Så kom då dagen då Hyperion presenterade sin nya Amigadator. X:et är nu någorlunda förklarat, men Hyperion vet själva inte riktigt vad det betyder ännu. Mer förklaring följer nedan.
Först lite specs. Sådant vill man ju ha:
AmigaOne X1000
- ATX Formfactor
- Dual-core PowerISA™ v2.04+ CPU
- “Xena” XMOS XS1-L1 128 SDS
- 7.1 channel HD audio
- 4x DDR2 RAM slots
- 10x USB 2.0
- 1x Gigabit Ethernet
- 2x PCIe x16 slots (1×16 or 2×8)
- 2x PCIe x1 slots
- 1x Xorro slot
- 2x PCI legacy slots
- 2x RS232
- 4x SATA 2 connectors
- 1x IDE connector
- JTAG connector
- 1x Compact Flash
Amiga är tillbaka i nutiden, helt enkelt. Som väntat blir det en PPC-processor, men Hyperion vill och kan inte ännu avslöja vilken det rör sig om: “The X1000 processor currently has very limited availability, and you’ve probably never seen one in the wild, so don’t worry too much about it. For now, please be content with knowing that it’s a dual-core Power Architecture™ CPU, with a very low Thermal Design Point.”
Det som är mest intressant dock är “Xena” och Xorro-porten:
“The Nemo designers had a brilliant idea: “Why not add an XMOS chip?” Once, there were custom chips; for the AmigaOne X generation, we have customisable chips. XMOS calls it “Software Defined Silicon”, we call it ‘Xena’, a nod to the old custom chip names. It’s the inheritor of the ‘transputer’ concept, and it’s something we’re quite excited about.
Capable of eight concurrent real-time threads with shared memory space, at up to 400 MIPS (about 6 68060s worth), Xena gives the X1000 a very flexible, very expandable co-processor. The uses are endless; control hardware, DSP functions, robotics, display – even SID chip and console emulators. The Amiga has seen some truly ingenious hacks and add-ons; Xena can take this to a whole new level. It will take a while for the full possibilities to be realised, but we urge you to visit XMOS and discover more for yourselves.”
“To accompany ‘Xena’, we have ‘Xorro’, a new slot using an industry-standard PCIe x8 form factor to give access to the ‘Xena’ IO. This will be the route to Xena’s 64 IO lines, which are dynamically configurable as input, output, or bidirectional. ‘Xorro’ will allow bridging Xena to external hardware for control purposes, to internal systems, or to other Xcore processors. This last point is worth more exploration; XCore is a parallel processing architecture, and if you want more power, you can simply chain more XCores together. Reference boards have been made with up to 256 cores, offering a theoretical 102400 MIPS. Those of you interested in high-end imaging or scientific applications, for example, take note.”
Jag vill ha, men det lär bli dyrt. Jag svävar inte i det blå och tror att Amiga kommer tillbaka till forna glansdagar och konkurrerar med PC och Mac, men det hade varit mysigt om de med den här ganska så innovativa datorn karvar in en liten plats i nördhobbysegmentet. Det finns ju nu nästan inga som helst begränsningar för vilka skumma hårdvaruhacks folk kan skapa med Xena och Xorro.