The AmigaOne-XE (From here on referred to as the A1-XE) could be regarded as the mothership. The board design is based on a standard ATX style motherboard (It's physical appearance could be compared to a PC motherboard) and as such it can be mounted into any standard tower case, can have any standard AGP/PCI graphics card, sound card, TV card, USB mice or keyboards attached to it. Which ones will actually be supported by the AmigaOS (Operating System), is covered elsewhere on this site.
Immediately you should have a picture that the next generation of Amiga systems do not have the restrictions that 'classic' systems had with having to buy 'specialist' hardware from 'specialist' Amiga stores. The first of many good moves made by Eyetech.
A1-XE specifications (And a little description if you are new to this game)...
- ATX form factor (305x244 mm)
- G4 or G3 PPC Processor @ 800Mhz some G4's are 933Mhz, depends on dealer.
- The CPU is upgradeable since it is socketed in this model of the A1 - Max of 2GB memory
- Memory type is DIMM Registered 133 - Standard IDE headers
- Up to 4 IDE devices - Northbridge
- Articia 'S' with fix
- This is the interface between the CPU, memory and PCI bus - Southbridge
- VIA 82C686B
- The chip that handles the system timing, interrupts,
- communication between functions such as IDE, USB etc... - 1 AGP Slot
- 2x speed - 4 PCI slots
- 3 x PCI 33MHz
- 1 x PCI 66MHz - 10/100 Ethernet chip & socket installed
- 3COM 920C - USB ports
- 2 mounted on the backplate of the system
- 2 headers are mounted on the motherboard - PS2 ports
- For standard PS2 keyboard + mouse - Serial ports
- 2 x 16650 equivalent - Parallel port
- 1 x EPP/ECP - IRDA port
- Header on the mother board - Firmware
- PPCBoot & AmigaOS4 enabler - OS capability
- AmigaOS4
- (Suse) LinuxPPC
- MacOS (Using MOL, emulation through Linux)
That just about wraps up this little piece on what an A1-XE is. All I can say is it's a far cry from the hacked up A1200 with all the bits hanging off it left right and centre. Bring on the future, I know I'm ready for it!
