* Welcome to the Walker/AT Frequently Asked Questions v1.2 *
This FAQ is compiled from what AT_Cebit and others have said on the IRC,
and information found on Amiga Technologies' site (www.amiga.de)
Updated: 30th March 1996
Copyright Anders Bakkevold - But please spread it.
I CANNOT guarantee that all the information is correct!
If you have more information, please send it to
Goofy on IRC, or andersb@intercom.no!!
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Table of Contents:
* 1. What is the Walker?
2. Where can I find pictures of the Walker?
3. Is the Walker going to look like in the pictures?
4. What do you [AT] want the Walker to be?
5. What will the price for the PPC Amiga be?
* 6. What will the price for Walker be?
* 7. What is new in the Walker machine?
8. What marketing will AT do for the Amiga?
9. When can we expect new Amigas?
10. Is there a big differece between a Phase V PowerUp plugin for A1200
and the new PPC Amiga?
11. Will there be a new gfx chip set and sound chip set with the upcoming
PPC amiga?
12. Who designed the Walker?
13. What about PPC for my Amiga 3000?
14. What are the specs of the walker slot? is it the 1200 CPU slot or
the 3000/4000 CPU slot or a Zorro III thing or something custom?
15. What's new in OS3.2?
16. Will it MUI be included in the OS?
17. How big will the harddrive in the Walker be?
18. Will it only have 1 Meg chip ram?
19. Is the 030 on a Socket?
*20. Who is working on the Walker Project?
21. Is there going to be an InterNet+softwarebundle supplied with
the AmigaOS or in the normal softwarebundle?
22. Will MagicWB be included in WB3.2?
23. Where can I get even more related information?
*24. What's EPP?
25. What's PPC?
>26. What is the SuperIO chip?
>27. What does 'standard "LPX" PC board size and drillings' mean?
>28. What is the trick with the 'Walker' case?
* = Questions that have changed in v1.2
> = Question is new in v1.2
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--01--
Q: What is the Walker?
A: The Walker is a new Amiga model, presented on the CeBit show.
This is the '1200+' or '1300'. The Walker is only a working
title, it may change. There will actually be a competition
to name the machine, in the leading Amiga magazines.
--02--
Q: Where can I find pictures of the Walker?
A: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/~eeu013/walker.html
http://www.amiga.de/
--03--
Q: Is the Walker going to look like in the pictures?
A: It probably will... But it is a prototype.
--04--
Q: What do you [AT] want the Walker to be?
A: We want it to be a universal machine designed for internet,
homeworkingstuff etc... a *complete* solution for a good price.
--05--
Q: What will the price for the PPC Amiga be?
A: You will have to wait and see...
--06--
Q: What will the price for Walker be?
A: Less than $1000 (US Dollars)
Due to the somewhat 'speculative' ;-) PC market for components, the
price of the 'Walker' cannot be fixed yet, because it largely depends on
PC mass market components like CD-ROMs, floppy drives, SIMMs etc., whose
prices are subject to change due to tidal, financial, social, rural or
whatsoever events.
--07--
Q: What is new in the Walker machine? (compared to an A1200)
A: · A new design
· 68EC030/40 Mhz
· FPU socket
· Realtime clock onboard
· 1 (or maybe 2) MB Chip RAM and 4 MB Fast RAM planned for shipping
· 2 SIMM sockets for RAM expansion upto 96 MB
· standard "LPX" PC board size and drillings (see Q27)
· 4xSpeed CD-ROM
· MIDI (this might not be true)
· External Keyboard (Windows keyboard, with Amiga stickers on the
Amiga-only keys)
· new powerful expansion slot allowing CPU / Zorro / PCI / Video slots
· OS3.2 (See Question 15)
· SuperIO chip - see Q26
--08--
Q: What marketing will AT do for the Amiga?
A: A big campaign in McDonald's restaurants in Germany has been rumoured.
Hopefully they'll do more than that!
--09--
Q: When can we expect new Amigas?
A: The Walker will come in September, a PPC Upgrade for A4000 at the end
of this year, a whole new PPC-machine in spring next year.
--10--
Q: Is there a big differece between a Phase V PowerUp plugin for A1200
and the new PPC Amiga?
