PCI was designed to be a standard expansion bus offering relatively high performance (although obviously the performance has been superceeded now).

AGP was designed to boost the performance of graphics cards. Although it could probably be exploited for other expansion cards it is aimed purely at graphics hardware.

USB is a new high speed serial bus which basically makes is more simple than either AGP or PCI but, because information is sent down it serially (ie a bit at a time) it isn't suitable for high performance expansion. It complements both PCI and AGP.

As for podules - slow and expensive BUT, it has to be said, the ultimate in plug 'n' play. You really do plug them in and play - no messing about with installation of drivers and stuff because they're on the card themselves. Remember the podules offered true plug 'n' play way before just about any other system, let alone Windows.

Of PCI, AGP or USB probably the most useful under RISC OS would be USB (as many external devices will soon only be available with USB interfaces).

Looking at (say) Imago remember its wide 128 bit bus gives a bandwidth 1.5 times FASTER than AGP, so in effect an AGP card would be a slower path over which to manipulate video than the native wide/fast memory system on the Imago.

With newer memory architectures (such as DDR) it might be preferable to allow the processor and a graphics processor (or dare I say it VIDC) to have shared access to the main RAM (it would be faster than PCI and as good as AGP without the complexity).

There is a 2nd processor slot on the Imago, unfortunately I suspect many will prefer an xScale daughterboard sitting there rather than a 486 or 586 PC card. In principle I thought the objective was that Imago could do anything the RPC could do (including running the PC card).

No no, the Imago has a processor slot identical to the one in an RPC that you would plug a current PC card into.

The StrongARM on an Imago gets soldered into the motherboard (so not using an RPC-like slot), while the optional XScale would sit on top of it. So you could have three processors in an Imago if you wanted.

THe interface of the future is Bluetooth. The problem (today) is the cost of components which are targetted to fall to about $10 per unit during the next year.

Step 1 - "dongles/add-ons" to convert current interfaces to bluetooth (2001 - 2002). A USB version already exists.
Step 2 - pure bluetooth (2002 onwards)

regards,

Malcolm

This monkey thing is really catching on, but is it a USB monkey?

Someone who believes the hype

USB at least is available now, and as you say provides a good upgrade path to future devices.

I'm a little more cautious about Bluetooth until it's actually being used fully and you can get hold of plenty of devices. Not that I'm bitter after the whole WAP thing (it's great! No, it'll be great when we get 3G! No, 3G won't be fast enough, it'll be great when we have 4G! etc. etc.)

Other problems with Bluetooth include

No (easy) capability for multicast communication between devices due to the way the frequency hopping works. One of the things bluetooth is being touted for is linking everything up in your house and doing stuff like service discovery to see what's there and how you can make use of it. Without multicast this is an absolute nightmare.

It's relatively fast for a wireless communications technology. It also pumps out a fair amount of radiation. Given the current uncertainty concerning the effect of mobile phones on ones health then I can imagine Bluetooth may have to find a way of calming these fears.

927MHz!?????
whats its original clock speed, & how easy is it to o/c proccessors??? (e.g. i could always do with a 1Ghz athlon rather than 'me good 'ole 700mhz.
Why not a GeForce2Ultra?? - new geforce 2 replacement coming up soon

1: Original clockspeed is a 650Mhz Duron. Yep 650, but just because I'm a random doesn't mean that I'm not that good at the old business...

2: Geforce II Ultra? Do you think I'm made of ... ^H^H^H^H money. It costs way too much for this . I got the GTS for 163 s including sorry, VAT. An ultra costs about 3 times that... I'm only a student for goodness sake...

3: Overclocking was absoultely the most simple thing ever. Get the Duron with a KT7 board and you just change the speed settings in the BIOS through a software menu - literally just select how fast you want to try to run your processor. OK, it won't run at all speeds, but it's quite nice getting a 42% boost on what you should be getting . Nowadays, since AMD don't like you ing around with the processor speeds they've removed a pin from some of their Duron's to stop you, although this can be rectified with a pencil - just join up some bridges on the processor. An Athlon should easily overclock - see HardOCP or similar sites for advice.

4: Don't overclock unless you have a good idea of what you are doing, otherwise you could make a complete of yourself. Oh, and get some nice cooling - a good fan costs about a tenner, much cheaper than a new processor...

Then again, these are just the views of a random and should not be taken too seriously...

USB at least is available now, and as you say provides a good upgrade path to future devices.

I'm a little more cautious about Bluetooth until it's actually being used fully and you can get hold of plenty of devices. Not that I'm bitter after the whole WAP thing (it's great! No, it'll be great when we get 3G! No, 3G won't be fast enough, it'll be great when we have 4G! etc. etc.)

927MHz!?????
whats its original clock speed, & how easy is it to o/c proccessors

Just imagine what you could o/c a 1GHz XScale to

Nice

I think you'll find it is a podule monkey. True plug and play.

Langauge!

Podule Monkey... Plug and Swing

[Edited by mentat at 01:50, 14/12/2000]

[mentat] - I think you'll find it is a podule monkey. True plug and play.

This person has obviously lost his 's!

(No, it's a PCI monkey)

Then again, what do I know, I'm just a !

Dave

The point about podules is a classic and well taken. Simply another feature of the RISC OS platform that has enabled us to do things (that are now hailed as new and wonderful by the rest of the world) for years... oh well. The expense is an issue though...

The podule cards aren't actually that expensive at all. It's network cards that are the problem. But not with Imago

If they did, wouldn't that mean we can still use PC Cards?

To quote my esteemed peer...

Drool!

Indeed That kind-of rules out Jack using Imagos then Unless of course, someone convinced him that there wasn't really a PC Card slot on it!

Ahhh, the Icon Bar certainly does help putting off 1500 word extended abstracts that need to be started and completed tonight

The question is irrelevent...

OK, if you take the question literally in its gramatical form.
However, the arguments (sorry, "discussions" were about which of these technologies people want current RISC OS related manufacturers to include/support in new products, and not which is "best" - which is usually a silly arguement about anything

Thus the discussion is relevent. And now at least (one hopes! ) it will not clog up "the long" thread.

The point about podules is a classic and well taken. Simply another feature of the RISC OS platform that has enabled us to do things (that are now hailed as new and wonderful by the rest of the world) for years... oh well. The expense is an issue though...

Sorted, hopefully Castle will use Imago...

If they did, wouldn't that mean we can still use PC Cards?

To quote my esteemed peer...

Drool!

I think the so-called souped-up podule connections on the Imago is the best idea. Couple that with USB and we're sorted. USB for BT's rather nice ADSL service and scanners and the such. Podules for other stuff like sound cards and digitisers.

The £100 for a 10baseT network card is also solved by Imago by building a 100baseT network conection onto the motherboard.

Sorted. Hopefully Castle will use Imago in their new high-end machines and/or produce their own (cheaper) motherboard with the same connections but maybe less graphics abilities.

Drool!

Based on last post on "the long" thread, it looks
like USB wins at the moment. D'oH! Forgot to include "podule" in the thread request... oh well eh!