Re: X Box/Leopard/Ace

[David Paterson <david.paterson@xxxxxxx>]

Belated replies, but I tried posting from Yahoo earlier today and it
never appeared.

>As the machine is basically a PC, I don't see why it _couldn't_ be used
fo=
r
>HA purposes, though I doubt any developers are working on it, as the
Xbox =
is
>aimed at the gaming market.
>There have been various supposed leaks from Microshaft about the
>'Homestation' which may be released this year/early next year - which
is
>basically an XBox but with added functionality to act as a home
>entertainment 'hub' - ie tivo/dvd/gaming etc - so perhaps then you will
se=
e
>HA stuff developed for this platform.

It's not really a PC, although superficially it does seem to be like
one.  There are a few differences in the architecture, and there's no
operating system as such - it just runs an optimised version of DirectX
8 straight on the metal.

I suppose it could be made to run a simple OS, but there's not much
memory and the unified memory architecture doesn't have any support for
virtual memory.  It would also be very hard to get the code loaded, as
there's a few protection mechanisms to be gotten round.

It's still a very powerful box (and no doubt will be hacked soon enough)
and if you have a look at NVidia's page for their NForce chips, you can
get an idea of the graphics and audio capabilities.

We're developing titles for XBox, Gamecube and PS2, and I'd have to rate
the XBox as the most powerful (and easy to program).  The Cube will
probably sell more as it'll be cheaper though :-)

David P.

--=20
David_Paterson =3D david.paterson@xxxxxxx =A6 david.paterson@vissci.=
com;

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