A: There will probably not be much difference between a Walker with a
PPC and a PPC Amiga.
--11--
Q: Will there be a new gfx chip set and sound chip set with the upcoming
PPC amiga?
A: The new Amigas will use standard-chips, but the walker still has AGA.
--12--
Q: Who designed the Walker?
A: The case: Some german professor, a well known designer. The new board
was designed here in Germany, too.
--13--
Q: What about PPC for my Amiga 3000?
A: We`ll see, the cpu-slot is nearly exactly the same as in A4000.
--14--
Q: What are the specs of the walker slot? Is it the 1200 CPU slot or
the 3000/4000 CPU slot or a Zorro III thing or something custom?
A: Neither, it`s something new, you`ll be able to plug in Daughterboards
with Zorro, PCI, PPC, 060er and so on, it`s up to 3rd party developers...
--15--
Q: What's new in OS3.2?
A: It's just a minor update. Bugfixes, and support for the new things in
the walker.
--16--
Q: Will it MUI be included in the OS?
A: No.
--17--
Q: How big will the harddrive in the Walker be?
A: Depends on the prizes in half a year.
--18--
Q: Will it only have 1 Meg chip ram?
A: Not decided yet, however Heinz Wretsel, central to Project Walker said
that he didn'texpect it would have less than 2MB of Chip. It's
difficult to buy less and it's not much cheaper.
--19--
Q: Is the 030 on a Socket?
A: No, it's PGA surface mounted.
--20--
Q: Who is working on the Walker Project?
A: There were rumours about Dave Haynie joining AT, and moving to Germany.
These turned out to be untrue, but he is in touch with them, and
has been doing contract work for them. (So it's not all bad...:)
--21--
Q: Is there going to be an InterNet+softwarebundle supplied with
the AmigaOS or in the normal softwarebundle?
A: Heinz Wretsel was quite adamant that he wanted to.
--22--
Q: Will MagicWB be included in WB3.2?
A: It was being considered. Certainly some cosmetic stuff should
feature in OS 3.2. In fact I believe he said it would. [Heinz]
--23-
Q: Where can I get even more related information?
A: Take a look here:
http://www.doremi.co.uk/walker/
http://www.ozramp.net.au/~morden/
http://www.bangor.ac.uk/~eeu013/walker
http://www.intercom.no/~andersb/walker.html (this FAQ)
--24--
Q: What's EPP?
A: The Enhanced Parallel Port protocol was originally developed by Intel,
Xircom and Zenith Data Systems, as ameans to provide a high performance
parallel port link that would still be compatible with the standard
parallelport. This protocol capability was implemented by Intel in the
386SL chipset (82360 I/O chip). This was prior tothe establishment of
the IEEE 1284 committee and the associated standards work.
Short: A faster parallel port, capable of 0.5Mb/s-2Mb/s
--25--
Q: What's PPC?
A: PowerPC, a processor. These are quite different (and faster) from the
680x0 series.
--26--
Q: What is the SuperIO chip?
A: The SuperIO (Input/Output) chip features (in addition to the
old interfaces):
· Enhanced parallel port (EPP), bidirectional, 24-bit support for
printer.device possible due to speedier operation
· Faster serial port with FIFO buffer
· MIDI (not specified yet for Out, In or Through)
· EIDE interface for hard- and CD-ROM-drives
· Floppy interface for PC HD floppies
--27--
Q: What does 'standard "LPX" PC board size and drillings' mean?
A: This means that the motherboard will fit in a standard
PC-case. AT plans to sell the motherboard alone, without
the case, so that you can put it in a (cheap?) PC-case.
--28--
Q: What is the trick with the 'Walker' case?
A: In the base version, it consists of a bottom and a top part. The bottom
part takes the mainboard and diverse connectors. The top part contains
the drives, mainly the CD-ROM. In between, you can put a middle part.
A daughterboard plugs into the expansion connector of the mainboard
and carries standard CPU and/or Zorro and/or Video and/or PCI slots
or whatever else will be created. Many different types of daughterboards
can be envisioned, for example only with PCI slots or with one CPU slot
and two combined Zorro/Video slots. Depending on the daughterboard,
the middle part can be of varying heights, all the way up to a full tower.
--00--
Q: How about the future?
A: The Amiga is back for the future!
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