Elbox 'Dragon' ColdFire A1200 Accelerator + PCI/AGP Busboard

[Bamiga2002]

They're still in business alright, dunno about the dragon but I'm still waiting for Radeon warp3d-drivers goddamnit!

Maybe OpenPCI comes to the rescue...

[bbond007]

from the company that brought you Shark PPC boards.. or not...

actually, they could not even get that working at it was a rebadged mac product...

[wawa]

Ive asked elbox once about w3d Drives for radeon. There will be no such drivers. Voodoo drivers were written and licenced by hyperion, not for Free i guess.

[Zetr0]

@wawa

there is open pci =)

[gulliver]

Well, for what I can remember, Elbox had a working prototype that they showed on some Amiga meeting. The performance was of a low end 68040 because they had to patch many executables to make AmigaOS work. So they canned the project due to compatibility and low performance results.
Elbox are still alive, re-releasing old Amiga hardware designs every now and then for a quick buck.

Perhaps by following what the Atari Coldfire project did, the Dragon could still achieve some success. These Atatri guys simply used some very interesting tricks: they ported their OS to the coldfire, created something like coldfire.library to get some compatibility, and developed a 68k jit emulator. It is not 100% compatible, but it does work nicely.

I still think the same aproach Atari guys did, using Aros, reusing the same 68k jit emulator and coldfire.library could produce a viable result. It is much better than hanging to new low end 68k accelerators, or even old & expensive 68060 ones.

But then it is just my opinion...

[Methanoid]

I'm surprised Elbox havent recouped their initial investment in Mediator and can't sell it for a LOT less and still make a decent profit. I'd buy one but I am not gonna get fleeced for something like that. Its a "nice" not a necessity. They need to wake up!

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

I'm surprised Elbox havent recouped their initial investment in Mediator and can't sell it for a LOT less and still make a decent profit. I'd buy one but I am not gonna get fleeced for something like that. Its a "nice" not a necessity. They need to wake up!

Dont be surprised. Elbox are still here for the quick buck, and have a track record that does not shown any ethic behaviour whatsoever.

Anyway, the mediator is not a necessity, but it is the only reasonable solution to get a graphics card on an A1200, and provides the fastest graphic solution on any Amiga, despite not being ideal

[Exit]

wake up elbox and bring us a decent ppc/turbo card for the amiga

[Akiko]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

I'm surprised Elbox havent recouped their initial investment in Mediator and can't sell it for a LOT less and still make a decent profit. I'd buy one but I am not gonna get fleeced for something like that. Its a "nice" not a necessity. They need to wake up!

The original stockpile of Mediators only sold out a couple years ago, smaller production runs for today's market inevitably makes them more expensive.

[Mr B]

It's a shame this never got of the ground. Given a bit of a userbase, someone could have made drivers for a few newer, and more capable GFX. Yes, i know, not likely, but i got a pair of 7900GT's laying around, that could have done with a new home in such a system, for example.
But it seams Elebox is rather pleased with milking what they got, and not really doing anything new. A real shame.

[source]

The question to be asked is would you be willing to sit down at re write programs or drivers just so you could sell a hand full of units. I haven't programmed for quiet some time, but I would imagine writing a driver for hardware would not be the easiest. How much time would you be willing to invest in something. If you work it out how much you would pay yourself it would only be pennies / hour. I am just glad that they are still producing some hardware.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by wawa

Ive asked elbox once about w3d Drives for radeon. There will be no such drivers. Voodoo drivers were written and licenced by hyperion, not for Free i guess.

zetr0:

@wawa

there is open pci =)

and there is aros (and die netbsd sources) . pci support on 68k is going to happen. most devices get recognized already, though only zorro cards are really working so far.

[stachu100]

Originally Posted by Mr B

But it seams Elebox is rather pleased with milking what they got, and not really doing anything new. A real shame.

No.
It's not shame. It's a business.
Are you working for free? I assume not.
So as Elbox.

If any Company don't see market for particular product or theoretical profit will be smaller than investment it's better to DO NOTING.
And this is what Elbox is doing for Amiga.

Thanks them for current Mediator production.
Make new production run for existing and proven product like Mediator will be harder every year - 5V MACH IC's are obsolete as of today...

[Mr B]

I'm not sure what you got of on stachu. I still think it's a shame that the dragon never got of the ground. I don't know about you, and your reasoning, but my reasoning is that they most likely spent a good deal of money on the designs, and never got around to using them. Money that they have to get from somewhere, and which most likely is the reason the mediator is still crazy expensive.

[stachu100]

Dragon performance was about 030@25MHz in term of CPU power. And no chance to improve that. Do you still think that it's great peoduct?
Sure, Elbox LOST some money to get one (I personally think few) prototype board, but they would loose much more by producing 10000 units and scrap them after.
So yes - they made right decision to kill this project at early stage and cut the losses.

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by stachu100

Dragon performance was about 030@25MHz in term of CPU power. And no chance to improve that. Do you still think that it's great peoduct?
Sure, Elbox LOST some money to get one (I personally think few) prototype board, but they would loose much more by producing 10000 units and scrap them after.
So yes - they made right decision to kill this project at early stage and cut the losses.

Work for Elbox? I dont recall ever seeing performance figures.

If you do work for Elbox, tell them some CHEAPER Mediators would sell many times more units (more overall profit!)

[stachu100]

Elbox never presented such figures to the public. There was only one public presentation on Amiga meeting in Kraków where life test showed real performance.

More here:
amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=21236&forum=25&start=160&viewmode=flat&order=0#340515

I don't work for Elbox, but don't expect lower prices for Mediators anyway. It's about availability of 5V technology IC's.

[duga]

What about a 5V to 3,3V converter and 3,3V IC:s? Just a question, I really don't have a clue.

[nikos.rizos]

Sorry to say this but this must be one of the most pointless threads.

Reviving a story from 2004 and trying to figure out the whats and the whys is just plain silly

[discomeats]

indeed, it's pointless for peoples hope to...

drag on