A\BOX

Mauro 'M&F' Fontana(mfontana@ing.unico.it)

This not a real news, but maybe someone has gone into hibernation and now he does not know anything of what happened during these months.

You may wonder if things I have written here are just my own fantasies or usual rumours that none knows where they come from or indicating a precise place where to find proof to facts. If so I advice you to go and read about the company which is beliving and investing into this: Phase5

So, what's this A\BOX? Was not the BeBox the new machine of last year?

Maybe last year, surely not this one. But I'm speaking about next year, 1998. On 30th October 1996 phase5 has finally announced publically on their Web Site (www.phase5.de the plans for the new computer they intended to build, putting an end to all the voices, rumours and speculation that were going on all over the interested part of the net.

To tell you the truth it was a shock for me connecting the 30th October in the morning and read that just uploaded page (dated 30 October). It was my first time to have been able to read something new myself without having to ask someone where to find news or specific description about this or that thing. But the shock was tremendous when I started reading the announce.

The described machine appears to be the dreaming machine of every one (expecially us, Amigans) with a series of innovative and shocking features one just after the other, not least the price.

I'm not going to include the complete page that you can find on the now completely updated phase5 site. But this should be enough, belive me.

The A\BOX is defined as trail-blazing visionary concept that explodes the barriers of today's standards. As an extremely powerful and creative personal workstation, A\BOX will appeal to all users who wish to work actively and creatively with the most modern technology and who have no desire to put up with the limitations imposed by mass hardware products that have fallen victim to a cost-cutting spree nor by the restraining software corsets of systems that are intended purely for passive consumers and users. With the enormous power it offers and its integrated functions the A\BOX project can claim to be implementing a computer design that is as innovative, as outstanding and as exceptionally cool as the Amiga 1000 was 12 years ago - a computer design that all Amiga enthusiasts can welcome as the reincarnation of their favourite computer system on a state-of-the-art technical level.

And again the A\BOX concept. The A\BOX project does not specify a system that builds up on standard technologies such as PCI-based graphical chips. We at phase 5 digital products take the view that a new innovative computer must also offer innovative hardware to match in order to stand out among the current PC designs and overcome the limitations they impose.
[....]
The central component of the A\BOX is a novel Custom Chip which is now under development at phase 5 digital and which will be responsible for many important functions in the system. These include complete memory administration and processor linkup, all DMA-like functions including video and audio DMA, blitter-type functions, I/O and control functions.

Till now one could think about some dream of some engineer, bt maybe these followin numbers may convince someone that there's something more than pure fantasy speculation behind the new cusom chipset. The heart of the A\BOX is the system controller, CAIPIRINHA, which will realise the functional integration on which the A\BOX concept is based. CAIPIRINHA opens up new dimensions of power and technology. CAIPIRINHA will be implemented as a VLSI Custom Chip design in 0.35 um CMOS ASIC technology using a modern, probably 575-pole BGA housing. With a bus width of 128 bits to the memory bus, extensive dual-port buffers and FIFO's in the data lines, and clock rates of initially 100 MHz externally and 200 MHz internally, CAIPIRINHA can provide an intense data throughput and powerful additional functions which do not rely on the processor, such as support for 3D and multimedia applications.

So here the interesting shocking numbers (take a very long breath) Design:

