Define vast? I went to Amigakit and searched for "clockport" and not a single expansion came up.
Maybe you should have a "clockport" category on the menu because I can't find anything I could use with this adapter.

I always was curious about teh clockport, but besides a super fast serial port and a soundcard, I never seen anything else for it. What else could you make, what other types of devices, and exactly what is out there that uses it?
[edit]saw that the adapter item description has a list of devices:
Delfina Flipper
MP3 @ 64
Silver Surfer
Subway USB
RapidRoad USB
Prisma Megamix
Delfina 1200
Melody 1200
Prelude 1200
VS1011 Card
So, as I said, serial, soundcard, and USB? That's all?

What's the VS1011 Card ?

4-way Clockport Expander at Amiga Kit Amiga Store
 

Actually available are the RapidRoad and, via eBay, the VS-Board for MP3-Playback with a specific piece of Software only.

And the Prisma.

Doesn't sound that good, but USB and sound is actually quite good I think.

USB in itself is a window into a world of other expansions. Mice, keyboards, hard drives, optical drives etc.

@Akira.

I you enter the search term clockport into the box on the top of the website you get this page:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...ords=clockport

Thanks

The hardware audio decoders could be thought of as a separate thing to a soundcard, but to add to that list, the Catweasel adaptor that lets the Amiga read all sorts of floppy disks from many different platforms. And don't forget the real-time clock modules ;) The clockport's characteristics make it mainly suited to input/output type applications. Is there something else that you think might be good to have on it? I've been slowly working on a Geekport / GPIO-type module for it (think Raspberry Pi I/O pins), but that's really for the hardware-hacking fans and it's a long way off yet. In a similar vein, someone else was working on an I2C controller a while back, but again, doesn't offer much to the average user by itself.

Would a clockport to SPI adapter be worth a shot? There seem to be a lot of SPI devices out there ready to go, which would then need drivers obviously, but seems a possiblity?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial...s#Applications

Ooh, interesting! Would be similar in appeal to an I2C interface - mainly of use in attaching additional controllers - but I'll add it to the list :)

Exactly. And there's only one Clockport device there, a serial adapter.
I thought you had more. I guess not.

Anyway as I said there's not really that much available. This is why I questioned your statement of "a rich array of expansions available". Definitely not rich, since there's basically 3 types of them.

Daedalus:
Input/Output could be interesting. None of the available things really interest me though, this has always been the feeling with the clockport. Only the Catweasel 3, the one with a SID chip on it but good luck finding one of those.

Actually that would be really useful, since I am a music type guy, it would be great to have some music chips plugged in there. But I don't know how possible it is. Could you realistically write to registers on a chip and read them too? I am thinking mainly about an FM synthesizer like the YM2610.

(yes no software uses it, that is always the chicken and egg situation, but maybe, just maybe, "if you build it they will come"?)


GPIO header sounds cool too.

Reading and writing from registers on a chip is exactly what the clockport is good at. I don't know that specific chip but a quick look at the datasheet suggests that more control logic would be needed too, but there's no reason it shouldn't be possible to create a card around that. As you say, of course, getting software to use it is another thing. If there are some emulators for machines that use it or similar chips, they could possibly be modified to use it instead, but other than that I don't think there's anything that exists currently that might be able to use it.

OpenBOR could greatly be improved if it had access to native YM2610 hardware
Actually, that chip is probably great enough to play a bunch of MIDI music too.
You could also use the YM3812 which is OPL2, and then you can play most PC game MIDIs, would greatly benefit Wolf3D, Doom and other ports. ScummVM could use it too, basically any MIDI application could use it I guess!

The C64 has that SFX expander which has a YM3526 (OPL) that you can change for a 3812 (they are very compatible) and then it's as easy as sending the right register values to the right memory address. Someone made this for that hack:
http://csdb.dk/release/?id=119462

4mat made a SID+YM3526 driver as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDJ2G9kSB6o

How should the FM synthesizer work? Have a GUI like 303emu for control (realtime?) that sends data to the chip? Audio output (analog?) goes to where? Sampling option?

That greatly depends on the software.
If you mean how to interface to it, I am afraid I cannot answer fully because I have no idea how the Clockport works, but on the C64, the FM chip is put at a certain memory address, and from that point you can just send values to it or read at the correct offsets. It's pretty damn easy to access.

If the same can be done in the Amiga, any software can use it in whichever way it wants. But I have no clue how peripherals like that work on the Amiga environment, the C64 is simpler and more "raw"

After you can read and write synth registers, you can build whatever the heck you want (a tracker, send FM registers frm an emulator, play from MIDI data to its channels etc).

Audio output would have to have its own connector (Isn't that how the SID in the CWmk3 works?).

This particular chip has no input or ability to use a channel as a DAC (like the Megadrive one).

Shoot, no more RapidRoads at Amigakit.

Are you gonna have any Hypercom High Speed Serial adapters in stock anytime in the future at all?

They (the HC) are not manufactured any more.

You may try iComp.de directly for the RR.

Only CP-expansions that are newly made are the RR and the Prisma.

Perhaps surprisingly, there's not really a lot more to using the clockport on the Amiga - even if the rest of the system is more complicated, the clockport is still just an address than can be peeked and poked, and offers direct access to up to 16 8-bit registers on an attached peripheral. If a device needs more than that, extra logic will be required, but if an FM synth chip just needs 16 (or fewer) registers written or read, you can do that directly. Registers 0-15 of the chip on the original clock port are mapped to addresses $D80001-$D8003D in 4-byte increments, so poking to Amiga address $D80009 will access the 3rd register on the chip, $D80011 the 5th register and so on. Using the additional clockports is simply a matter of adding $4000 to the address for each additional port.

It gets a little more complicated when you want drivers to autodetect hardware on different clockports, want to use interrupts and so on, but the basics are pretty similar to accessing funky add-ons for the 8-bit machines.

That sounds great, good old school addressing!
Then this kind of thing is possible. Good to know
(now who would do it? haha)

:) I'd put it on my (long) list of projects, but we've a new baby at home so my free time is going to be pretty limited for the foreseeable future ;)

I might do it myself at some point, I'm learning more and more and it doesn't seem like such a crazy project!