¶N ¤¢01þ02LATEST HARDWARE NEWS!!þ01


 ¢02Written By: ¢03X-Cell/Oxygen.


 ¢02   Well  it seems that Commodore have
 actually  done  some  work and made a
 few hardware upgrades that you may be
 interested to know about....

    First  off,  a  ¢03FMV¢02  (Full  Motion
 Video)  board  is soon to be released
 for the CD32.  This will allow a CD32
 machine  to  run  full  motion  video
 (hence  the name) in real time.  What
 you get is your favourite movies on a
 standard  audio  CD.   Beats the hell
 out  of those stupid laser discs!  It
 will  sell for around $460.00 (Aust.)
 as  a separate board or with the CD32
 as an option at a $60.00 saving

    CD  Rom  drives  for  the 1200 and
 4000  are  ready  to go to the shops.
 Prices  are  going  for  around  $600
 (Aust.)  for  the  1200 model and the
 the price on the 4000 model are still
 yet  to be announced.  The 1200 model
 has  2  drawbacks.  The first is that
 it  is  not  CD32 compatable.  It can
 only play CDTV, CD+G and normal audio
 discs.   The second.....it plugs into
 the  trapdoor  connector.  This means
 that   if   you   already   have   an
 accelerator   or  memory  board,  you
 can't use both at the same time.  But
 there  is  hope!!!   A third party is
 about to release a `double-up' board.
 This  allows you to run two pieces of
 hardware at once.

    Everybody  has  seen  a hard drive
 attached  to an A500, well, there are
 now  a hard drive that plugs into the
 PCMCIA  port  on  the A600 and A1200.
 They start at 20Mb and go up to 213M.

    A  cheaper  version  of  the 68040
 processer   has   just  come  of  the
 production    line    at    Motorola.
 Apparently  it  will  cost a lot less
 that  the stardard version of the 040
 but  this  is  only  because it is an
 040EC   (68040   without   an   MMU).
 Commodore   realised  that  not  many
 people (and applications) use an MMU.
 This  means  that we will see cheaper
 4000/040's   with  hardly  any  speed
 difference from the original.

    While  we  are  on  the  topic  of
 4000's,  a  tower  version is soon to
 hit the shops everywhere.  A price is
 still  not  known, and to be honest I
 have  no  idea  of  what  it will be.
 Inside  are 2 video slots and 5 Zorro
 III  slots.   On board, it has a SCSI
 II  interface as well as the standard
 IDE.    Outside,   there   are   five
 half-height  drive  spaces  which are
 suitable  for  things like CD-ROM and
 tape backup drives.

 The  ¢15AAA¢02 chipset is here!  It has now
 passed it's first silicon test stage.
 Here   are   a  few  points  to  look
 at/drool over:
    ¢03*  Up to 16Mb of CHIP ram
    *  16 and 24 bit true colour modes
 (it  can  display  24 bit graphics on
 screen)
    *  32  bit blitter (which makes it
 10 to 20 times faster than AGA)
    *  Eight  voice  stereo  sound  at
 100Khz sample rate
    *  Compressed   video   and   data
 formats
    *  Only 2 custom chips
    *  Backward compatable with AGA 
 ¢02Just  think......the  NEW  chipset is
 here....there  may be a new processor
 to  go  with it.  A 68050/68060/68070
 could be on the way.