CAIPIRINHA is basically designed as a highly complex system and memory controller in the form of a SOMA Engine (Sole Memory Access). At the same time CAIPIRINHA manages all access to the A\BOX memory which takes the form of a highly powerful Unified Memory Architecture (UMA). All external memory access, including that of the processor, only occurs virtually and is administered and implemented by CAIPIRINHA. Unified Memory Architecture means that the entire system memory is made available as a unified memory which stores all types of data, such as programs and their data, display data, 3D-textures or Z-buffer data, audio data, incoming flows of video data etc. etc. and which can be addressed by all functional units in the system. For the user UMA means that the entire memory in the system is available for all applications at all times. When the memory is expanded with inexpesnive SDRAM modules, the additional memory capacity is then always available for all applications and functions in the system. In terms of its principle UMA corresponds to the Amiga Chip RAM which can be addressed both by the processor and by the custom chips and video and audio DMA units of the Amiga. Unlike the Chip RAM, however, and unlike the low-cost attempts made to implement UMA memories in the PC field, the memory subsystem of the A\BOX in the form of a unified memory architecture will be implemented with 128 bits databus width and by use of synchronous DRAM's which have a speed of 100 MHz, which allows a band width of 1.6 G-bytes/second. A special method of controlling the SDRAM modules also considerably reduces latency times when accessing the memory.
Due to the integration of the video DMA into CAIPIRINHA the UMA memory can simultaneously be used as a display memory. CAIPIRINHA provides two video DMA engines: one 220 MHz high-performance video output for resolutions of up to 1600 x 1280 pixels with 24 bits and a refresh frequency of 75 Hz and a Genlock-capable 135 MHz video output for a second monitor or image output in video resolutions such as PAL/NTSC or S-VHS. The video output of the 135-MHz output can be superimposed as a window on the 220 MHz display while both video DMA's are in parallel operation.
This last one feature is surely the most interesting and innovative. In fact thanks to the UMA architecture the video display has no more any graphic memory limitation, but all the available memory present can be used for the video. It is then possible, as an explicit phase5 example, to open 24bit depth screen with a resolution of 4000x4000 which can be scrolled without any delay or jerkiness. Furthermore, again thanks to the UMA architecture, any graphic object, be it a window or whatever may reside anywhere in memory and be handled independently from all the other objects. The advantages of this is that all objects are treated as now are sprites on the Amiga, where their movement dooes not occupy the CPU. Another interesting aspect is the fact that now windows have no more to be rectangualr, but may have all the shapes they want opening interesting possibilities in the video field.

But this is not all. CAIPIRINHA has integrated a FAME (Flexible Area Movement Engine) functional unit which work in a similar way to our Blitter with the exception that it is able to perform operation of areas of any form not only simle ectangulat outlines as today blitters.

Together with that, there will be a programmable DSP-RISC type processing unit able to support the CPU for intense 3D, multimedia and matrix calculations. This CPU will work in parallel with the CPU.

A computer is not a computer if it has not sound features. And the A\BOX provides a powerful audio device for the user. The audio output occurs through two channels able of 16-bit CD quality (44.1KHz), but the chipset is able to have a illimited number of virtual tracks which may be generated and mixed without having to use the CPU Their maximum number is only limited to the memory space available. All sorts of audio generator are supported and this using programmable audio DMA.

phase5 has also thought about the aleady existing huge numbers of peripherals for the PC compatibles and so has thought to provide the A\BOX with a standard PCI bus for low cost expansions. There will also be a 16-bit DMA bus for further I/O applications and a new custom interface "for hardware manufacturers who do not want to work with standard PCI components" (as they said).
However a high performance bus will be provided as the new IEEE 1394 firewire bus now used by quite a large number of digital video equippments.

The CPU will be the Motorola PowerPC 603e and 604e and there will an option for a second CPU to work in parallel with the first one. They have said that those processor can be operated till 500MHz.

phase5 said that their OS will be AmigaOS v3.1 compatible, but other OS will be available, such as Linux and NetBSD. All these OSes will be strictly integrated with the A\BOX one so that more OSes can run in parallel in a transparent way. Moreover they are open to the porting of all other OSes existing now for the PowerPC.

The prices of this real monster is not yet clear. They said that a 64-bit version of the chip set will cost about DM 1,500 (USD 1,000 GBP 600) and they will sold a complete system with a CPU in the range of 150MHz, an HD in the range of 1GB, 16MB of memory and a CD ROM for about DM 3,000 (USD 2,000, GBP 1,300) On a whole not that bad for such a professional machine which, if created before being obsolete, can really be considered the natural development of the Amiga as its based on the same ideas. Let's hope it is not all vapour (otherwise I think I'll drown in all the vapour produced these years).