Phoebe, the next RiscPC

Acorn World '97

• The next desktop machine will have an improved memory system. Acorn are currently looking at the faster memory technologies available.
• The expansion bus will also be improved, based on the PCI standard.
• Phoebe will be designed to take advantage of newer, faster StrongARM processors from Digital. However, these will be from the the SA-110 range, not one of the highly-integrated ICs such as ASIC 3.
• Neither men would comment on Digital's plans for StrongARM development. However, Peter suggested that by the launch date for Phoebe, the clock speed may have increased to 350MHz. He also referred, once again, to a five processor machine. The current Phoebe has a processor card - could this be retained for the final version, allowing a single-processor card to be swapped for one with five? (This is pure speculation!)
• The new machine is being designed for sale worldwide, something the current RiscPC was never intended for. This does, however, require that it meets a far wider range of standards for safety, electromagnetic-compatibility, etc.
• Phoebe's design is biased towards maximising speed. However, this will adversely affect some other specifications, particularly flexibility. A motherboard-swap scheme was mentioned again.
• As it is, essentially, an evolutionary design, there should be fewer compatibility problems than there were in moving from ARM710 to StrongARM. There are bound to be a few problems; most will probably be due to changes in the API.
• Risc OS will continue as Phoebe's OS for two to three years. Ideas will gradually feed from the Galileo development into Risc OS.
• Current timescales call for launch during Summer '98.
• Phoebe will not be released as "RiscPC 2". There will be a competition to choose the final name.

A prototype Phoebe was on display, but not running. The PCB was marked "Phoebe Issue B"

This machine had an ATX PCB, housed in a fairly standard desktop PC case. The single SA-110 processor was on a small daughter card, with a high-density edge connector rather than the RiscPC's three-row DIN. Another daughter card provided four PCI sockets, with the cards arranged horizontally. A third daughter card provided two standard Acorn Podule sockets, again horizontally. A large, socketed IC at the front of the case was marked "IOMD 2". Two SIMM sockets were placed close to the StrongARM socket, and 4Mb of VRAM was soldered to the motherboard.

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