> Do I understand this correctly? us$1185=410+550+40+33+motherboard$$$????
> So the motherboard alone cost $152?? (I hope so)
Sorry, NO. Motherboard price *without* any of the other cards is us$1185.
> > Video sub board, incl. 2 Meg VRAM DM 700.-- / us$410.--
>
> Does this make sense compared to the nice S3-928 video boards
> (probably even eisa) for $300 or so? (the s3 greatly reduces the
> load on the bus)
No, it doesn't make sense, you're right. But you don't need
to buy the ARC video board. You can use *any* video card you
like, even a $15 no-name 256k VGA card.
> > Audio sub board DM 950.-- / us$550.--
>
> OUCH sounds way to much. 44.1 KHz 16 bit stereo play/record
> cost less then $200 for ISA maybe even eisa. Sound boards don't
> push the bus very hard.
Right again. The audio sub board is so expensive because
of 4 (four!) large Altera FPGAs for DMA handling. Get something
else if you like. I don't recommend to use the ARC board (although
it sounds good, I have it in my Mips box).
> > Keyboard Ctrl. sub board DM 55.-- / us$33.--
>
> Seems a prime candidate for putting on the motherboard, but it's cheap
> either way.
You're right again, but our goal is *not* to redesign the board.
That's why the whole thing is splitted into several boards.
> current CPU prices in qtys of 10:
> (no retail price, this is the price we pay)
>
> R4400PC/50 DM 1647,-- / us$968.--
> R4600-100 DM 839.-- / us$493,--
> [comparison deleted]
> I believe Drew offered to handle the linux scsi driver for the NCR53cf94
> (very nice chip from what I hear) chip if we decided to use it. I'm not
> sure this offer still stands.
Someone wrote that the Emulex FAS216 is compatible with the NCR 53cf94.
> A: Change the motherboard to use NCR chip and take advantage of Drew's
> help?
> B: Or leave the motherboard design as is an write our own scsi driver for
> this unknown (to me) emulex chip? I worry about the emulex because
> I haven't heard of it and linux doesn't support it yet.
See above.
> I personally could probably afford something more along the lines of a
> R4200 ($150) + motherboard ($150) + cheap eisa video ($150) + keyboard $33
Forget that. I can't offer a board for $150 if I pay $300 for the
bus controller chips alone. To give you an idea how the boards
are calculated, I give you the formula:
Part costs
+ Board costs
+ Production & Testing
----------------------
our costs
our costs * 1.38 = retail price.
Perhaps you can imagine that we *need* some so-called profit
to handle support, repair service and so on. As you can see,
our initial costs of around us$10,000 for buying the design,
setting up production etc. aren't included in the calculation.
What do you think how many of these boards we could sell to
the riscy group ? 10 or 20 ? So, please, don't talk about
profit. There is none.
Cheers,
Andy
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