OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
[21 September 2000]

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 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:

- The MEDIATOR development line (A4000 and A3000).
- The TOTALLY NEW breakthrough turbo cards for Amiga computers 
   (A4000, A3000, A1200).