Eyetech AmigaOne 1.0 Prototype
Developer: Eyetech
Development time: October 2000 - September 2001
Original planned release date: December 2000
|
Eyetech were the first of two businesses to be announced as official AmigaOne
developers. Based upon initial announcements and comments three versions of
the AmigaOne board were planned that would allow different types of connection:
- AmigaOne PPC 1200 - connects to the A1200 motherboard via
the edge connector.
- AmigaOne PPC 4000 - connects to the A4000 via the CPU connector
(will be launched if there is sufficient demand).
- Standalone AmigaOne PPC - the AmigaOne PPC board can be used as
a complete system in its own right
The A1200/A4000 connection would allow the use of hardware hitting 'Classic
Amiga' applications through 68k emulation and direct use of the AGA chipset
or other required components. For example, MIDI, digitisers and other video
cards. Eyetech also indicated later plans for an A4000T & A3000D option
at a later date. The final product differs from the prototype in several respects.
The Classic Amiga connectivity has been moved to a separate PCI card removing
the need for three different motherboard types. Instead there is only the third
option - a standalone AmigaOne. The absence of commercially available PPC north/southbridge
chipsets were available in small (less than 100k production quantities) resulted
in the company creating their own design. The final product uses off-the-shelf
south & northbridge chips with the only custom logic function being the
PCI to A1200 bridge. If the initial board had been launched it would have been
much more expensive to recuperate the initial cost of design. There is also
less risk of outstanding bugs being present in the custom logic implementation,
as it has already been tested by other large corporations.
Hardware
The table below shows the initial hardware specification of the AmigaOne motherboard:
Motherboard |
Custom designed PPC |
CPU |
1x CPU slot to take Macintosh-type G3/G4 cpu module |
Memory |
2x SO-DIMM (up to 512Mb) |
Slots |
6x PCI
1x AGP |
Expansion |
USB
IDE
CPU Module (for connection of A1200/A4000)
Classic Amiga devices (attached to A1200/A4000 motherboard) |
Operating system
The initial AmigaOne announcement came before plans to port the AmigaOS to
PowerPC. Instead, the Amiga DE was planned to be the main operating system.
This caused some confusion, due to the platform independent design of the environment.
Why use PPC when cheap x86 is available? It is fortunate that this choice was
made. The announcement that OS 4.0 would be PPC only turned the AmigaOne into
an important focal point for the Amiga market. Early announcements indicated
the machine would be dual boot, allowing the use of Amiga DE or an emulated
version of AmigaOS 3.9. The emulated AmigaOS would have booted directly from
the Kickstart ROMs, recognising the G3 as an Amiga acceleratorm while providing
access to PCI/AGP peripherals.
Related Documents
Original AmigaOne PPC Timeline | AmigaOne
PPC Timeline (27th June 2001) | Amiga One Additional
Information | AmigaOne Schematics | AmigaOne,
the Predator, GRex and Mediator boards
More information on the current AmigaOne can be found on the Eyetech
AmigaOne page.
BACK
Last Update: 6/3/2002
|