The Technical Specifications

The A\Box has got some impressive technical specifications. Click on a specification to get more information about it.

• PowerPC CPU
• 128-bit high performance UMA
  Memory access speed is a factor in CPU, disk and video/animation performance. The A\Box's 100 MHz bus with SDRAM memory can manage an incredible 1.6 Gigabytes per second.
• 64-bit processor bus at 100 MHz
  Pentium PC's have 32 bit CPU-busses at 50, 66, 75 or 83 MHz.
• Two 24-bit video DMAs
  Not one but two video output systems, one for extremely high true-colour resolutions and the other for video work which may be genlocked. Onscreen windows can be viewed from either using different image types (RGB or CMYK etc.)
• Four 16-bit audio outputs
  Each of these outputs at CD-quality 44KHz 16-bit but can be real-time mixed for an infinite number of mixed channels per output. The FAME DSP-RISC can be used to further process the audio.
• Two video input ports
  Full digital quality YUV 4:2:2 inputs allow very high quality video grabs to be processed. Combined with the FAME DSP-RISC unit, they could be mixed in real-time for Video Toaster style effects.
• Two Audio inputs
  Standard 16-bits audio inputs for everyday to CD quality sampling.
• LCD (TFT) display controller
  As standard can drive LCD screens like laptops pointing towards a portable A\Box being constructed with ease. Also handy for a desktop front.panel LCD display.
• PCI bus
  The high performance card standard for the PC comes to the A\Box, allowing the bolt-on of cheap third party hardware if any of it is needed.
• Local 16-bit DMA bus
  Running at 66MHz, this bus can be used for universal low-cost applications which need up to 132Mb/s transfer rates. Also known as the hacker's bus.
• 'Firewire' IEEE 1394
  A new extremely high speed interface standard accepting up to 64 devices, long cable lengths and up to 400 megabits/s transfer rate. Especially useful for digital video cameras and future devices.
• 'FAME' DSP-RISC co-processor
  The Flexible Area Management Engine is a custom Digital Signal Processor which can process audio/video in real-time for synthesis and effects. 3D graphics will also benefit greatly and you could even have circular windows.
• Fast SCSI II
  Phase 5 skip the cheap IDE-inteface and instead they use a Fast SCSI-II interface. You can connect loads of devices to it.
• ISDN
  For communication needs, A\Box has a built in ISDN adapter allowing dial-up or leased line access to the internet and such forth.
• Amiga compatible OS
  Running the whole show will be Phase 5's operating system which is already 100 % AmigaOS Exec compatible, currently in testing. Advanced features such as built-in support for multiprocessors will be added.