Message-ID: <009f01c2d38e$57a5dde0$2501a8c0@alan>
An: 
Von: "Eyetech Group Ltd" 
Datum: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 18:26:45 -0000
Betreff: Re: [amigaone] Re: Situation of XE boards? - a couple more answers

In the final pre-launch stages of a project like this there is an awful lot
of work to be done, and that means that none of us here can spend as much
time as we would like reading and commenting on mailing lists and making
website updates. And a lot of the time we have allocated for that
unfortunately has to be spent defusing unfounded false allegations of one
sort or another. Speaking of websites some of the developers have put up a
new A1-linux site at sourceforge which is well worth a checkout at
http://amigaone-linux.sourceforge.net


Status update (Get the fire extinguishers ready!)

Enough A1-XE's and G4 modules (800MHz 7451 with 32+32k L1; 256 L2 & 2M
64/72bit L3) to more than satisfy all earlybird orders have already been
built and are currently in Tiawan waiting to ship. All these boards are
fitted with the new Articia chipset (date code 0103).

We received a number (more than several, less than lots) of these boards
three weeks ago, but only received the cpu modules early last week, and the
modified UBoot code (to initialise the 7451) last Thursday. After going
through our own tests all these initial boards/cpu's have now been shipped
by us to those volunteer developers (and Hyperion) who have existing
experience of running the A1-SE under linux. This is so that they can spend
a week or so making sure that the various PPC Linux distributions run well
on with the G4 cpu and that no further modifications to the initialisation
code in UBoot are required.

I am visiting the manufacturers in Tiawan next week (2 days travel/recovery
each way) so don't expect much more from me until the week after. We should
have had the green light from the A1-XE/g4 board users by then which in turn
means that we can give the green light to the factory to blow the final
ROM's and ship the boards by 24th. Shipment to us will take around 4 working
days, and we should be able to test, serial number, order process and
despatch around 40-50 boards/day.

First boards will go to the original - March last year :-( - developers who
have opted to wait for the A1-XE/G4, then to dealers and customers in
chronological order.

These are of course target dates, and cannot possibly be taken as a promise
or guarantee. All I can say is that we are as keen to have your money as you
are to spend it, and do not, and never have had any intention of
deliberately holding back shipments just to be awkward (as some people seem
to think). However we will not as of policy ship any product before we are
satisfied that it is fully functional - including an installable and
working operating system - other than to developers for testing purposes.
The AmigaOne and Teron series of motherboards are new technology in the
'unbundled' - ie non-mac/non-RS6000 - marketplace. That is why it has taken
some time - and a lot longer than any of the parties involved anticipated -
to get the A1 into your hands in a usable condition - albeit with Linux at
this stage.

I am sufficiently confident that the developers will be very impressed by
the new A1-XE/G4 that I'm sure that they will want to start posting their
findings here from early next week.

BTW I'm sure that many of you will have seen H-J Frieden's posting on
running SIN on a Duron 1200MHz vs an A1XE/G4@800MHz(no L3 cache), both under
Linux, both with software rendering. He got 2x the frame rate from the A1
than from the Duron, and that was without any use of the Altivec processor
in the A1. Imagine what it will be like with OS4.

Hope this helps

Alan

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----- Original Message -----
From: Kevin Tiernan 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 10:13 PM
Subject: RE: [amigaone] Re: Situation of XE boards? - a couple of answers


>
>  
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Steven Solie  [mailto:ssolie@shaw.ca]  
>  
> >--- "Kevin Tiernan"  wrote:  
> >> Well I have heard that the XE have arrived and are  
> >undergoing testing  
> >> ATM. So I would suspect to see them being sent out to customers in
> >> a week or so.  
> >
> >Please state your source when posting such info. It helps us
> >all determine whether we should take this info. with a large
> >or small grain of salt.  
>
> I would if I could.
>  
> >Thanks in advance!  
>
> Wish I could be more helpful but I can't say anything other than I already
> have.
>