Elbox Computer
Krakow, 21 Sep 2000

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

We, Elbox Computer company, the company involved with microcomputer
technology for over 18 years, the company with the principles of
reliability, honesty and care for our clients, feel obliged to
release this announcement to protect interests of Amiga users.

For several weeks now, the Eyetech company has been involved in
a propaganda action against our breakthrough product for Amiga
computers: the MEDIATOR PCI. Eyetech publish and disseminate untrue
views on MEDIATOR, the exceptional busboard, and compare this
high-end product with their announced device.

It is not our way to comment on others' activities, yet under
the current circumstances we feel obliged to explain this situation
and Eyetech's accusations to Amiga users and to comment on the idea
indicated by Eyetech (or any other company behind the Eyetech
nametag).

BLIZZARD PPC LOCAL BUS LIMITATIONS:

Eyetech announced releasing a product they called competitive to
our MEDIATOR high-end card.
Technical specification of this product has been announced in
such a way that Amiga users would have to misread it.

The idea of connecting a PCI/AGP busboard directly to Blizzard PPC
cards gives worse performance than MEDIATOR because:

1. This solution is only for owners of Blizzard PPC accelerators.
   You have to stick with your Blizzard PPC 603e for ever.
   No change, no open structure, no versatility.

2. Practical average data transfers over the busboard connected
   directly to Blizzard PPC cards will not be higher than achieved
   with MEDIATOR - due to technical limitations of Blizzard PPC
   cards.

3. Connection of a busboard to the connector used for inserting
   a BVision card renders further use of the BVision card
   impossible.


MEDIATOR OPEN SOLUTION:

The MEDIATOR high-end busboard is the best solution for Amiga
computers to offer high-speed support for PCI cards.

The MEDIATOR busboard is a well-thought product, with long-standing
history of design development and a vision for its lasting
evolution, to give Amiga users power they have not had so far.

Our basic idea is that MEDIATOR is an OPEN solution, capable of
hosting ANY turbo cards from the Amiga market. MEDIATOR is not
reduced to a Blizzard PPC-bound concept. MEDIATOR gives you the
possibility to have any turbo card you want.

MEDIATOR has been designed specifically for all the available
cards and each and every turbo card works with MEDIATOR at the
maximum speed available for the given card.

MEDIATOR PCI may offer transfer of data from/to any Amiga turbo
card at the maximum speed of up to 132 MB/s. The only practical
limitation lies in the design of the specific turbo card.

MEDIATOR is expandable, even more: it is ready for any new Amiga
cards that will be available in the future - this gives you
freedom that you have never had before.

You can use MEDIATOR with any turbo cards: Blizzard 1230,
Blizzard 1240, Blizzard 1260, Blizzard PPC, Apollo 1230, Apollo 1240,
Apollo 1260, Elbox 1230, MTec 1230, etc. and with any future
concepts like Amijoe and more...

MEDIATOR ADVANTAGES:

MEDIATOR has been designed optimised for any turbo card type,
so that the maximum possible performance is obtained in the given
hardware configuration.

MEDIATOR automatically recognises the turbo card type and executes
the best procedures to guarantee the highest performance possible
in this configuration. This is an unrivalled feature.

This approach is much more time- and effort- and money-consuming
than the concept of supporting Blizzard PPC cards only.

Besides, the idea of connecting a PCI/AGP busboard directly to
Blizzard PPC cards does not give you, the Amiga user, any additional
speed gains when compared with MEDIATOR - you will only feel that
Eyetech's design is simpler and possibly definitely cheaper.

We feel very sorry that Eyetech in this context is apparently
discrediting MEDIATOR's performance while being well aware of their
fallacy.

ABOUT ELBOX:

We have been developing and producing electronic equipment since 1982.
Our superb Amiga designs include:
* E-BOX tower systems and ZORRO busboards for A1200 and A4000
 (also known as Power Tower in the UK and Winner Tower in Germany);
* Elbox FastATA controllers for A1200 and A4000 (known also under the
  name of Power Flyer in the UK and Winner HighSpeed Controller in
  Germany);
* Memory expansion cards for all types of Amiga computers and many
  other minor accessories, e.g. PC Mouse interfaces (Mroocheck,
  Punchinello), others.
Elbox is also the owner of Twin Spark Soft, a company producing
software for Amiga computers (in the Polish language only).
Besides Amiga devices, we design and produce industrial controllers
(e.g. for injection moulding machines) and many other high-end
devices in the fields of radio- and telecommunications (e.g. call
systems, pagers, speech coding devices).

NEW:

Please look for our further releases about ELBOX products for Amiga
computers to be on sale by the end of this year:

1. MEDIATOR evolution line (A4000 and A3000);
2. The TOTALLY NEW breakthrough turbo cards for Amiga computers
   (A4000, A3000, A1200).

Mariusz Wloczysiak
ELBOX COMPUTER, Press Department