ACK Controls, the company behind the newly announced Amiga hardware, has held an IRC session where they answered questions and provided more details concerning the upcoming hardware. According to ACK, the promised hardware will arrive with OS4 despite the legal battle going on between Amiga Inc. and Hyperion. On the high-spec machine (USD 1500), they said: "It's faster than anything Apple ever produced on the PowerPC side of things." Which is interesting, to say the least. The transcript containts many more details, and the Amiga community is discussing the matter as well.
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Member since:2005-07-26
SATA prices for both drives and optical are about the same as IDE these days. There is a slight price premium for optical of about $3CDN. ACKCONTROLS did say "It didn't make sense to use IDE. Would add extra chip" I don't know if this would offset the $3 difference for the SATA DVDRW drive
Member since:2006-01-27
You're correct about the hard drives - guess I'm not up to date.
Comparing DVD-RW drives on the other hand, the SATA drives are about $10 more for a comparable model. $10 doesn't sound like much (it's less of a difference than I recall from last year's shopping), but it's a 30% premium.
He's probably right though, not enough difference to offset the cost of changing the motherboard. I think many computer hobbiests, including myself, count on re-using existing components when buying a new computer. For example, if I want to add a second or third hard drive, I'll want to use one I already own, not pay for a new one.
That creates an emotional outburst when the new computer won't support our existing stuff. But since these Amiga computers will be ready-built, that whole issue may be moot.
Best Wishes,
-Bob
Edited 2007-05-04 06:09
Member since:2005-10-02
In Denmark SATA drives are now cheaper than PATA drives, though not much. Typically a few dollars cheaper. But support for IDE shouldn't be a surprise considering that numbers of IDE devices still in use. I have half a dozen IDE drives in my machine and that's not going to change any day soon.
Member since:
2006-01-27
Ackcontrols: PCI is still readily available. More so than AGP.
That's not true - check NewEgg. Less than 50 PCI graphic cards, 150-ish AGP cards, and over 400 PCIe cards. Of course none of that matters except which cards will have full driver support.
Although I will say, it's faster than anything Apple ever produced on the PowerPC side of thiings.
Perhaps he meant to say "PocketPC"?
And people want IDE?
He seems suprised. SATA hard drives are more expensive. SATA optical drives are more expensive and there are fewer choices. So IDE would seem like the way to go, at least on the low-end machine.
-Bob
Edited 2007-05-04 03:27