Amiga PowerPC

Amiga PowerPC

1. AmiJoe is likely to come in 2001 / A2/3/4000 versions cancelled

After severel months of uncertainty Metabox made a statement about the announced Amiga-G3-PPC boards. According to this there are no longer versions for A2000/3000/4000 computers planned, but for the A1200 only. The product is supposed to be available in the first quarter of 2001.

The following Questions can be found on http://212.96.44.74/de/amiga/news.html:

»There is nothing to be heard about AmiJoe for a long time now. Has Met@box canceled the AmiJoe Project?

The AmiJoe Project is not canceled, but the R&D for CPU Upgrades has other projects with higher priority.

Some time ago, Met@box announced that the AmiJoe Hardware was running and only the Software was not ready. How far has the development since the proceeded?

Yes, a few weeks ago we really thought that AmiJoe was running well, but then an error occured. The PCI/Memory controller chip has a bug. Due to that, you could only use the onboard Amiga-Ram instead of the fast SD-Ram on the AmiJoe. Without a fully working PCI/Memory controller it does not make sense to port the WarpOS to the AmiJoe.

Since this bug limits the card that much, we´ve decided to redesign the PCI/Memory controller. But that costs a little bit more time.

Will Met@box offer an AmiJoe Card for the Amiga 2000, 3000 and 4000 Series?

We have committed ouerselves to design an upgrade for the Amiga 1200. We have never said that we will design an upgrade to the 2000, 3000 and 4000 Series. So nothing has been done for machines other than the 1200. [This is not true. Actually, Metabox announced AmiJoe versions for the A2000, 3000 and 4000 more than once, partially with quite exact specifications, shipment dates and prices; remark of the editor]

When will the AmiJoe 1200 be available?

We do not want to make the mistakes of other companies, which announce at first and then start with development. We are only willing to release a fully working product and therefore the Amiga community has to wait until the end of 2000, or even until the 1. quarter of 2001.

What about the AmiJoe 1200 specifications?

Specifications of AmiJoe 1200

Supported Amiga: A1200
CPU:  PowerPCTM G3 from 300MHz
Cache: 512KB or 1MB Back Side Cache with 1/2 of the CPU speed
RAM: max 128MB SDRAM in one SODIMM slot
HD: 1 IDE connector (no Master/Slave)
PCI: no direct PCI SLOT (*)

(*)We will publish the pinout of the PCI Connector, so that 3. party developers can built a PCI-backplane for the AmiJoe. A Graphics card is planned but not yet designed. The Graphics card will occupy the PCI Interconnect, so that no Backplane can be used.

What about pricing?

An exact pricing is not possible in the moment. But we expect a price for under 500$ (approx. 543.48 Euros).«

(Source: Metabox)