Wave Issue 9711 5/9/97 Article 4-01

***Intel - Visual Computing for Arcade Games
by John Latta

At the DirectX conference after the CGDC Intel announced its initiative
for arcade games. The specification is on the Intel web site and it is
entitled the "Open Architecture Coin-Op Reference Platform" - OAA CORP.
This specification is based on the Pentium II using either the Windows 95
or Windows NT operating system. System memory is 32MB. 3D acceleration is
at 3Dfx Voodoo graphics or equivalent. During the presentation Albert
Teng stated that this is a scaleable platform and that a 4 SMP system
could be used to support theme park requirements.

It is expected that systems will ship by October 1997.

Points to Ponder

We came away from the presentation and specification wondering:

How is this specification sufficiently different from a home PC to allow
the arcade machine to have unique and compelling out-of-home games?

Are machines based on this standard cost effective in the arcade market?

Why will 4 Pentium Pro processors make a system suitable for theme parks
when the real bottleneck is system bandwidth not processing power?

www.intel.com/drg