New Product Releases                                                                                                                   At the WOC Toronto this past weekend, several significant items were mentioned  in the Lew Eggebrecht address which may be of general interest. This            information was disclosed in both public and private forums, and is not based   on inferences or speculation. Your mileage may vary:                                                                                                             o The Zorro III SCSI-II controller and documentation are complete.                Product availability is slated for mid-January. Performance is                  estimated to be on the order of 10 MB/s with an appropriate drive.                                                                                            o The A4000 series DSP module is scheduled for release in the late                spring, along with the corresponding 3.1 device support. It is                  a 32-bit AT&T chip, offering potential for items such as 16-bit                 CD quality sound, voice recognition, and high-speed modem support.                                                                                            o At least three additional A4000 series machines will be released                in the next two months, including an EC030, 030 and tower model.                The A4000T release in particular was mentioned in the context of                mid-February.                                                    ==>                                                                                         Other items of interest include quad-sync monitors, increased AGA chipset       refresh rates, Workbench multimedia extensions, a third-party 386SX PCMCIA      emulator developed in cooperation with CBM, ongoing development of full-motion  video sofware and hardware solutions and negotiation with Kodak for Photo CD    support.                                                                                                                                                        Lou Eggebrecht's Keynote Address at World Of Commodore Toronto - 1992                                                                                           From the scrawled notes of Chris Guertin (1:225/330.0)                                                                                                          It was standing room only in the Commodore Lecture room at the show on          Saturday December the 5th at 12:30pm.  I had been looking forward to this       moment for several weeks, after learning that the Vice President of             Commodore International's  Engineering division was going to speak.                                                                                             This is the man who has been quoted as saying "Commodore won't                  dilly-dally any more".                                                                                                                                          It would appear that this is an accurate quote...                                                                                                   ==>                                                                                         He opened with the following points:                                                                                                                            - Commodore is working towards faster release times for new technology          - They hope to be more reactive to customer needs                               - Commodore's Engineering Division employs over 200 people                                                                                                      Goals:                                                                                                                                                          - enhance and extend the Amiga architecture                                     - retargetable graphics                                                         - faster development                                                            - improve development tools and design methodology                              - produce a "family" of state-of-the-art multimedia Amiga platforms                                                                                             VLSI Chipset Development:                                                                                                                                       - key to new products                                                           - 2 new chipsets (beyond AGA), one low end (?) and one high end                                                                                                                                                                     ==>                                                                                         The New AGA Chipset:                                                                                                                                            - 1st to use new development environment                                        - Lisa actually manufactured to Commodore specs by 3rd party                      manufacturers (TI, NEC)                                                       - 4x video memory bandwidth                                                     - 8 bitplanes in all resolutions/modes                                          - 25 bit colour, 24 for colours and 1 for genlock                               - 16.7 million colours                                                          - sprites can now be used in the borders                                        - two 4 bitplane playfields                                                     - 35ns scroll granularity                                                       - 16, 32 & 64 bit sprites                                                       - larger sprites can be created by attaching sprites                            - 8 bit HAM in all modes                                                        - Lisa can promote (scan double) all types of screens (?)                                                                                                       Future VLSI: (two new chipsets, one low end, one high end)                                                                                                                                                                          ==>                                                                                         Future (already in development) Low End Chip Set:                                                                                                               - Two Chips (approx 100,000 transistors)                                        - 32 bit DRAM design (60ns, pagemode)                                           - 57 Mhz pixel clock                                                            - ECS & AGA compatible (!)                                                      - 4 meg FDD with hardware CRC                                                   - 32 bit processor support                                                      - 8x memory bandwidth increase (continuous pagemode in display RAM)             - 2x blitter performance increase                                               - 800 x 600, 72 Hz, 256 colour mode                                             - larger screens at lower scanrate                                              - FIFO serial ports, high speed (RIGHT ON!!!)                                   - 8 megs or more chip RAM address space                                                                                                                         Future (also in development) High End Chip Set:                                                                                                                 - Four Chips (approx 750,000 transistors, submicron design)                     - 32/64 bit VRAM                                                                - 57/114 Mhz pixel clock                                            ==>                                                                                         - chuncky pixel mode (what some call "IBM Mode", this drew laughs from            the audience)                                                                 - CD-ROM direct support (through new serial ports with 4 megabit speed!!)       - screen promotion                                                              - frame grabber                                                                 - 1k x 1k screens in 24 bit mode at 72 Hz                                       - 16 bit audio, sample over 100 Khz with 8 voices                               - on demand DMA                                                                 - 12-20x memory bandwidth increase                                              - 32 bit blitter with 8x performance increase                                   - 24 bit true-colour modes                                                      - modular chip design, 2 of the chips can be added to                           - multiple blitters, one per bitplane are possible                              - enhanced video decompression                                                  - ECS & AGA compatible                                                          - genlock                                                                       - video upgrade modules                                                         - 72 Hz refresh                                                                 - 100 Khz audio sampling                                                        - 32 bit processor independent bus                                  ==>                                                                                         - asynchronous design, independent clocks for CPU, custom chips, and              video                                                                                                                                                         System Plans (Real Soon Now stuff...)                                                                                                                           - incorporate AGA  across the product line                                      - modular upgradeability to easy upgrade paths                                  - no chips in sockets for reliable high speed processing and cost                 effectiveness                                                                 - add DSP technology (AT&T 25 Mhz DSP, with personality boards)                 - modem, scanner and other type of DSP personality boards                       - 32 bit SCSI-II (wide type, bus master, available mid-January 1993)            - move CDTV technology to the entire Amiga product line                         - add full motion video  to the Amiga and CDTV                                                                                                                  AmigaDOS:                                                                                                                                                       - compatibility across the product line                                         - stability                                                                     - flexibility (such as localization as of WB 2.1)                   ==>                                                                                         - retargetable graphics                                                         - higher performance                                                            - more multimedia support                                                                                                                                       AmigaDOS Releases:                                                                                                                                              - 2.0 - 3D look, scalable fonts                                                 - 2.1 - Locale, HD support at all levels                                        - 3.0 - AGA support, new multimedia tools                                       - 3.1 - API network support in the OS                                                 - file and printer sharing                                                      - DSP support                                                             - 4.0 - Retargetable graphics                                                         - postscript support in OS                                                                                                                                                                                                                whew...  I sure was left with my head spinning...                                                                                                               Then he accepted questions from the audience for a few minutes...  Here         are some high points:                                               ==>                                                                                         - Amiga Quad-Sync monitors to be available Feb 1993                             - MicroSoft has been directly approached and is not interested in                 developing ANY software for the Amiga (their loss...)                         - The large power consumption of the custom chips continues to make a             laptop impossible (unless you like a 10min running time from batteries).        When the custom chipset makes it to SubMicron technology, this problem          may evaporate...                                                              - pixel sizes etc. can be programmed for any type of application (such as         HDTV compatibility)                                                           - DSP for the A1200 is possible, as the hatch in the A1200 has ALL the            same lines as the processor and system bus of the A4000 (!)                                                                                                   Feel free to NetMail me at 1:225/330.0@fidonet.org if you wish to make          sure that this document is legitimate, or a copy can be F'req'ed as             LOUSPEAK.LHA if you feel you may be reading a version that has been             modified.  I hope to not be a party to any misinformation.                                                                                                      Thanx,                                                                                                                                                          Chris Guertin                                                       ==>                                                                                         Programmer/Analyst                                                              SysOp, The Fat Agnus BBS (1:225/330.0@fidonet.org)                              Vice President, The Amiga Alliance of North Bay, ON, Canada                                                                                                     --- DLG Pro v0.995/DLGMail                                                       * Origin: Fat Agnus - North Bay, Ontario, CANADA (1:225/330)                   SEEN-BY: 2/777 28/777 29/320 777 105/42 249/68 291/799 292/603 812 819          SEEN-BY: 292/820 828 830 850 851 500/0 1 1000/2                                                                                                                                                                                                            Excuse me ! NoSoul's JunkYard/FoXx/TsL +49-(0)27531372                            and Bubble Bobble/BuB/Independent +44-(0)213556074                         don't want to waste time & space! FoXx/TsL & BuB/Independent                                                                                                                                                               End.