The Amiga Walker Prototype

The Walker

While we don't have any CeBit reports ready for Amiga Report yet, the
biggest news was the Amiga Walker prototype on display.

Amiga Tech isn't far enough along that they're showing off PowerAmiga
hardware yet.  The Walker is a stopgap measure, one more AGA machine to
carry the line across.

The design is quite unconventional.  The Walker a black appliance, totally
unlike a desktop computer.  Pictures have been placed on Aminet and on the
Web.

Walker Specsheet

While IRC conferences, speculation, and FAQs have abounded, not all of the
information in them has been complete or accurate.  So Amiga Report went
straight to the source--Michael Metz, Amiga Product Manager at Amiga
Technologies.  He provided this quick look at the specifications of the
Amiga Walker.

Here's a short summary:

1. 68030 Processor w/ 40 MHz (EC)

2. 2 SIMM sockelts for max. 128 MB of RAM on board

3. AGA Chipset 

4. Additional SuperIO Chip w/
   a: PC HD floppy support
   b: EIDE support (perhaps up to 4 devices)
   c: 2 * fast serial device with FIFO
   d: Enhanced parallel port with bitronic support

5. Bay for internal DD (880 KB) floppy support

6.  Complete motherboard at 40 MHz access (except for AGA) for fast memory
    access

7.  New designed system bus which will be compatible to the PPC AMIGA.
    This system bus will include all needed signals regarding PCI and ZORRO
    III.  The slot itself needs a doughter board where third party
    manufacturers may expand the system to a CPU and a ZORRO or PCI bus.

8.  The AMIGA comes with a quad speed CD ROM, a hard drive and 5 MB of
    memory (1 MB chip mem which may get expanded to 2 MD and 4 MB Fast memory
    on SIMM socket.

Because of a very new design, the AMIGA may get expanded from a mini tower
to a big tower by just taking off the upper part with the CD ROM and the
floppy and inserting slices for further expanstions (hard drives, zorro
slots, PCI slots, more floppy drives etc.).

The new system will run on a 40 MHz base with a bridge to the AGA chips.

The design is meant to be accepted by new users.  The idea was that each
user has a very intense relationship to his AMIGA so the design should be
something which supports this relationship.  Pictures are available on the
net.

Sites which contain Walker information and pictures include-

http://www.amiga.de/de/Aktuelles/Walker-GB.html (The official page is
                                                 located here)
http://www.doremi.co.uk/walker/
http://www.ozramp.net.au/~morden/
http://www.bangor.ac.uk/~eeu013/walker

The Walker FAQ, not entirely complete, is at
http://www.intercom.no/~andersb/walker.html

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