry.  With the new Amiga
object technology and integration of these standards, the home will
become "the computer", including seamless high-speed connection to
the Internet.
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With AmigaObjects being the foundation for all object services and
supporting distributive processing in the Amiga Operating
Environment, networking naturally becomes pervasive. There is no
distinction between devices (e.g. hard disks) found local to a
computing element or an equivalent device found somewhere on the
network. The Jini technology from Sun Microsystems addresses many of
these problems with an architecture that enables instant connectivity
of devices to the network such as disk drives, printers, scanners,
cameras, etc. We are encapsulating Jini technology for the types of
devices where it works well, and are providing complete AmigaObject
solutions for services not supported effectively by Jini. We'll
provide more details on the pervasiveness of network services at a
later time.
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The actual choice of transport is unimportant to the software and
application architecture. We expect to support most of the popular
networking standards, such as Ethernet, modem, HomePNA, HomeRF, IEEE
1394 and other digital high speed networking over time. The only real
issue is one of bandwidth: lower bandwidth connectivity tends to
limit the quality of services that can be offered. As you can see
from the hardware section, we're actively working on providing
high-bandwidth networking in our base system, thereby enabling a new
generation of net-aware applications and products.
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{bold}Amiga MCC Hardware Architecture{nobold}
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The Amiga MCC is being designed to support state-of-the-art
multimedia while leaving the PC legacy baggage behind. The MCC will
have DVD, high-performance 3D, Ethernet-based home networking,
digital and traditional analog video and audio, and USB ports for
digital peripherals. It will have room for at least 2 hard drives, 2
PCI slots, 7 USB ports and an open drive bay for enthusiast options
such as Zip and Jazz drives.
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There is significant momentum for USB (Universal Serial Bus) in the
industry. USB is a digital 2-way interface that supports up to
10Mb/s. This allows game controllers to support high-speed
interactivity, including features such as force feedback so when you
are driving the car the wheel will push back on you.  It allows hot
detection of devices such as keyboards, printers, scanners, cameras,
game controllers, storage devices, etc. In fact, the USB standard
supports up to 127 peripherals on a single port. For this reason we
do not intend to support the legacy serial, parallel, PS/2 or analog
game ports. You can always add USB hubs for more devices, and there
are converters to the old buses (e.g. USB to parallel) for your
legacy peripherals that you might not want to get rid of for a while.
There are even efforts under way to make the next version of USB work
up to 100Mb/s.
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The industrial design for the MCC has been done by Pentagram, a
leading worldwide industrial design firm. Several concept sketches
(out of approximately 12 that were considered) have been previously
released, and the final industrial design will be shown at the
upcoming World of Amiga and AmiWest shows.
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As the foundation and hub for the Amiga computing revolution, the
Amiga MCC will be delivered in two formats: an integrated computing
system with an attractive industrial design and separate monitor
option; and a standard size ATX format motherboard for systems
vendors, software developers and enthusiasts who want access to MCC
functionality in other configurations with greater expandability.
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We have selected a very exciting CPU for the MCC, which is at the
heart of a next-generation processing subsystem. The CPU subsystem
will provide more than just traditional central processing services –
having chosen Linux and Java as two of our fundamental software
building blocks, we wanted a CPU subsystem that could be highly tuned
for a Linux/Java software base, while also running classic Amiga
applications. We are still under strict confidentiality constraints,
and cannot disclose information about the CPU at this time. However,
we believe the selection of this technology will give us a unique
advantage for the Amiga.
