The long term existence of the Siamese PCI currently hangs in the balance. There is concern that the card may never be released, so I have chosen to move the link to the Unreleased section.
The Siamese PCI card is a new Amiga-on-a-card system. As the name suggests, it s a plug-in PCI card designed for different systems. The system uses a 68040 33MHz or 68060 66MHz processor, as well as the AGA chipset. It promises to be the fastest 68k system available with all the output being calculated by the host machine- the equivalent of an 68k 100MHz system. Software is also being specially written to use the host machines hardware for intensive tasks such as rendering and MUI library support. It includes the AGA chip set, 2Mb Chip RAM, CIA's, floppy & IDE connectors onboard whilst removing the serial, parallel & mouse ports. These devices are handled by the host system, allowing ultra fast communication with devices. Graphic and networking are also handled by the host OS allowing the hardware to be used without custom Amiga drivers being written.
The system has a number of advantages over current Amigas available. It can use the host machines hardware, such as internal modems, and graphics cards. Memory can also be dynamically allocated as Amiga Fast RAM. This will form the basis of a new range of 3D games, communication and technical software based around standards such as 3DFX-compatible devices and AGP. Non-Amiga owners will also benefit from a powerful pre-emptive multitasking operating system as well as the most accurate emulation of 68k Apple Mac systems through 3rd part Amiga software ShapeShifter, and Fusion. This makes it possibled to share information between three operating systems through cut-and-paste functions.
At present a release date in not known. The creators are currently evaluating
the market condition to see if they will make enough money from the design
to make it worthwhile. There are also a number of problems with the motherboard
that need ironing before the card can be released. An early estimate suggested
the card will cost £399 without CPU on release.