Anyway, we are going slightly off course here - we want the pros and cons of the PC Card etc etc. One 'con' being that it runs Windoze, of course...

While we're discussing this, does anyone actually have a 133 PC Card they no longer need?

You see, I just want to be able to check my Web sites in Netscrape and Exploiter so this is my ideal solution. It's like having a network in one computer, in one desktop and with the added benefit of drag and drop between Windoze and RISC OS. For this sort of usage, surely the PC Card wins hands-down over wasting cash on a PC box (that could be spent on RISC OS)?

I think this was mentioned once before - what is the viability of a software-only emulation of PC hardware so we could run Windoze on, say, a 1000Mhz (or higher) XScale machine? Let's remember this will be using Imago or Omega or similar, no bus speeds to worry about

[Edited by arenaman at 00:42, 21/12/2000]

Mostly it's the dodgy OS that I hate. There are quite a few Windoze programs I actually really like. Doesn't matter now 'cause I sold my PC to buy my RiscPC

Anyway, Tim, what RISC OS machine(s) do you possess and do you still use it/them?

[Edited by arenaman at 01:58, 24/12/2000]

AcornICQ is advancing nicely but it's always the browsing bit of RISC OS Internet usage that throws up problems. I think maybe this may soon be largely a thing of the past, due to development of WebsterXL and especially the excellent Oregano.

If RComp or Castle or someone would pay the people who develop Flash, AcornICQ etc to keep them up-to-date, we'd have a far-superior Internet system.

It's just the slightly-frustrating wait as we play catch-up to Pee Cee users

Still, as a Webmaster, it certainly would be nice to run all the Pee Cee browsers to test in. They would also fill in the gaps whilst waiting for RISC OS browser development. There is the games factor, too, I must admit

A thought occurs to me: The new KM chipset is for mobile use, and includes NVidia's Savage graphics chips. Could we not put that on a card, along with a mobile Duron/Athlon (due out in Q1/2 next year). That way we get 3D graphics and a fast processor on the same card. And of course, it would be low power because it's designed for laptops.

I like the sound of this. I stand by my opinion that until RISC OS can beat Windoze hands down on everything (such as Internet) a PC Card is fairly essential. You can get a software PC emulator for the Mac that runs Windoze 2000 and the Mac is certainly more advanced for Internet and all the other stuff than good old RISC OS. Still prefer RISC OS though

I hope your thought (quoted) also occurs to Aleph One

for playing games i regulary out-perform any of my friends PCs with Voodoos & Geforces in, why? because I have an Athlon
If you have the processing power (which is evidently affordable) then you should have now problems with a PC card.

Software rendering is all very well, and it may keep up frame-rate wise with a spanking new 3dcard+slow processor, but that's hardly the point. There are very few, and ever fewer games being released with a software rendered. That is they _require_ a 3d card, and they _require_ ones with certain specs (eg. a minimum amount of texture memory).

If we're talking about an ability to play games, we could make do with a cheap, slow processor but need a modern 3dcard.

Not that I think its worth the effort. I'd rather have a very good and reasonably priced RISC OS dedicated machine than a less good and more expensive one that can boot Windows. Big deal. Such a computer deserves to die in the sales chart.

If we had a graphics controller that had Glide or OpenGL or emulation of this in software, we would have a fully working PC in our RISC OS machines. The whole point is that having a PC inside your RISC OS computer saves on space, improves platform inter-operability and is pretty damn nifty

Indeed PC technology is dead as soon as you get it, but this applies to your average baige box as well as PC cards.

Do we have any benchmarks for the Lightning Card??? as i cannot see this being a complete solution to giving RiscOS fast 3D acceleration.
perhaps im wrong about that, but has anyone seen anything to tell us otherwise?
Im sure Microdigital would have made much more of a fuss about the Lightning card if it was going to offer a significant difference to 3D performance on RiscOS.
Thats where ur 1Ghz Xscale comes in for RiscOS games.

Also, the unit cost of a PC processor is not too bad these days - you can pick up an AMD Duron 600 for about £45 from DABS.COM and a 1GHz Athlon is now only £145 (ex VAT prices).

However, the real problem is the bus speed of the RiscPC motherboard. Even if you put the memory on the daughterboard (a la Kinetic), you're still going to have to go through the motherboard to get to the hard drive, video, etc etc.

The really smart thing to do would be to have the processor board attached directly to a podule type thing with the graphics circuitry and an IDE interface etc on board. Of course this would be extortionately expensive.

And therein lies the problem. A PC is, by its nature, obsolete once you take it home. If you just want it for Word 97 (why? ) then one of the existing PC cards is fine. But if you want it for games, forget it - buy a new PlayStation 2 or a Dreamcast. Even if you could get a 1GHz PC card in your Risc PC, you wouldn't be able to get equivalent graphics without, say, a Lightning card. Once you put the two together, you're definitely talking more than the cost of a new PC!