Phase 5 News

Phase 5 have announced the BlizzardVision Graphics Card which will connect to the A1200 603e+ PPC board, in much the same way as the proposed Cybervision PPC. It will be a 4MB card capable of 24bit at resolutions up to 1600x1200. The expected price is 499DM; UK prices have not yet been announced, but 499DM translates into less than 200UKP.

Whether you will still need a tower, I don't know (there doesn't seem to be much room in the trapdoor!) but even if you do, this will still make fitting a gfx card to a 1200 much cheaper, as you won't need to buy the Zorro connectors, costing in excess of £150. The BVision is based around the same graphics chipset as the Cybervision PPC. Hopefully this will encourage a new generation of graphics card equipped PPC Amigas, with decent games and applications to support them.

The Cybervision PPC is due for release at 549DM, or £219.

The specifications of the Blizzard PPC boards have been changed with regard to clock speed; both the 603e and 603e+ boards will be available at 160, 200 and a whopping 250MHz - 200MHz MMX, anyone?

Newtek have PPC boards - does this mean we will see Lightwave for PowerAmiga? SAS/C may be ported too.

Phase 5 have dropped all their '040 accelerators due to lack of '040 availability. The CyberstormII has been superseded by (you guessed it) CyberstormIII, which is basically the CybestormPPC, but without the PPC (ie, only the '060).

Mark