Neil Spellings wrote to tell everyone the news - the Phoebe (RiscPC2) is finally going to see the light of day, if only for a brief appearance at the RO2001 show.
The machine, in its
distinctive yellow case, comes complete with RevT StrongARM, IOMD2, VIDC20, PCI Slots and SDRAM. There's also the RiscPC pizza oven and lots of other goodies on display.
You can find out more about the show at
http://www.riscos2001.com/.
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Phoebe to make an appearance at RISC OS 2001 |
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(13:05 16/10/2001)
Guy Inchbald (13:54 16/10/2001)
Neil (14:21 16/10/2001)
Robert (18:07 16/10/2001)
Richard Goodwin (18:50 16/10/2001)
Paul Sttewart (08:26 17/10/2001)
Richard Goodwin (08:34 17/10/2001)
Neil (08:56 17/10/2001)
John Hoare (09:31 17/10/2001)
Neil (10:04 17/10/2001)
John Hoare (10:19 17/10/2001)
Neil (12:02 17/10/2001)
John Hoare (12:27 17/10/2001)
Andrew Weston (12:40 23/10/2001)
John Hoare (14:36 23/10/2001)
Lee Johnston (08:52 24/10/2001)
John Hoare (11:51 24/10/2001)
Shep (09:39 23/3/2004)
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Elizabeth Mainwairin |
Message #89207, posted at 13:05, 16/10/2001 |
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Why, I wonder, did Castle never continue the development of the Phoebe hardware design or try to acquire it (maybe they did)? |
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Guy Inchbald |
Message #89208, posted at 13:54, 16/10/2001, in reply to message #89207 |
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I seem to remember that the predicted sales volume would not have covered the cost of setting up a production run. |
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Neil |
Message #89209, posted at 14:21, 16/10/2001, in reply to message #89208 |
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Not true - Phoebe had enough interest and advance orders that it would have covered the production costs, especially since all the development costs would have been written off in the cancellation of the project.
The biggest problem was that the first "Phoebe rescue bid", headed by Peter Bondar failed, and after that E14 werent really interested anymore, and sold the Acord brand to Castle, and licensed the OS to a newly formed company, RISC OS Ltd. |
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Robert |
Message #89210, posted at 18:07, 16/10/2001, in reply to message #89209 |
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Ah, but isn't the silicon inside it all programmable stuff. If someone took it on they'd have to get a few thousand IOMD2 and VIDC20's made -look what happened to Microdigital.
And it would be expensive. And isn't there some problem with the PCI bus?
I remember reading that Acorns own engineers reckoned it needed another 2 million ukp to iron out the bugs and build the first production run. And that's before E14 impose a licensing fee for the hardware designs.
Must admit though, it would be interesing to have a play with a real working Pheobe. I wonder if anyone would care if it went missing after the show :-)
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #89211, posted at 18:50, 16/10/2001, in reply to message #89210 |
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Somebody cared enough to hang on to them this long! |
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Paul Sttewart |
Message #89212, posted at 08:26, 17/10/2001, in reply to message #89211 |
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This is just the sort of thing we need need at a show right now!!! |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #89213, posted at 08:34, 17/10/2001, in reply to message #89212 |
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What I couldn't quite make out from the press release(s) was whether the "RiscPC pizza oven" meant the entire rocketship machine with the pizza oven inside, or just the pizza oven slice. Guess I should have asked, but a little thing called "work" got in the way :( I'll just have to try to get to the show to find out! :) |
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Neil |
Message #89214, posted at 08:56, 17/10/2001, in reply to message #89213 |
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The RiscPC pizza oven is just the pizza oven slice, not the entire rocket ship, which was broken up and different parts went different ways. We're still trying to locate the kitchen sink :-) |
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John Hoare |
Message #89215, posted at 09:31, 17/10/2001, in reply to message #89214 |
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What kind of speed is Pheobe running at? As fast as intended, or are some chips the prototypes? |
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Neil |
Message #89216, posted at 10:04, 17/10/2001, in reply to message #89215 |
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The Phoebe we have is not running as fast as the final production machine would have been, however its not far off.
This is because many of the OS and IOMD2 optimisations which would of followed didnt get done - remember this machine uses a rev A IOMD2 - first working silicon - so its pretty impressive that everything does work "out of the box" without any tweaks/hacks etc!
The bus is running at its full 66MHz and IOMD2 is proper silicon, not a slow FPGA. Put it this way, we think its faster than Castle's latest Kinetic - and thats for a machine that is now 2 years old!!
We dont know whether the PCI slots work, as we've no drivers or code to be able to test them.
And before you ask, no, we havnt tried overclocking it yet :-)
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John Hoare |
Message #89217, posted at 10:19, 17/10/2001, in reply to message #89216 |
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Damn... Phoebe not Pheobe...
Wow, that's impressive. Can't wait to see it :-) Where is it from? Pace? |
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Neil |
Message #89218, posted at 12:02, 17/10/2001, in reply to message #89217 |
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We can't say :-) The owner has asked to remain anonymous |
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John Hoare |
Message #89219, posted at 12:27, 17/10/2001, in reply to message #89218 |
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Gah. I suppose they're worried they would get burgled ;-)
I remember the RISC PC pizza oven - the rocketship was at the first Acorn show I ever went to... I did a report on it for my GCSE Media Studies. |
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Andrew Weston |
Message #89220, posted at 12:40, 23/10/2001, in reply to message #89219 |
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The point is though as I see it - whilst remarkable, what further interest is there in Phoebe if only a couple of very privileged people own one?
Did anybody speak to Castle about it at the show? |
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John Hoare |
Message #89221, posted at 14:36, 23/10/2001, in reply to message #89220 |
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Just the same amount of interest as seeing a System 1 :-)
Hopefully, the Omega (when it's released) will be at least as fast as Phoebe. |
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Lee Johnston |
Message #89222, posted at 08:52, 24/10/2001, in reply to message #89221 |
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I would hope that the Omega would be faster, if only because it is supposed to have video acceleration which, as far as I'm aware, Phoebe doesn't. This should further remove some of the strain from the processor.
Of course potentially negating this is the fancy 26/32bit switching it is supposed to do.
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John Hoare |
Message #89223, posted at 11:51, 24/10/2001, in reply to message #89222 |
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Maybe, but without an XScale fitted, surely this would be switched off? (And when an XScale is fitted, it wouldn't matter?) |
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Shep |
Message #89224, posted at 09:39, 23/3/2004, in reply to message #89223 |
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Um, that link.........is now linking to a porn site. Just thought you should know. |
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