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[DJS]

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about DRAGON ColdFire are posted in the Elbox website.

FAQ can be found in the SUPPORT section.

[jdiffend]

I should point out that the soonest the board will be available is the end of January (which I'd doubt).
They are also asking a pretty high price for it if you ask me. Sounds like a 300% markup or more.

[LinchpiN]

But why should this be different? Isnt most Amiga hardware expensive?

[billt]

>They are also asking a pretty high price for it if
>you ask me. Sounds like a 300% markup or more.

Welcome to the Amiga platform. What have you been using until today?

Ah, I can clearly remember paying US$550 for my PicassoIV, the PC equivalent with the same Cirrus chip on it at the time cost about US$50. I'd say a 3x markup is actually making progess from teh 10x markups we were used to a number of years ago.

OK, the PicassoIV had more parts and did more stuff, things which were completely unnecessary on the PC cards which didn't need fancy flickerfixers, and some price increase was justified for this extra components and engineering. But its still about as equivalent as you can get comparing an Amiga Cirrus VGA card with 4MB RAM to a PC Cirrus VGA card with 4MB RAM...

[Kaminari]

They consistently say that the SharkPPC won't go into production until OS 4 is officially released, yet they consistently fail to prove whether they actually have a license from Hyperion or not. Maybe Hans-Jorg or Thomas could comment on that?

[tangletown]

@jdiffend
I wasn't aware that they released a price for the DRAGON; can ye share the link please?

@Kaminari
We all know what Hyperion's response will be: that they haven't recieved a Shark yet.
Would Elbox need a license, if the accelerator is aimed at the BPPC/CSPPC version of OS4? Maybe they are planning on doing the hacking themselves?

[Orjan]

@Tangletown

http://www.elbox.com/news_04_12_17.html

"The suggested retail price is 349 EUR. (VAT excl.)"

Edit: In comparison, it´s actually pretty cheap, considering that the Dragon contains both a powerful accelerator and PCI/AGP..

I mean, otherwise you have to buy a Mediator ( Between 140 - 290€, depending on model ) and an accelerator ( like 2 - 300€, perhaps more, for an 060 or 060/ppc combo ).

So in comparison, 349€ is pretty ok.. Now, if they would only manage to write drivers for the GeForce AGP cards... :-)

[golem]

I agree I think the price is pretty reasonable for Amiga kit. Can't make up my mind about whether to buy this for 68k compatibility or the PPC expansion for 1200s which was in the news a while ago. Unlimited wants - limited resources -

[Orjan]

For myself, I can say that if I get the cash, I am most certainly interested in this piece of hardware.. It´s much cheaper than to buy an A1, and you get most of the stuff anyway..

Sure, you can´t run OS4, but you can play movies, surf the web, download stuff, use USB stuff, get a sound card, and so on... All depending on how many PCI slots it will have, ofcourse...

But it still sucks that you cant promote the original Amiga A/V to the graphics card.. Major drawback if you play classic games that hit the hardware... :-(

[ikir]

Outstanding product!

[odin]

@ikir:

Cool you've already got one! Quick! Write a review!

[x56h34]

Odin, you little devil. :-)

[shaf]

Hmm, the FAQ states that an A3000/4000 version will be available and will replace the existing Mediator card in a towered A3000/4000.

That migh be a decent solution and should cost less that the A1200 version.

Shaf

[System]

@jdiffend
I wasn't aware that they released a price for the DRAGON; can ye share the link please?

@Kaminari
We all know what Hyperion's response will be: that they haven't recieved a Shark yet.
Would Elbox need a license, if the accelerator is aimed at the BPPC/CSPPC version of OS4? Maybe they are planning on doing the hacking themselves?

I would imagine that it would be quite simple for elbox to engineer the Shark to appear as a CSPPC/BPPC to any software that uses one of these cards. Why should OS4 be any the wiser about what Classic accelerator it is running on? A PPC CPU is a PPC CPU afterall.

[System]

It doesn't say whether PCI IDE (ATA100/133) are supported or not. I hope they are, as 133MBps is a darn site faster than 16MBps! :-D