ddyer@hubcap.clemson.edu (Doug Dyer) (12/10/90)
Hello, I have a question for C= or some hardware gurus:
Why is the new graphics board designed for ZorroII? SInce this seems
to be part of the UNIX strategy, why not atleast have a ZorroIII model.
Would this not significantly improve performance? Is this a major
cost tradeoff or something?
Is ANYONE developing ANYTHING to take advantage of the new bus? Or did I buy
an expensive A2000?
Thankyou for any followups/replies.
--
"I/O's revenge is at hand" - Hennessy & Pattersonckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) (12/11/90)
In article <12161@hubcap.clemson.edu> ddyer@hubcap.clemson.edu (Doug Dyer) writes: >Is ANYONE developing ANYTHING to take advantage of the new bus? Or did I buy >an expensive A2000? The only 32 bit Zorro III device you're likely to see for a *long* time is a memory card. As the only profitable Zorro cards are memory and hard disk controllers, and as hard disks aren't as fast as Zorro II yet, not to mention the A3000's built-in super-fast SCSI controller, and considering the relative numbers of A2x00s vs A3x00s, there's no measurable probability that any Zorro III cards besides memory cards will be built by anyone. Sorry. -- First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T T E C H N O L O G I E S / / \\ / / Then, the disclaimer: All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \ / o Now for the witty part: I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam! \/
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (12/11/90)
In article <12161@hubcap.clemson.edu> ddyer@hubcap.clemson.edu (Doug Dyer) writes: >Hello, I have a question for C= or some hardware gurus: > > Why is the new graphics board designed for ZorroII? SInce this seems >to be part of the UNIX strategy, why not atleast have a ZorroIII model. Certainly a Zorro III model would be nice, but of course, an A2500 can be a UNIX machine too. There's also the timing factor, in that the graphics board design was started before there was a Zorro III bus. Also, the 34010 is a 16 bit processor, which would have made Zorro III connections a problem. I would like to see someone build a 34020 based Zorro III display card, that would be quite cool. >Is ANYONE developing ANYTHING to take advantage of the new bus? Or did I buy >an expensive A2000? I have heard of a few things on the way. Nothing yet announced. And only a small part of the A3000 cost is the fancy new bus. What you get in the A3000, as well as the 25MHz 68030 and display enhancer that you could add to the A2000, are a few things you can't get on the A2000 at all: - Easy expansion to 16 MB of Fast RAM - 2 MB of double width Chip RAM - DMA hard disk with about 6x the bandwidth - 32 bit CPU slot for even better speeds Certainly video displays and other high bandwidth I/O devices are the reason for Zorro III, but that's something you expect to start out as a capability. One of the reasons the A2000 got so many plug-ins was that, without them, it wasn't much of a computer by today's standards. The A3000 comes with most of what most people need, and the kinds of things you might want to add on Zorro III are more expensive and harder to build. Developers have only had the specifications for a little under a year now, so you wouldn't expect to see much out just yet. Wait a few months. >"I/O's revenge is at hand" - Hennessy & Patterson -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...........