Just when it was beginning to look as though Phase5 had left the Amiga for good they have announced plans for what looks to be a very exciting product, full details can be found below:-.
The new accelerator, the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 board, is a pure PowerPC-based processor card. It will ship with a fast PowerPC750 or PowerPC7400 (G4 with Altivec), which is installed in a Z F socket. This ZIF socket is fully compliant with the Interposer standard from IBM and Motorola, which is also used in PowerMacs and other systems, what will allow easy upgrading, if required by the user in the future. In the base version with a 400MHz PowerPC750 processor and 1MB backside Cache @ 200MHz, the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 will provide an impressing peak performance of up to 19.2 SPECint95 and 13.1 SPECfp95 (source: IBM website 03/18/99). In real-world applications, this allows incredible application performance, which is estimated to reach 15 -20 times the performance of a 50MHz 68060 processor (with native PowerPC coded or PowerPC optimized applications). The CYBERSTORM G3/G4 will use standard SDRAM running at 1 00MHz, providing a peak memory transfer rate of 582 MB/s, and has two DIMM sockets which will support up to 1 GB main memory. An on-board PCI 2.1 interface will allow the connection of all kind of industry standard devices and cards. The on-board Flash ROM with 512kB size can be used to install software necessary for system-startup and other functionalities. By default, this Flash ROM will only contain a basic boot-strap functionality (hardware write protected) which will allow to install any kind of system software from disks; this functionality will be fully documented and freely available to everybody.
By it's design concept, the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 is the perfect soluti on for running native PowerPC coded Operating Systems as well as emulated 68k OS segments. As a processor card which fits into the A4000 compatible fast slot, it allows to run 100% native PowerPC code, and has full access to all system hardware functionalities and interrupts which is not the case with add-ons that are not installed in the fast slot, but e.g. in a Zorro slot. With it's ability to be the master system CPU, the PowerPC on the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 does not need an additional 68k processor which is the case in other designs. Beside the technical advantages of this approach, it offers the user the opportunity to e.g sell an existing 68060 processor card in the second-hand market, thus lowering the cost of the upgrade to the PowerPC G3/G4 generation.
phase 5 digital products will NOT built or deliver any software or hardware add-ons for the CYBERSTORM G3/G4. The CYBERSTORM G3/G4 will be open to third party developers in a wide way:
However, due to the current market status, we can only justify the realization of this project with a significant number of pr eorders. We will therefore have to collect a total of 1,000 orders from customers (end users, dealers, or distributors). For each of these orders, we will also ask for a down-payment of DM 250, which will be collected on a notary account and will only be made available to us at the time we deliver the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 product to the customers. This gives security to all customers who want to support this exiting new project and get stunning G3/G4 performance for their Amiga, and will give security to us when we make the necessary investments.
What will be the cost of this product, and are benefits there benefits for preordering?
The regular list price for the CYBERSTORM G3/G4, including
A price for a CYBERSTORM G3/G4 model with the new XPC7400 (G4 with Altivec) processor is not yet determined, and will depend on the pricing of these new processors. As soon as we have these pricings, we will determine a list price for this product.
For those Amigans who are ready t o support this major technological step forward by placing one of the necessary preorders, we offer a special benefit: Customers who are ready to order this board in advance, at the conditions mentioned herein, will get this stunning product for a special discounted preorder price of DM 1,750 plus local taxes, including world-wide free delivery by economy postal service. And even more: If the regular list price drops before the preordered CYBERSTORM G3/G4 boards start to ship, the discounted preorder price will be reduced by the same amount.
How will the whole project proceed, and be finalized?
First of all, we will now be looking forw ard to the response of the Amiga community to this project. The basic concepts of the CYBERSTORM G3/G4, as well as major parts of the design (such as the SDRAM controller and the PCI bridge) have been developed at phase 5 digital products during the past year, as building blocks of other projects that we are working on; in other words, most of the product is already "in the drawer". From the day we can make the decision to start the project finalization, we estimate roughly four months until the product can be shipped to the customers. Therefore, the shipping date will largely depend on the time which we need to collect the preorders.
The project has four stages:
If you want to take part in this stunning new development for the AMIGA, which finally will bring the latest G3/G4 technology to the AMIGA and support the new developments by AMIGA Inc. and their partners, then go ahead and
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