Re: Accelerator / VGA Graphics card

[Sheldon Simms <sheldonsimms@yahoo.com>]

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 02:45:42 -0500, Jason Whorton wrote:

> I am just wishing the Apple II community had as many hardware
> people as the Commodore crowd.

Yep. One thing is that a lot of Commodores were sold in Germany
and there are a lot of Germans who do electronics as a hobby.
Not that Americans don't like electronics, but German electronic
engineers tend to have more free time than their American
counterparts.

> Chipsets for motherboards were $35 - $40 for
> a north and south bridge pair a few years ago (VIA KT133 time frame, I
> believe).  That was in quantity and you mentioned something with a 478 pin.
> The only 478 pin Intel chip I know is the P4.  That would have to be pretty
> high priced.

The chip being talked about here was the Pentium M. Obviously, cost
has to be considered in choosing a chip. One of the things that
makes the card interesting now, though, is that it should be
possible to do with only two "big" chips. The Pentium M solution
involves a CPU and a northbridge with integrated graphics. The
Transmeta Efficeon solution involves a CPU with integrated
memory controller and a graphics controller. If only Transmeta
had an Efficeon with integrated memory AND graphics controllers.
That would be awesome.

-Sheldon