Amiga Inc. has a fantastic new machine on the drawing board slated for release in 18 months. In the meantime the machine for developers is just that. The ‘Classic’ Amiga will just get a new OS when OS 3.5 is released. We wanted to provide access to DVD now. The best platform for this is the PC at the present time, however we could not use this platform without offering a good degree of backwards compatibility with existing Amiga software. Hence Cerberus.

The simple answer to this is NO, Cerberus is not an Amiga. However it is capable of running most Amiga software through our ‘Software Amiga’ running as a task under Windows 98.

We basically provide an Amiga on the PC side of Cerberus. The ‘Software Amiga’ uses the real Kickstart 3 Rom and also Workbench 3.0 to provide the heart of the Amiga within Cerberus. It looks, feels and reacts as a real Amiga would. You can run most of your software exactly the same as a real Amiga. You can reboot the Amiga without affecting the rest of Cerberus.

Our basic machine is already several times faster than a basic real Amiga 1200. It’s raw processing power is about the speed of an 030 equipped Amiga. However due to the graphical power of Cerberus many tasks will be quicker than this in actual use.

There are two main problems using Cerberus instead of a real Amiga. It is not possible to read Amiga floppy disks with Cerberus due to a limitation in PC floppy drives. Additionally it is not possible to run software that makes use of the AGA chipset.

Cerberus is capable of reading Amiga Floppies converted into disk images in the ADF format. The entire contents of each floppy disk are stored in one file. The ‘Software Amiga’ can then read & write to this file as if is the original floppy disk. It is even possible to boot from these files the same as from floppies. To create the ADF files we provide Cerberus with the necessary cable and networking software to link your real Amiga to Cerberus. With this software it is possible to drag the contents of floppy disks directly from the Amiga as ADF format files with the Windows Explorer in Windows 98 onto the Cerberus hard drive.

The Amiga side of Cerberus is equipped with Picasso 96 software support providing the 256 colours and more required by so called AGA only software. So if the software is capable of re-targeting it’s GFX to a Picasso screen then all is well. So for instance Genetic Species requires an AGA Amiga and yet runs perfectly on Cerberus on a Picasso 96 screenmode.

All of the Amiga data is stored directly on the main hard drive in Cerberus and so is instantly available to PC programs on Windows 98. By the same token the Amiga can read and write to data in the PC section of the hard drive. Each of the Amiga partitions are really just drawers on the hard drive.

Any non-retargetable AGA software will be problematical. This doesn’t mean it won’t run it just won’t have an AGA screen to run on. For example Scala will run but because it will not re-target GFX functions to a Picasso 96 screenmode it will only run in ECS screenmodes. However as Scala requires a direct video out port on the real Amiga it makes little sense running this type of software on Cerberus. Personal Paint 7 runs great on Cerberus and is provided as part of the basic package. Most serious titles will have no difficulty as will most ECS games. Some of the latest AGA games that do not use RTG may not run very well or at all on Cerberus. We provide a good degree of compatibility not perfection.

For the ‘power’ Amiga user who cannot port his work to the PC side of Cerberus we have an entire 040 / 060 based Amiga on a PCI card. This card will be available later and is the same card to be used by Amiga Inc. to provide developers with hardware backwards compatibility on their Developers Machine. With this card in Cerberus you will have a full Amiga linked to Cerberus through Siamese 4 software via the PCI bus.

The raw speed of the processor is not all that there is to measuring the speed of a system, but for those that need to know the basic Cerberus system is capable of 624 MIPS. This equates to 63 times the speed of the Blizzard 1230 50 MHz and is nearly double the speed of the fastest PPC 604 board for the Amiga 4000. If you are a speed freak then Intel Processors are certainly fast and they keep getting faster.

Cerberus is 100% PC compatible. It will run all PC software both Serious and Games alike. The Cerberus motherboard comes complete with the Intel BX chipset capable of accepting up to a Pentium II 450 MHz processor, currently the fastest available. Cerberus comes equipped with Industry standard PCI and ISA slots so any PC add-on cards can be accommodated with ease.

The Hardware 3D Acceleration provided by modern PCs is for games only it will not make any difference to serious applications such as Lightwave. It does however provide stunningly realistic gaming environments for games such as Unreal or Quake 2. Most games are written for Direct 3D on the PC and the Mpact 2 chip will accelerate all of these games.

The two main reasons are speed and compatibility. The Voodoo 2 chipset by 3DFX is the fastest and most widely supported 3D chipset on the planet. The Mpact 2 chip is already as fast as the Voodoo 1 chipset and thus it takes the Voodoo 2 to beat it. Any 3D chip needs direct support from the game developers to make the most of the special features each chip is capable of. The 3DFX Voodoo 2 is the most widely, directly supported 3D system in games at the present time. Games are normally written for Direct 3D and also for certain cards. 3DFX is nearly always supported with native code so all of the 3D chipset’s special features are supported directly by the game. In addition fitting the Voodoo 2 card removes this function from the Mpact 2 chip allowing it to perform better at the other tasks. In reality a Direct 3D game will use the Mpact 2 chip as this is the primary 3D display and any game with 3DFX support will automatically detect and use the Voodoo 2 card.

Cerberus comes complete with all the software & hardware required for connecting, browsing and emailing with the Internet. Just add the services of an Internet Provider and you are off and running.

In pretty much the same way as the Amiga in that we run a software Macintosh system. This capable at the moment of running System 8.1 and provides the equivalent of a 68k Macintosh. In the near future we will be able to give the equivalent of a PPC Macintosh system. Already we are running programs faster than a real 68k Macintosh. The software for this system comes from Microcode, the company behind Fusion on the Amiga. So quality and a high degree of compatibility is assured.

The only item we envisage you will need that we do not ship as standard is a speaker system for Cerberus. We recognise that this is a strange omission and we have two systems on the options list. Because Cerberus is mainly aimed to provide DVD support our thoughts are that you will want to plug Cerberus into your own Home Theatre Sound System or a Hi-Fi System to get the best from the surround sound features of DVD titles.

There is absolutely nothing we have said Cerberus can do that you will be unable to do with the basic system as described. However you will want to use two operating systems at the same time and Windows 98 uses 48Mb just idling. The system will run with 32Mb, we ship 64Mb and it is fantastic with 128Mb. Also a Voodoo 2 card is unbeatable for games.