Expansion board for the CD32
 

Hi all,

I was able to source the expansion port connectors for the CD32. I intend on making an expansion board that will allow people to make their own boards and just plug in their boards to my header (their board would be internal hopefully). And no, its not going to be expensive

Basically the board will have 2 connectors on it, one that plugs into the CD32 expansion port and the other slot will allow people to plug in their own boards. The idea being that people can create their own boards without worrying about finding the edge board connectors, they simply just make their boards to plug into a connector.

I think the lack of connectors has made expansion for the CD32 difficult and i believe there are people who would love extra ram, acceleration, IDE, Scart, sound, usb etc so now is your chance to make this real :)

Update 9 Jun 2014...

Here is a link for Stedy's progress on wordpress for the fastmem/IDE expansion board portion. "Project Hermes"

http://ianstedman.wordpress.com/

Sweet! But why not make your own expansion Kipper?
I'm really interested in this! I want IDE and RAM on my cd32.

I will add the RGB/Scart connector, Audio, and HID compliant USB mouse support to the board itself, i don't have the knowledge for the other things so opening it up to the floor is probably the best way to go.

For IDE we should be able to re-use the Gayle IDE re-implementation from the CFIDE68k project. However I believe that is written in ABEL which isn't a particularly flexible HDL.

Once converted to VHDL/Verilog you won't need to use the same CPLD. You could use a larger one with enough pins and slices to implement either SRAM or DRAM memory expansion.

.

IDE and fastmem i think are the biggest priorities to get working, i'd have to do some research to see how to tap into the IDE bus for CF card support. The other ones (mouse, sound, video, RTC i have schematics for. I'll have a beta board to show in about 4 weeks (with mouse, audio and video... and mabbe RTC if anyone is really interested in that

you can add a connector like a1200 for use a1200 expansion, i suppose all signal present and ok

Hmm, mabbe a rev 2. I have to check dimensions etc to make sure what the max board size can be for an internal plugin board

Wow :) Another great project kipper2k !
Maybe the biggest one yet. It will surely gather A LOT of attention. Many hungry CD32s out there.

To save on parts. The mouse, IDE and memory expansion could all live in the same CPLD.

A free, tested, 680x0 -> FastPage DRAM bridge is available from Lattice.

http://www.latticesemi.com/en/Produc...DRAMController

I would like to get an idea on what demand there would be for this.

To begin with, lets assume that the initial design would have the 2 connectors, and RGB video out. Like i said earlier, once you have this then the CD32 is wide open for expansion.

I just want to get an idea of how many edge connectors to buy so i don't have to pay repeat postage costs etc. Each board requires 2 connectors so assuming i want to buy for at least 100 people then i obviously have to put up some cash for the parts.

The price of the connectors for me are $4 each before postage, duties and fees and the board itself in small quantities would cost about $7 each plus duty etc.

The cost of the board when just designed as an expansion (and assembled by me) for end user would be ~ $17 - $20. the audio and RGB circuit parts added to the board would be about $6 more.

Quoted prices are just rough.

Let me know in this thread if you are interested in the expansion board so i can gauge interest

If there are people that want to design some boards for the CD32 i will be willing to send you a board for free (limited offer first come first served) when i get them

Sorry if im being stupid, but why would anyone buy one of these? Until someone build the actual expansion board, these wont have any use? (I dont mean to sound rude)

due to the availability of the connectors, people have not been too willing to make boards for the CD32. Now they can create accelerators etc without having to worry about getting the edge connectors which were hard to find.

Simply put, it is giving people the tools to create

Hey Kipper I'd buy one to support the project as I have with most of your other items, the RGB output is nice to have and the mouse port too.

Fast Ram would be a nice bonus and would probably help some games. You could make up some nice bootable WHDLoad compilations I'd imagine!

As for further upgrades I was reading in Jen's thread you need CIA's, how easy are these to get hold of? The CD32 does need some kind of all in one Ram/IDE expansion :)

thanks Steve,

there are lots of CIA's around, both in DIP and PLCC design, I know vesalia has a stock of them and there are 2 available on every broken Amiga so i think there is a supply (until the rush starts lol). I really hope people don't throw away their broken Amigas, apart from being inhuman there are so many salvageable parts there

I don't know if it is of any use but the CD32 fWSi is very similar to this project.

It might help with board layout?

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search....=fwsi&company=

I believe the SX32 and fWSi re-implement parts of the CIA's required for limited A1200 compatibility inside a CPLD.

I seen that last week and thats what give me the idea, i'll have something on paper probably tomorrow as regards the shape etc once i get out my trusty vernier calipers.

I am debating using a 15 pin connector for the video or stick with a 23 pin so it doesn't abandon all the Amiga Scart cables out there. I can take a 25 pin connector and trim it down to 23 no problem


Would a parallel port be needed ? i guess if the signals are there then why not

There is no parallel port. It's part of the CIA which is implemented in a CPLD.

I'd stick to 23-pin D (even if it is cut-down 25-pin). A 15-pin DSUB could give the wrong impression of 31KHz VGA when it's only 15KHz RGB?

I believe the fWSi has a 15-pin D connector because it was a mistake and was supposed to he a 15-pin DSUB.

I agree with Alexh keep it 23pin

4 player adapters?

I'd buy one for two reasons :) First to support Kipps, and second because it's a great idea !
RGB alone is worth those 25 bucks. CD32 has long been plagued with crappy video output.
Future expansions are a superb bonus.
Go Kipps go !

I'd buy one too for the same reasons.