Sooooo, you want a “consumer level” PPC PCI card? Well how about the
new Sonnet G3 PCI card intended for upgrading the PowerMac 7200?
I has its own local 66Mhz system bus plus onboard DIMM slots. It should
be possible to write a support application for any PC OS to allow
installation of Mac OS with the “New World ROM” and use the 7200
G3 card to supply the CPU, RAM etc duties. (Too bad the thing costs
$500! But maybe if enough of them start finding homes other than crappy
PowerMac 7200 boxes the price may drop.)
If you want a mass produced PPC based consumer “computer”, look no
further than the TiVo. This digital TV recorder runs on Linux and
the source (of course) is available for download. Happy Hacking!
Paul May wrote:
i Know were you heard that Ogor LOL, and its true folks, Dan (dodge) the
main Man has openly said that IF an OEM PPC vendor were willing to
make a valid comsumer leval machine that could become popular than
he would be willing to talk about an RTP port if the HW happened.
now for the readers that dont know, there was an HW OEM PPC machine in the
works over in the AMIGA market that was to get this PPC RTP, alas the
situation didn`t happen due to the OEM folding.
that being said, there is a srong posibility that IF a new OEM PPC
motherboard/machine maker were to take the plunge and create a consumer
priced PPC product that Dan would take a very close look at this
and Perhaps arrange something !, the question is Though, can there
be a large market for this new CL PPC motherboard ?, is so we need
to find and convince the right people to DO IT
so we can buy it.
personaly i think a good price for a consumer 5 PCi/ 1AGP/ Zif PPC slot/
3 DIMM/ USB/ optional Firewire ?/ eIDE/ flash Bios (autoconfig/non PC style)
ATX formfacture motherboard would be around the 300UKP mark, what ya think ?.
and/or a consumer leval PPC on a PCi card running RTP would be a very
good thing too and open up the posability of makeing any wintel motherboard
a slave to the real PPC RTP you all seem to like the idea of 8}.
the PPC on a PCi card is called the InsideOut
by Mick Tinker of
Amiga Boxer
motherboard fame, alas it seems that the IO had to take
a back seat for a long time now, so any other takers out there
than might be up to the challenge of OEM`ing real soon now ?.
Keep in mind, even if you succeed you’re on your own, pretty much. PPC
version probably won’t be free and there won’t be any reasonable user
community to share anything with. You can play with it as much as you want,
but without support from either hardware or OS vendor you’ll soon find
yourself very lonely, unless you have a realistic business case and going to
release a product. Of course if that’s a case, go ahead, call QNX sales and
present your plan.
–
Paul May, Manchester, UK
Team AMIGA Central, Phoenix Core