Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Question about C= & new graphics board & ZorroIII
Keywords: zorroIII bus
Message-ID: <16419@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 10 Dec 90 20:50:03 GMT
References: <12161@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 43

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"
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