Text 61, 66 rader
Skriven 2005-01-09 09:38:06 av Mike Luther (1:117/3001.0)
     Kommentar till text 60 av Greg Goodwin (8:8/2)
Ärende: Hardware MB question
============================
And worse, Greg ..

 GG> You know...
 GG> .
 GG> It really is strange thinking of a 700 mhz computer as a classic. :) .
 GG> Doc Clu 800
 GG> On a 1.77 mhz Atari 800

I'm trying to make a decision on what MB to 'standardize' on for the next
couple of years for a major medical somewhat research project for a fair size
pile of boxes.  At least the initial work will have to go in under OS/2 and
what to specify as to hardware that will be supported for that couple years is
critical.

OK .. at least as of this point, the current development work for on-going
support for the next two years for official IBM work is focused on the Intel
CPU line.  A cooperative vendor whom I've worked with for many years now isn't
having good luck with AMD at all for heavy use with many large clients,
including Texas A&M sites with later AMD processors. So they too are pushing me
towards Intel.

The last major supported Intel MB in the 865 series is toast as to this month
now.  And the only next supported for some 3 years product line which has
conventional older PCI slot compatibility as well as what we will eventually
migrate to for on-board features from that PCI slot card set now used is the
new Intel 915GAV board.  Just out a few months back, the originals were, so
told me, called back for buglettes.  SNAP does the IBM contract for mass video
support both as part of Passport Advantage for official IBM members, plus
independent SNAP product sales to others who want to buy their product line. 
OK, a little more than a month ago SNAP completed support for the on-board
video chipset for the 915GAV and that part of the puzzle is over.

I haven't found a current party who can tell me if the on-board NIC chip for
LAN use is supported .. but I think so.  That would clear the way to yank the
PCI NIC cards as well as the AGP video cards we now use.

An on-going fuzz is still present for support for the 850  - 97 audio chipset
for on-board chip support to take the place of the current PCI slot based
SBLive 5.1 cards now in use for audio.

We're down to only *ONE* actual RS-232 serial port on the 915GAV board. I still
haven't started to research where to substitute a PCI slot four port serial
card for the ISA based such cards we have to use for as many as *FOUR* full
hardware and hardware based line controllers for some of the telecommunications
system interfaces which all used assembly language based hardware controllers
for everything from antenna positioning to TNC and HF radio station control..  
Gloom ..

And in the scant some THREE months now since this whole research game in the
likely most realistic new motherboard to choose has started ..

   What was first a 2.2Ghz CPU went to a 2.8 Ghz CPU ..

     And the vendor tells me the only thing now available is 3.2Ghz!

 GG> On a 1.77 mhz Atari 800

Duhh ...  a 2.2GHz Intel CPU is now a classic!


--> Sleep well; OS/2's still awake! ;)

Mike @ 1:117/3001

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