Scottish companies Nallatech and Alpha Data have revealed "Maxwell", an FGPA-based supercomputer that is 10 times more energy efficient and up to 300 times faster than traditional equivalents. By reprogramming the FPGA chips at runtime, the machine is able to perform some calculations much more efficiently than a traditional computer, in a way somewhat reminiscent of the ill-fated Omega from MicroDigital. The design also requires less space and cooling than traditional supercomputers. Although the technology behind the machine is sound, there are still some implementation issues to resolve, such as determining the best way of programming the FPGAs for a given problem.
 
It's reported that other companies are also looking at using FPGAs in large numbers to produce similar supercomputers.
 
Knews knicked from CNET
 

RCI Easter offer (30/3/99)

R-Comp Interactive have announced a special offer that will run for the Easter period where you can buy either Ankh or Exodus for the reduced price of £19.00, or both for £35.00.
 

Interested in Emulators? (21/3/99)

David McEwen has made an appeal in the comp.sys.acorn.games newsgroup for anyone who would be willing to have some part in a new Emulator website to come forward. If you would be willing to write articles for or maintain a section covering:

• Arcade emulation (MAME etc.)
  
• Console emulation (NES, Sega Master System, Megadrive, SNES, Atari 2600 etc.)
  
• Handheld (Gameboy, Game Gear, PC Engine GT, Lynx)
  
• Computer (Ataris, BBC, MSX, Adam, C64, Vic 20, Spectrum...)
  
• Emulator news

Or perhaps something else, please get in touch with David. Acorn Arcade and Acorn Gaming have both offered their support, so all we need now is a few volunteers!
 

ChiOS and ChiBER project put on hold (20/3/99)

Due to the withdrawal of a major sponsor, the project to bring RISC OS and an ARM processor card to PCI architecture has been halted. Jason Tribbeck is looking for new funding, but until he finds it no more work can be done. More information about the project is available at the website.
 

RISCOS Ltd secure license to develop and release RISC OS 4 (8/3/99)

RISCOS Ltd have announced that they have finally finished negotiations with Acorn Computers Ltd(/Element 14 Ltd), and have secured a license to complete development of RISC OS 4. The upgrade (for RiscPC/A7000(+) owners only) will be released at this year's Wakefield show.
 

The upgrade is likely to bring various speed increases as well as OS enhancements such as longfilenames, new icons, and other goodies.
 

For more information see the RISCOS Ltd press release.
 

ChiBER is a new PC-hardware based StrongARM computer system which is currently in development by Jason Tribbeck. The idea is simple; put a StrongARM processor and RISC OS onto a PCI card, slot it into the back of a standard Windows PC and you have yourself a super charged StrongARM machine running current RISC OS applications at speeds possibly higher than those which a RiscPC 2 could achieve. This is because the PC's own Pentium chip could be used to perform FPE, sound or graphics tasks whilst the StrongARM handles the main jobs. Further, the PC's existing sound card and graphics accelerators (3DFX cards for example) would become instantly available to the StrongARM processor!
 
This development is by all means quite revolutionary to say the least. Just think about it; people who have off the shelf PCs could go out and buy this reasonably priced card and 'upgrade' their PC to a fully functional RISC OS machine. The software interface will probably work in a similar way to the PC card software on an existing RiscPC in that the RISC OS side of things would share hard disc, memory and all other hardware add-ons with the PC.
 
If the project goes to plan, RISC OS could well have a very secure future even if it is nested within the enemy camp!

When can I buy one?

Well, Jason needs assistance to get his idea from the drawing board into reality. Check out the ChiOS WWW site at: http://www.chios.org.uk/ for technical details.
 
Announcing this project at such an early stage is primarily to see how many people will be interested in this device. If you would be interested in buying the device, please email Jason at interest@chios.org.uk. If you are interested in helping develop the product, please email develop@chios.org.uk.

But what's all this got to do with games?

The simple answer is: a lot!
 
For starters, faster, more graphically intensive games can be developed to take advantage of the speed of ChiBER. Also, if the low cost of ChiBER leads to more people turning to RISC OS, there will clearly be a much larger audience to sell to in the future. That means more sales, more profits and then more development and in the long run, more games for me and you!