Chasing PPC Info

[Loedown]

I rang DCE Systems today, looking for information on the Blizzard boards for A1200 / A4000 and got told...

"We don't have any of the documentation any more, it's been thrown out."

1. This is a German company, they keep records of everything for 500 years.

2. I am 100% certain what I got told was a blatant lie.


Why would a company that no longer deals in the Amiga scene have anything against giving out just a circuit for a defunct product ( no offence meant for anyone with these fine cards ), where is the harm, I don't want the code for the 29F040 or the CPLD chips?


I would like some suggestions as to what people think and indeed if anyone else has tried to get any information regarding these cards, who did they approach and what did they get told?

[Loedown]

*** Bump ***

[Oli_HD]

Because it has a value, if you were offering to buy the designs Im sure they would "find" them again, its just an easy way of saying "I dont want to help"

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by Oli_HD

Because it has a value, if you were offering to buy the designs Im sure they would "find" them again, its just an easy way of saying "I dont want to help"

I would have been happy to pay and I made that clear, even if it were some hundreds of dollars.

[alexh]

Hundreds of dollars for a company which possibly makes millions does not sound to me like offering to pay.

If it were me, you'd have to offer thousands of dollars before I would even consider taking time out to look. After all I could have been making much more money in the time it would take to look just doing day to day stuff. And what if I didn't find it? I'd be out of pocket.

I still think it is not unbelievable that they have in fact thrown everything away or at the very least archived it all and stored it off site. Nor is it unbelievable that everyone involved with the Amiga products has left the company. It is after all +10 years ago.

You'd have to approach someone who works (worked) for DCE or worked for Phase5, worked on these designs or close to them, who feels nostalgic. Nostalgia is more powerful than money.

[stachu100]

Ekhm...
You mean some "hundreds thousand of dollars". Then it's ok. :-)

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by alexh

Hundreds of dollars for a company which possibly makes millions does not sound to me like offering to pay.

If it were me, you'd have to offer thousands of dollars before I would even consider taking time out to look. After all I could have been making much more money in the time it would take to look just doing day to day stuff. And what if I didn't find it? I'd be out of pocket.

I still think it is not unbelievable that they have in fact thrown everything away or at the very least archived it all and stored it off site. Nor is it unbelievable that everyone involved with the Amiga products has left the company. It is after all +10 years ago.

You'd have to approach someone who works (worked) for DCE or worked for Phase5, worked on these designs or close to them, who feels nostalgic. Nostalgia is more powerful than money.

I think the only approach now is to seek out the designers, whose names appear at the top of the boards, has anyone tried that in the past?

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by stachu100

Ekhm...
You mean some "hundreds thousand of dollars". Then it's ok. :-)

I plan on spending hundreds of thousands to make hundreds, I don't think the Australian Government would see that as a sound business plan

[alexh]

I tried it with the Picasso IV and it was too late for the main designer Klaus Burkert who had died only a few weeks prior to my search. But I did turn up Tobias Seiler who is a great guy who likes nostalgia and has helped many users over the years.

Go for it. Worse that can happen is they don't reply or tell you to sod off.

Someone once tried to track down the Phase5 guys who did the FastLane SCSI controller

[BrooksterMax]

You did ring but maybe the person was not an expert - maybe a written letter may get send to the correct department? I often find that a written letter (not email) will get a better response than an email or telephone for tricky questions.

Also I think with anything historical, it is best to speak to former staff and employees - they may have stuff lying around at home or knowledge to share - as you mention earlier.

Companies do often wash their hands of legacy products and are not willing to help - unless you are buying new of course!

Although I was impressed with Sega recently... - I got a Dreamkey disk free of charge in 2008, many years after the machine was discontinued.

[orange]

when all else fails, why not 'reverse engineer' it, if you want it that badly.
IIRC, someone has been making x-rays of amiga hardware, so that could help..

[Oli_HD]

tbh if you were going to try and reverse engineer it I would say buy that PCI Mac CPU card and read the warpos and openpci info.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by BrooksterMax

You did ring but maybe the person was not an expert - maybe a written letter may get send to the correct department? I often find that a written letter (not email) will get a better response than an email or telephone for tricky questions.

Also I think with anything historical, it is best to speak to former staff and employees - they may have stuff lying around at home or knowledge to share - as you mention earlier.

Companies do often wash their hands of legacy products and are not willing to help - unless you are buying new of course!

Although I was impressed with Sega recently... - I got a Dreamkey disk free of charge in 2008, many years after the machine was discontinued.

I was given the name of a gentleman to speak to, he wasn't in the office on the first day I rang.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by orange

when all else fails, why not 'reverse engineer' it, if you want it that badly.
IIRC, someone has been making x-rays of amiga hardware, so that could help..

I am not interested in the firmware or CPLD data, all I wanted was the schematics.

[Fingerlickin_B]

Originally Posted by Loedown

I don't think the Australian Government would see that as a sound business plan

Manufacturing new Amiga hardware under NEIS?

PZ.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by Fingerlickin_B

Manufacturing new Amiga hardware under NEIS?

PZ.

I'm only looking to fix the existing hardware, I have no interest in redesigning the wheel.

[Fingerlickin_B]

So you are planning to do this under NEIS funding?

PZ.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by Fingerlickin_B

So you are planning to do this under NEIS funding?

PZ.

I do this purely off my own back, I want to help people keep their existing hardware running and fix things for a reasonable price, I have more headaches keeping my accountant happy.

[Fingerlickin_B]

Sounds good, I wasn't having a go at you

PZ.

[DarrenHD]

Originally Posted by Loedown

I think the only approach now is to seek out the designers, whose names appear at the top of the boards, has anyone tried that in the past?

Ralph Schmidt did most of the software and he did the firmware/scsi and he is on irc named laire on irc.freenode.net

He's the principal behind MorphOS as well. He sometimes gives me short answers about cyberstorm ppc questions. But he's no free support person (he's made that clear), and I do not know if he has any information on the schematics (he is not a hardware engineer).

You could try with bplan the two principals there worked for phase-5. Also you could try Bill Buck of Genesi, maybe he would be able to help.

It's known that DCE threw away all Amiga stuff in a dumpster years ago. At least that is the rumour.