A regular on IRC I know supposedly knows people in talks with AI. He had these
things to say:
"hard to say... but the specs say its a new AGA system but its the
same code so 100% compatible. features 64bit ram access, newer and faster
chipram as default and the chipram prob has been fixed. Sound is
undetermined even tho I hear that the 16bit 8 channel chip from AAA maybe
used, WB would come with AHI drivers for quick intergration"
Rumour has it AGA was put in CMOS last year, but they were having timing
troubles with it at the time. If this were true, then it could mean TRUE amiga
notebooks! And cheaper manufacturing. Anyway, my source says AGA+ will
supposedly be able to do around 60mb-80mb per second, as opposed to the
current 7mb per/sec we're getting. This could mean fast dblpal screens.
Possibly. We'll still be stuck with 2mb chip thoough, because its just a fixed
up version of AGA. This new chipset is supposedly going to be put in a stopgap
060 machine, though nothing is concrete yet.. They might opt for a PPC based
machine first. As you know, Wolf Dietrich (or however you spell it) has stated
that if AI wanted they could be shipping PowerPC based A1200's in about 1-2
months.
I didnt get much response from that rumour about WB4.0 being released before
christmas (except for the one or two people laughing at my typos!) :) A new
version of WB with memory protection and virtual memory support. Virtual
memory sounds likely, but _memory protection_.. Hm.. I've got a little theory
that OS development never stopped when Escom went bankrupt.. I think Petro's
getting ready to surprise us with something big. Its never been a "rumour"
that somethings coming out in November.. The guy from Micronik and Kermitt
Woodall have both told us to 'wait for november'..
The second WOA rumour about AI wanting to use RISC chips (not necesarily
PowerPC chips) worries me. PowerPC is the way of the future. Dec is high-end
only.. Quikpak and NewTek are both pushing for amiga to go dec..
Another rumour I heard was that the A\BOX OS is ready for beta testing.. Its
no where near completion, but theres enough of it to start developing (I think
that was the case). I'd rather have an updated WB (with a much improved GUI)
running on the A\BOX, but oh well. AI talks havent finished yet.
Speculation: AI will put their existing A1200's in Micronik towers to shift
them quickly, possibly with 4x or 6x cd-rom's. I'm not sure if quads are being
made anymore. If they arent, they might simply purchase stockpiles cheap from
other companies, like they did with the 270mb hd's. Hm, I guess if they're
going the tower route, then a cheap fairly large 3.5" hd could be used.
Hm, now an older rumour (which I heard about a month or two ago), is that
apparently when Dec were looking for an OS to use on their workstations, they
wanted to use Workbench. They ported exec.library and a few others like
graphics.library and it was running 100%. Its supposedly sitting in the old
"commodore vault of things that were never finished.". This seems likely,
because of all the interest amiga companies have expressed in using decs.
Hm, ANOTHER rumour.. WB4 was supposedly finished by Commodore and was going to
be shipped with the A4000's, but wasnt. I have to question Petro on this.. It
seems unlikely that he'll tell us though if it IS true.
Rumours have been the lifeblood of the Amiga these last few years. Lets see
some comments people!
:)
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