Lost in the mists of time?

I’ve been trying to remember the name of a TV/film production company, already a user of RiscPCs in its processes which, around the time of Acorn’s demise, proposed a new RISC OS computer featuring the StrongArm CPU, a FPGA to replace the IOMD chip and very high (for the time) memory bandwidth. It /wasn’t/ Microdigital, although they were a contemporary. I think they got to the prototype stage, but ISTR that problems with the FPGA caused the project to be abandoned. After that I stopped taking an interest, so have no idea if they are still in existence.

Does this ring a bell with anyone?

Millipede. The computer was called the Imago

Sorry the computer was the Nucleus using the Imago mainboard.

Yep, that was it. Millipede’s boss thought that the massive bandwidth boost would give a healthy increase in performance compared to the RiscPC despite retaining the StrongArm. No doubt he had a point: combining a 233MHz CPU with the RPC’s 16MHz bus was a bit like putting a Chevy V8 in a Ford Popular.

https://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/AfterAcorn/Millipede_Imago.html

Someone should get RISC OS 5 running on those prototype boards, assuming they still work.

I would like too have seen Cineroma finished it looked good at the demo never heard any more about after that.
Nick was a regular at at My Shop Microbits in Coventry he bought his Risc PC from Us when he was at Uni but i never got to see Nucleus when he was running Cerilica i did get a copy of Vantage but that never got finished ether, it a shame it showed a lot of promise maybe Nemo will finish it one day.
It good to see that Asute graphics is going great so long ago seems like another lifetime.
Anyway everyone have a great Christmas.

Someone should get RISC OS 5 running on those prototype boards, assuming they still work.

Assuming they still exist. I don’t know if Millipede themselves still exist, and even if they do, why keep the failed* prototypes of an obsolete system?

• AIUI, the FPGA chip couldn’t be made to duplicate the functions of the Acorn-specific chippery. It was such a disappointment when Millipede abandoned development – I really hoped that it would reach production and deliver the promised substantial step up from the RiscPC.

It was on display at the Acorn show at the Epsom racecourse one year. I think it was just design mockups, but I can’t be sure now after all this time.

Was there much difference between ARM3 and ARM600 chips in pin output – like used in ARM3 upgrades?

Was there much difference between ARM3 and ARM600 chips in pin output

Well, one is a QFP-160 that can address 64MB maximum with the aid of an external memory manager (MEMC) and the other is a TQFP-144 that can address 4GB and has its own MMU.

So… yeah.

Must of been fun putting a ARM600 into a Arc A540.

Bit of a thread hijack here!

ARM610 (as per RiscPC) with its internal MMU would be difficult I think without IOMD. Then you quickly end up with a RiscPC.

You had already seen this? https://www.4corn.co.uk/articles/arctorpchard/

Using ARM600 in an A540 is a reasonable proposition (for initial development) as it can be interfaced to a MEMC a la VLSI development board http://www.bitsavers.org/components/vti/86CPID2_ARM600_Development_Card_1992/86CPID2_ARM600_Development_Card_1992.pdf and the fact that the processor card was socketed.

Wasn’t this the sort of thing AlephOne were thinking of BITD and didn’t come to pass? Probably still be beaten by an A5000 Alpha performance-wise.

They’re probably not the same shape, either.