Archimedes World Vol 15 Is 10 Phoebe.Pdf
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• Phoebe Rise PC 2 design team leader Peter Fox tall<s to Marl< Webb She's eccentric and offbeat. Her multiprocessing end. This is also where found the new Intel NLXstandard form big argument I've had with people is friends have to think twice the entertaining story of multiple VIDCs factor which they are developing for that people say that they don't like it about what she says but her came in. This was somebody's wild their next generation motherboards. It's and then come back two days later and poetic pronouncements are idea. It was also something that was a wonderful design which allows you to still remember it and I say that yellow often thought-provoking, in a quashed straightaway. slide the board in and out. There's no front means you've recalled it. We funny kind of way. If you are electrical connection to it except for an looked at a transparent design (like the not familiar with the American MW These were early days then? edge connector. We found some Apple iMac) but we discarded it. We twenty-something comedy PF Peter Bondar's presentation at manufacturers who were just don't have a mechanical design sitcom then you won't know the Acorn World show in 1996 came developing those so we got in right at department so I picked up the Phoebe or her Friends. She is from our brainstorming and some things the beginning. We are using a case mechanical side of it. So the case and the name, if not quite the presented then never actually happened. which is unique to Acorn development, that sort of thing I've ended up inspiration, of Acorn's new a mini tower. We wanted the detailing. As the project manager you barrier-breaking Rise OS MW But the proiect began to take professional look of a mini tower. It have to pick up all the stuff others don't workstation, Phoebe Risc pe 2. shope? gives us the expansion that we think have time to do. As development versions of PF Once we had got a core most people probably want. Phoebe go out for testing and solution we began to get a team MW What hove Mike Stephens the finishing touches are made together. Mike and myself were key MW What about the slice concept and his colleagues come up with for to Rise OS 4, your favourite people initially because we'd both done introduced with Risc PC? Rise os 4? Acorn magazine has taken a the StrongARM. Alex Bienek was PF People loved the slice idea PF We had quite a lot of fleeting opportunity to talk to brought in, who is a stalwart in Acorn and we did look at case suppliers. The discussions about what to improve Peter Fox (PF), leader of the and has been here for about 15 years. I mini tower gave us a good about the software package, over and project which has realised this don't know if he'll like being called a compromise. Most people only have above the existing RISC OS, and to exciting new technology we 'stalwart'. He's been involved in two slices, some three. You get the change the things people had the most will soon be using in anger. podules, 10MD 1, lots of stuff. He extremes and the enthusiast with ten gripes about. Hence things like the new EditorMark Webb (MW) put wanted to get into the new ASIC and slices. But we had to compromise and filecore system which gives us long the questions. championed that for us. So the three of say seven expansion cards and four filenames, many more files in a us started running and we recruited our hard-drive slots. There are four PCI and directory, the new look canfiguration MW What's the history behind the lead hardware engineer to help out. The three podule slots so you've got plenty setup, new pinboard. We've taken the new Acorn computer? rest of the team came fram other of room there. We got some user interface and made it more PF Basically I got together with projects as and when they became reservations about having no slices but sociable for people. You have to accept Chris Cox and Ray Pinchard and a available as the year (1997) the mini tower is a good solution. We that people have seen and used the couple of other guys from sales and progressed. used a couple of design houses in other platforms and they've seen some marketing at the end of November '96 competition with each other to come up nice features and we'd be mad not to after we'd done the StrongARM MW How many people were with a styling which is modern, looks incorporate similar features. They've upgrade. I did thot with Mike Stephens, involved? professional, stands out from the crowd, taken our ideas so it's been a two way who's the lead software engineer on PF We ran for quite a time as a is not like a Pc. These were the key street. Other than that it's been about Phoebe. We crashed out what we'd like small core team, four or five people things, not necessarily to say it's an making RISC OS far more tailored to to do as an upgrade, to improve on the trying to sort it out and eventually it Acorn but to look professional, the StrongARM and the architecture of Risc pc, whot could we put in - things really grew into a big team. I suppose upmarket and different. We used a the new design. A lot of work has gone like PCI came out of that, and how to in mid '97 it became a big, really big, Fitch who have also designed for into revising the kernel. Mike is the remove the bottle neck on the main praject - big priority. lomega, Reebok and those sort of kernel guy and has got some memory bus. We got together the key companies. We showed people designs tremendous performance increase in the features and asked ourselves: do we do MW What was the design looking at Acorn World in 97 but we didn't get software alone by just rewriting and it as an upgrode, do we do a new like at this stage? much feedback. Most people were retailoring more for the platform. The machine? That was a real PF We couldn't fit the board in more interested in the technology than faCt is that we can show a machine at brainstarming session and from that we the existing case. The power supply the look. I think the desire for the case Wakefield at 11Mhz and people go presented our ideas to Peter Bondar. It was too small and the PCI power was to extend it to be innovative to "hey that's about the same speed as a was still Acorn Risc Technologies at that drawings were looking entertaining. We other markets as well as our existing Risc PC" and in fact it's running at time and he was the technical director. put feelers out to try to find a decent one. If it looks wacky then someone is about a third of the speed of a Risc PC He was keen to get a little bit more in case. It's a tremendously expensive going to say "what is that?" Hopefully and it looks reasonably usable ..That's a it. He wanted a little bit more pazazz. thing to develop a new case. It's we can get other niches in the testament to how the software is So that is how we ended up with the hundreds of thousands of pounds. We marketplace because of the design. The running now. 68 ARCH1MEDESWORLD VOLUME 15 ISSUE 10 1998 Ben Avison (S/W Design) Andrew Dawson (IOMD2) Ca/inBartlett (Manufacturing) Bernard Sidd/e (IOMD2 and H/W Design) Tim Roddis (S/W Design) Murray Papworth (Manufacturing) Steve Tay/or (H/W and S/W Test) Chris Garry (IOMD2) MW RiSe os has to cope with ports, MIDI port. It's a Soundblaster header so you could have a wave table everything else, rother than the new hardware features? compatible codec. It gives you synthesiser plug in. We've got a brightish pale blue and grey. We've PF The software team has done hardware volume controls so there are software emulation of it on PC and it's gone for 256 colour icons and actually all the background to PCI, the tweaking two volume controls and software phenomenal. It's so sweet. being able to give some nice shade of RISC OS to allow PCI to work. mixing of all your sound inputs. So and fine lines, more tailored tawards They've done control of the new sound what we've done is we feed everything MW What can a Phoebe owner the big desktop, less for the 640x480 system which has got codecs in it. into the codec - VIDC sound, CD expect to see on the desktop? but more for the 102 4x7 68 and I We've incorporoted an industry sound, line input, and its own sound • PF We've gone for a complete think it's worked very well. There are standard codec, an Analog Devices and you can mix all those together to new look. It's more upmarket in its 250 new icons which hove been part. It gives us stereo line in and out, get levels.