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+++ Product discontinued +++
If you are looking for a board to run
AmigaOS 4.x on, please have a look at the
SAM460ex board or the
AmigaOne 500.
Technical Specifications
Using a modular motherboard design, the Pegasos Platform can be easily upgraded to
fit your needs and demands. Using standard interfaces, you are able to use
common components. To simplify system assembly, the Pegasos II uses commodity components
such as ATA hard drives, DDR RAM, CD writers as well as digital cameras and
TV tuner cards.
Some of the most notable features of the latest generation Pegasos motherboard
are as follows:
- MicroATX mainboard (236 mm x 172 mm), compatible with all ATX-compliant cases.
- Open Firmware.
- MV64361 Discovery II System Controller from Marvell.
- G3 or G4 PowerPC CPU from IBM and Freescale (formerly Motorola).
- PC2100 RAM, two sockets for DDR-266 with up to 8 gigabytes total.
- AGP slot.
- PCI subsystem with three 32bit, 33MHz slots, optional Riser Card.
- IEEE1394/Firewire providing 100, 200 or 400 megabits of data bandwidth.
- Gigabit ethernet provided by the Marvell Discovery II MV64361.
- 10/100 megabit ethernet using a VIA Rhine controller.
- USB subsystem giving two external connectors and one internal connector, provided by the VIA 8231 chipset.
- SPDIF digital audio connector.
- AC97 sound subsystem with microphone input, line in/out and headset connector, provided by the Sigmatel STAC 9766 codec.
- IRDA for infra-red remote control.
- ATA100-compatible IDE support with two channels for up to four ATA devices, provided by the VIA 8231 chipset.
- Two PS/2 connectors for use with standard PS/2 mice and keyboards.
- Serial (RS232) port.
- Parallel (Centronics) port.
- Gameport for PC-compatible joysticks.
- Floppy drive connector.
- Two operating systems
included: MorphOS and Debian GNU/Linux
(AmigaOS 4.1 available separately).
Pegasos II Processor Information
The Pegasos II ships with the PowerPC family of processors, either the IBM 750CXe (G3) or
the Freescale MPC7447 (G4). They bring many top end features to the Pegasos II, including:
- Low power consumption.
- Minimal heat production.
- Harvard Architecture with integrated L1 and L2 caches.
- Seperate cores to handle Fetch/Branch, Load/Store and Dispatch.
The 750CXe from IBM is a price-conscious energy-efficient processor from the 3rd generation (G3)
of PowerPC processors. Its simple design allows the 750CXe to achieve comparable performance
to budget processors from other families while consuming less electrical power. By not needing
active cooling, and running on a few Watts, the 750CXe allows for very quiet computers to be
built for a very low price.
But this savings in terms of power and noise does not compromise the G3's performance. In
fact, the 750CXe compares well to entry-level processors from other companies, providing more
processing power per Watt than other desktop solutions.
Now available is a processor card sporting the Freescale 7447 running at 1 gigahertz or more.
The 7447 is a member of the 4th generation (G4) PowerPC lineup from Freescale, offering an
improved performance base over the previous generation of processors. In addition to a larger
cache and higher clock speeds over the G3, the 7447 offers more pipelines, an improved front
side bus (FSB) and most of all, a SIMD unit called the Altivec.
Altivec offers a dedicated on-chip vector engine, capable of delivering over a GigaFLOPs
(billion floating point operations per second) while remaining affordable to the average
user. This provides the 7447 a key advantage in mathematically intensive operations such as
3D graphics, scientific simulations, and internet routers, providing a similar level of
power as more dedicated Digital Signal Processors (DSP's). By combining this with the
processor itself, Freescale are providing this performance while being easier
to program than the common DSP.
In the future, it is likely that new processors from both IBM and Freescale will also find
their way on to the Pegasos platform. The Pegasos II has stepped up to the plate in providing
the alternative computing market with a strong base to work from not just for today, but
for the future as well. Thanks to the Pegasos' modular nature, your investment today will
not be lost with the next technological turn of the corner.
Operating Systems
Putting back the fun into computing is
 MorphOS,
a powerful yet light-weight operating system built for the PowerPC CPU inside the Pegasos II.
MorphOS is built for the user, it is simple to use so you don't need hours of training or need
to remember complex commands, it features super fast responsiveness so you don't have to wait
and is fully configurable and skinnable allowing you to change it to look and feel any way you
want. With MorphOS you are the master!
MorphOS has an active user and developer community with plenty of software in
development. It also includes a fast JIT based 680x0 emulator so you can run many of the
titles from the classic Commodore Ax00 and Ax000 series of computers. Go on, have some
fun again!
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AmigaOS 4.1 is the
official latest version of the Amiga Operating System. Just like MorphOS,
AmigaOS 4.1 is a powerful yet light-weight operating system especially built
for PowerPC CPUs, designed with the user's needs in mind and easy to use and
configure. Everything works transparently and the UI reactions occur instantly.
Cleanly written classic Amiga software with no hardware dependencies can be
run transparently with the built-in 68k JIT emulator.
AmigaOS 4.1 is the most recent incarnation of the classic Amiga Operating System
originally designed by Commodore-Amiga. Many improvements and additions
have been made since the 3.x (68k)series of the Amiga OS, please have a look at the
AmigaOS 4.1 product page
for more detailed information.
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Debian GNU/Linux
is a non-commercial Linux distribution ideal for more advanced
users. It focuses on system stability rather than having the latest greatest features and
their accompanying problems. Being Linux you can expect all the security, stability and
sheer power you'd expect of a Linux system.
Debian and its packages are under constant development by a group of 900 volunteers
worldwide and keeping up to date can be done with a single simple command.
Adding and updating software packages is easy with the built in APT program which
allows you access to nearly 9000 configured and tested packages, these are pre-compiled
and are carefully set up to avoid clashes and dependancy problems.
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With its low-overhead processor, standard OpenFirmware BIOS and built-in Hardware
Abstraction Layer, the Pegasos is the ideal platform for alternative OS development.
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