American Megatrends, Inc. Announces its Support for PowerPC Architecture.

February 7, 1994 -- ATLANTA -- American Magatrends, Inc., a leading
manufacturer of Basic Input Output Systems (BIOS) and board components for
personal computers and diagnostics software, today announced its support
for the PowerPC Architecture by announcing its AMIHAL (Hardware
Abstraction Layer) and AMIARC (Advanced RISC Computing) Firmware for the
PowerPC.

Comparable 10 the AMIBIOS (Basic Input Output System) found on over 75% of
the world's desktop X86 based PCs, the AMIHAL for PowerPCs consist of a
series of functions that hide or abstract differences among hardware
platforms. The HAL forms a common programming layer that allows individual
operating systems and device drivers to operate on different hardware
platforms. HAL routines are called from both The operating system and from
the device drivers. This means that device drivers can support a wide
variety of hardware I/O on different CPU platforms, including calls to
support the DMA transfer and secondary interrupt handling.

The AMIARC firmware is designed to operate in RISC based systems designed
to the ARC specification. The role of the AMIARC firmware from American
Megatrends is to take charge when the RISC system is initially powered up,
and to boot the machine (much in the way AMIBIOS does on X86 based PCs).
Once the RISC system is up and running, the I/O management tasks are
handed off to the AMIHAL and O/S for ongoing operations. By supplying the
AMIARC to the RISC system designers, American Megatrends provides a
uniform and standardized way to manage the initialization of RISC
machines, over a wide array of RISC based CPUs.

The PowerPC is a new family of microprocessors, jointly developed by Apple,
IBM and Motorola. The PowerPC is being designed into high-performance
cost-effective computers, including notebooks, desktop, workstations and
servers. PowerPC CPUs are based on a reduced instruction set computing
(RISC) architecture, and incorporate leading-edge technologies and
processes from both IBM and Motorola.

"American Megatrends' PowerPC HAL and ARC provide the world famous AMIBIOS
compatibility and quality on RISC based systems," said Mark Lummus,
Product Manager for RISC systems at American Megatrends Inc. "We feel that
the work being performed between Motorola and American Megatrends will
benefit the user by providing software and O/S developers a stable and
compatible base from which to develop their software for these new
platforms." continued Lummus.

"We are extremely pleased to have American Megatrends join the growing list
of companies supporting the PowerPC architecture," said Charlie Ashton,
PowerPC Product Manager, Motorola's RISC Microprocessor Division.
"American Megatrend's PowerPC HAL and ARC Firmware will play a key role in
enabling the development of PowerPC systems for the mainstream computer
marketplace."

American Megatrends Inc. will be releasing initial Beta versions of the
PowerPC HAL and ARC in Q2 1994. Product specifications can be obtained by
OEMs from American Megatrends under NDA.

Founded in 1985, Atlanta-based American Megatrends, Inc. is the dominant
producer of 486, EISA, PCI, Pentium and notebook/power management BIOS,
and a full line of EISA. PCMCIA, PCI and VL-Bus peripheral cards as well
as a compete line of diagnostic software products. The company is located
at 6145-F Northbelt Parkway, Norcross, GA 30071; 404/263-8181. Sales
inquiries should be directed to Mark Lummus, 404/246-8622 or
800/U-BUY-AMI.

Having 1993 worldwide sales exceeding $5.7 billion, Motorola's
Semiconductor Products Sector is the largest U.S.-based broad line
supplier of semiconductors, with a balanced portfolio of more than 50,000
devices. Motorola, one of the world's leading providers of electronic
equipment, systems, components and services for global markets. Products
include two-way radios, pagers and telepoint systems, semiconductors,
defense and aerospace electronics, automotive and industrial electronic
equipment, computers, data communications, and information processing and
handling equipment.

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