From: cfury@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Chris Fury)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy,comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Power-up for AGA Machines! rumour.
Date: 15 Dec 92 01:13:49 GMT
Organization: Virginia Tech Computer Science Dept, Blacksburg, VA

freire2a@serss0 (Angel Freire) writes:

>>In article <1gib3hINNn0l@pith.uoregon.edu> ggiles@cie.uoregon.edu (Gregg Giles) writes:

>>>In article <71644@cup.portal.com> spiercy@cup.portal.com (Scott Kelly Piercy) writes:

>>>my dealer told me (and I used to work for him, so I can trust him, although
>>>I always have doubts of his C= source, simply because I know C= all
>>>too well) that C= will release an AMIGA next year (he said the time frame
>>>was about 4 months from now) that contains the DEC ALPHA processor.  
>>>Totally speculation at this point however


>>   Fat chance. Do you even know what the power requirements for that chip are?
>>It's not just big, it's HUGE. It's not going to happen. 
>>

>for what its worth... i was at a small dealer-sponsored multimedia/4000/
>1200 mini conference yesterday. there was a Commodore rep on hand. 
>after checking out the 1200 and 4000 which both had nice aga demos 
>running, i went over to chat with the C= rep. (i cant remember his name
>too well but i do remember his last name sounds a lot like Hoek of Ren
>fame)

>anyways...among the things he CONFIRMED were that the scsiII card will
>be available at the beginning of 93, the dsp will be out sometime a 
>little later in the year, AND he positively told me that there were 
>amigas in the research labs with DEC ALPHAS running AmigaDos. i was 
>quite surprised. im no hardware guy, but wouldn't the OS have to be 
>recompiled to run on the Alpha? isn't it an either or kind of thing? 

No, the risc chips can be built to handle MC68000 series instructions, as
well as it's native set...  This is a common thing on some risc systems,
I understand...  According to my roomie, the MC68040 is a risc chip that
is microcoded to understand 68000 speak....

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY AND UTTERLY COOL!!! WAY TO GO COMMODORE.... KILL SGI! :)

No, but seriously, this is a maaaajor move for commodore if they can
produce some high-end (and, eventually, lower-end) amiga's running the 
High-end chipset and Alphas...  Commodore could really kick some computing
butt... I see some major buying power for the science areas.... and the 
user's of those machines could take their home amiga's to do a little 
prototyping.....  NEAT... SALES... What wonderful news...

>you know: AmigaDos compiled for 68k or AmigaDos for Alpha? well, he made
>it seem that it would run on both with no modifications. regardless, I
>had a C= rep tell me that thre would be Alpha powered amigas. no timetable
>was given. one other note. i asked him about the rumors of an ec030, 030,
>and 040 Tower version of the 4000 and he told me those reports were wrong.
>he did say there would be a model to fit between the 4000 and 1200 but 
>did not specify whether it would be a new model or an 030 powered 4000.
>come to think of it, his negation of the ec030, 030, and 040T seemed 
>more to indicate that there wouldn't be those exact 3 models but that
>one or two of them might be right. 

>one final note: he stated that on Jan 1 there would be a power up 
>program. no details. l8r!

Can't wait!

>Angel Freire
>Florida Internationl University
>freire2a@serss0.fiu.edu 


Christopher B. Fury        | "...reality was once a primative method of crowd  
cfury@csugrad.cs.vt.edu    |  control that got out of hand" - Jane Wagner
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