This is an official statement on behalf of the Elbox Computer company aimed at explanation of the recent misunderstanding concerning support for the Spider USB cards in the Poseidon stack.

Chris Hodges, author of the Poseidon stack, approached our company several weeks ago with the proposal of co-operation. He suggested that we prepared hardware drivers for Mediator for the Poseidon to enable operation of USB cards, the support to which under our own USB stack was to be released in a short time.

The proposal from Mr. Hodges was analysed in detail and accepted after many additional mutual considerations.

Its basic principles were presented in the mutually accepted announcement: http://www.elbox.com/news_02_09_11B.html

To clarify the issues once and for good:

1. The number of models / types / of USB PCI cards supported by our drivers was never the subject matter of the mutual considerations. Elbox, the party who prepared the drivers, decides which cards to support.

2. One of our proposal: bundling by us or by our distributors the registered version of the Poseidon stack with the USB PCI cards, was rejected by the author of the Poseidon stack. And we accepted it.

Two days ago, we were surprised with the message signed by Mr.Hodges, but posted by the producer of the USB card for the Zorro II slots. Mr. Hodges has not contacted us since the Sunday presentation of the Spider card in which he participated. Therefore, yesterday we asked him to provide explanations on his part. We have received his reply today.

We understand from his explanations that the whole misunderstanding is due to the fact that Mr. Hodges did not know that almost all the objections in the Mediator list were posted against him by people who do not have Mediator busboards and do not want to have them.

Those who shout loudest "on behalf of Mediator users" own other PCI solutions, which are not produced by Elbox, or they do not even have Amiga computers at all.

There were messages in the list from just a few "loud" people. On the other hand, the messages coming in recent days to us express huge support and satisfaction from our releasing the Spider USB 2.0 card.

It should be clear to everybody that the registration method chosen by Mr. Hodges for the Poseidon stack, directly with him, is the most advantageous option for Mediator users (when price is concerned). In this way they avoid all taxes and similar extra fees, which would have to be added when registration is performed by the companies selling the registered Poseidon with the USB hardware.

I hope this explains everything.

Let me take the opportunity to inform you that Spider USB 2.0 cards are now on their way to our distributors and will be available from them as of the coming Monday.

Mariusz Wloczysiak