Question about expandability

[Steve]

Sorry if this is a stupid and/or silly question, but has anyone considered building the Panther circuitry into the new motherboard? Allowing 2x ISA slots with drivers for graphics cards and network cards.

Hardware:
http://www.wrsonline.de/panther2.html
drivers:
https://silicon-heaven.org/atari/nova/Panther2/

It would be neat :)

[frank.lukas]

For the Network card use you need with the Panther/2 a PuPla/2 ...

[Icky]

For the H5 we are trying to provide a platform that will allow developers to add more modern add-ons as these types of upgrades are good but are now demanding high prices for the specific ISA graphics cards ET4000, ATI Mach32 and 64 etc.

This is one of the main reasons we are looking at a 3.3V bus to reduce costs for add-on boards using newer 3.3V chipsets.

Having an improved more modern graphics add-on though is one of the holy grails for the ST.

[exxos]

We are all for add ons, but aside from the work involved, I am really not looking to making the remake boards compatible with other old upgrades. We need to move forward and develop a new shifter, which has backwards compatibility , but is capable of higher resolutions. But we need a faster MMU yet.. So older stuff is basically obsolete anyway.

Of course I have no objections if people want to develop add ons, that's the whole idea of the H4 as a development platform. But again, myself icky etc can't keep up with the stuff we have on the go already. We really need more fulltime developers to help out with various projects.

Network I already hinted at a netusbee , but with various issues, I need to build on up and see how reliable it all is first...again just no time for more projects.

[Steve]

For the Network card use you need with the Panther/2 a PuPla/2 ...

Frank everyone knows you are the Atari Graphics man! Are you interested in making graphics for this new platform?