| From: | Alin Ageu |
| Date: | 16 Dec 99 at 22:42:55 |
| Subject: | [warpup] Re: Something about G3/G4 cards |
Hello David
On 16-Dez-99, you wrote:
> Thomas Frieden wrote:
>
>>> The last news from Phase5 is that they will use the same PCI/Memory
>>> controller as IBM (including AGP) and that LinuxPPC will be available
>>> for this cards shipping 1st q 2000.
>>
>> I just don't see what AGP has to do with Linux..
> LinuxPPC will provide some support for AGP gfx boards using the same
> controller as the card from Phase5, so he supposes that is could help
> having the same support on Phase5's G4 board with that controller.
>
And using the same controller will be very usefull for
developing(supporting) low level access hardvare.
>>> I also think that it is possible for P5 to make a standalone mainboard
>>> instead of a accelerator card (something like the new Mac's with no
>>> serial/parallel port). since the board provides USB, it will be no
>>> problem to make a ATX-sized mainboard out of it with more PCI-slots
>>> and standard SDRAM- DIMM -slots.
>> I don't see what USB has to do with ATX, PCI or SDRAM..
> USB can handle many peripherals such as kb, mouse, zip, serial,
> parallel,
> printer, scanner, etc. So it can reduce the motherboard size as we don't
> need any serial, parallel, floppy drive, etc, controller. This reduction
> helping fitting the board in an ATX sizeed box.
Thats it. Not only the size of the mainboard is reduced, the implementation
of serial,parallel and keyboard port etc is avoided .
>
>>> Lets stop complaining about all things and enter a common path for the
>>> future of the spirit of Amiga.(I think no programmer is willing to
>>> support 3 standards if escena, P5,metabox and maybe H&P will do
>>> separate incompatible solutions for G3/G4 implementation)
>>
>> That's why most developers settle for WarpUp, it doesn't need a P5 dongle
>> to run.
> Right, and WarpOS is the only kernel to have a sufficient HAL to handle
> all
> those boards without any change in the API, unlike what we'll see if
> those
> board get available whithout WarpOS.
>
> In fact, I don't condamn there way to do, but what I condamn is Phase5
> not
> willing to give any G4 board prototype to H&P for no sufficient reason
> at
> all.
>
are you sure they have a prototype at all??. Nowadays most (all) hardware is
developed at software basis wich means that the availibility of the
hardware prototype is not necessary and changes can be done much
faster(implementation of a new PCI-Memory-AGP-controller).
Regards