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As mentioned earlier, the MCC will include a very high-performance 3D
graphics subsystem, support for streaming media integration, and
support for the emerging home networking standards that will become
pervasive over the next two years. Following is a partial list of
features under development in the MCC hardware architecture:
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{bold}Processing Subsystem:{nobold}
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 High-performance next generation CPU{p}
 Hardware assist for Linux kernel, Java VM, and classic Amiga emulation{p}
 168-pin SDRAM DIMMs -- future support for DDR SDRAM{p}
 32MB System RAM expandable to 288MB (ATX goal to be expandable to 1GB)
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{bold}Graphics Subsystem:{nobold}
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Advanced SuperScalar rendering 2D & 3D hardware accelerator
(unannounced next-generation ATI chipset - specs still under
non-disclosure):{p}
24-bit true color depth / pixel supporting 640x480 to 1920x1200
resolutions{p}
Texture lighting & compositing, alpha blending, vertex- &
table-based fog, video textures, reflections, shadows,
spotlighting, bump mapping, LOD biasing, texture morphing, hidden
surface Z-buffering, dithering, anti-aliasing, gouraud- &
specular-shaded ploygons, perspective correct mip-mapping
texturing, chroma-key, bilinear & trilinear texture filtering;
additional features to be announced when ATI releases
next-generation chip information{p}
32MB 128-bit SDRAM frame buffer
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{bold}Audio / Video:{nobold}
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DVD drive standard (DVD-RAM when available){p}
DVD playback including{p}
MPEG-2 hardware decode acceleration: motion compensation & iDCT{p}
Hardware subpicture decoder with interpolating scalar & alpha compositor{p}
Real-time video compression including MPEG-2{p}
Still image capture acceleration{p}
Analog TV:  NTSC/PAL/Secam input, digitization and TV outputs{p}
S-Video & composite video I/O{p}
Full channel TV tuner{p}
44 kHz, 16-bit CD stereo audio I/O{p}
AC-3 Dolby Digital 5.1 channel decode{p}
S/PDIF Dolby Digital output{p}
FM radio tuner under consideration
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{bold}Communication Options (in development):{nobold}
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V.90 56Kb/s modem{p}
100/10Mb/s Ethernet{p}
HomePNA 2.0 10Mb/s home networking{p}
Wireless 2.4GHz digital networking{p}
Broadband Internet options{p}
1.5MB/s cable modem{p}
DSL modem{p}
ISDN modem{p}
Digital satellite decoders
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{bold}Mass Storage:{nobold}
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Two E-IDE UltraDMA interfaces (support for four drives){p}
Support two high capacity hard drives (ATX user configurations could support more)
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{bold}Internal expansion:{nobold}
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2 PCI slots (ATX target is 6 PCI slots){p}
3.5" open bay for Zip/Jazz/120MB floppy or other options
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{bold}I/O:{nobold}
Infrared for remote control devices{p}
Microphone input{p}
Display touch screen controller{p}
7 Universal Serial Bus "USB" 10Mb/s digital ports (2 in front for easy access){p}
Investigating 1394 option
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Note: Full software support for these features and more will happen over time.
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{bold}Development Tools and Applications{nobold}
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We are working with several leading development tool and applications
software suppliers to ensure that there are great tools and
applications for the Amiga OE and the Amiga MCC.  One of the key
reasons that we chose Linux for the underlying operating system of
the MCC is the tremendous growth in Linux-based tools and
applications, many of which will be available for the Amiga MCC.
Similarly, our choice of Java for the Amiga OE was partly driven by
the fact that there are some very powerful Linux-based Java
development environments that are either already shipping, or will be
shipping over the coming months. The Amiga MCC will instantly be one
of the best-selling Linux-based systems in the marketplace, and it is
the intent of Amiga and its partners to ensure that these tools are
available on the MCC.
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Obviously, we are not at liberty to disclose the release plans of
other companies. As we move closer to the Amiga OE and Amiga MCC
ship dates, companies developing applications and tools for the new
Amigas will announce their own plans to release software for the
Amiga.
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{bold}Summary{nobold}
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We believe that the Amiga Operating Environment will power a wide
range of next-generation computing devices. The Amiga MCC as the
foundation, will set the standard for multimedia convergence
computers in the emerging home computing environment.
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This brief in no way documents all that is happening at Amiga. We
have several exciting things in development that we would like to
disclose to the community and will as our partners will allow. The
decisions that are being made are focused on the future while keeping
our eyes on today and yesterday. Hopefully this brief has given you
an insight to our direction.