Introducing ACA 1221 Low Cost Accelerator At AmigaKit.com

[amigakit.com]

We are pleased to confirm that we will stocking the new ACA 1221 accelerator and ram card from Individual Computers in early September.



This exciting new accelerator design features a full 68020 CPU, 9Mb of 32-bit Fast Memory (expandable to a maximum of 63MB) for a great price.

To find out more, please visit the AmigaKit.com product pages here to place your order:

UK direct product link
Europe direct product link
USA direct product link
Canada direct product link

[TCD]

Since this is a news thread we should point out that the accelerator is also available from other vendors:

http://www.vesalia.de/e_aca1221.htm
https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/de/shop/...t/aca1221.html

[NovaCoder]

Payment required to unlock features?

Is this an Android App or retro hardware....I'm very confused.

[-Acid-]

What's this then some sort of hardware DLC?

[eXeler0]

You pay to unlock features locked in the firmware I guess.
Its weird, but from a manufacturers standpoint it makes sense, since making multiple production runs with various config would be more expensive and this card is all about keeping costs down.

But could someone explain why one would underclock the 020 to 9MHz?

[jimbob]

Very decent basic accelerator for that price. Does seem a bit smelly though, I would guess there is virtually zero profit on the base model. Get the punters in with cheap but knobbled hardware, then tease the real price out of them later.

No prices for the unlocks?

[gulliver]

I can guess, but better ask:

Is it a PCMCIA ram expansion friendly accelerator?

[Arnie]

Although the card is running asynchronously to the A1200, synchronous ChipMem speed can be achieved while maintaining full PCMCIA compatibility

From the IC website.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by gulliver

Is it a PCMCIA ram expansion friendly accelerator?

Undoubtedly. It's a full 68020, so the RAM is almost 1000000% for certain mapped outside of the first 16 megabytes of the memory map (it would be totally and utterly insane, not to mention blistering madness, if this wasn't the case).

[kolla]

And if someone tinker with it enough to find out how to unlock the features? I mean, these are old tactics that never really worked well, ask SGI, oh... too late I guess. I am curious only about the price of the maxed out option.

[Locutus]

License key locked CPU frequency and memory count? What is this, IBM ?

[SKOLMAN_MWS]

Originally Posted by gulliver

Is it a PCMCIA ram expansion friendly accelerator?

Yes.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by jimbob

Very decent basic accelerator for that price. Does seem a bit smelly though, I would guess there is virtually zero profit on the base model. Get the punters in with cheap but knobbled hardware, then tease the real price out of them later.

No prices for the unlocks?

Indeed, I remember reading Jens saying that the unit is practically sold at zero profit and all profit is going to be made on unlocks.

Weird marketing technique, but he's the one which has got the numbers and if he's still doing this I suppose it must be working

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

You pay to unlock features locked in the firmware I guess.
Its weird, but from a manufacturers standpoint it makes sense, since making multiple production runs with various config would be more expensive and this card is all about keeping costs down.

...especially the cost of testing if a CPU is overclocking-stable - correct.

Originally Posted by eXeler0

But could someone explain why one would underclock the 020 to 9MHz?

Game compatibility, cooling. Also, we're working on a tool that dynamically adjusts CPU speed depending on CPU load. Just because we can ;-)

Originally Posted by jimbob

Very decent basic accelerator for that price. Does seem a bit smelly though, I would guess there is virtually zero profit on the base model.

Correct - it's a test of a new business model. If it's a success, I'll use it on future products as well.

Originally Posted by jimbob

No prices for the unlocks?

21MHz overclock is 5,- EUR
28MHz overclock is 15,- EUR
Maprom is 5,- EUR
9MB->17MB upgrade is 8,- EUR
9MB->33MB upgrade is 15,- EUR
9MB->63MB upgrade is 22,- EUR

Upgrading from 21MHz to 28MHz and from mid-memory to higher memory is also possible, but I haven't decided on prices yet. All depends on the level of automation that I can implement.

Sales of these codes cannot start yet, as some EU tax details aren't covered yet (new EU laws about taxing download/digital products). Also, it wouldn't make sense to sell them before the actual card is there, as the serial number of the card must be entered to find out the license code.

Kolla: If it's cracked, it will just be cracked for a single card, and for the next, you need to do all the work again. Hardly worth the trouble for just over 40,- EUR.

Jens

[kolla]

I suddenly see a usecase for phoenixconsole's quantum computing offer, lol. But, indeed, 40 euros is not much for maxing out the features, as I suspect most buyers will do. I am still hoping for something to replace my aging Blizzard 1260 cards, and preferably offer more and faster RAM. An ACA1260 (with full 060 and as much RAM as possible) to be offered together with Amiga Reloaded would be swell. But I am not holding my breath.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by kolla

8>< ------
I am still hoping for something to replace my aging Blizzard 1260 cards, and preferably offer more and faster RAM. An ACA1260 (with full 060 and as much RAM as possible) to be offered together with Amiga Reloaded would be swell. But I am not holding my breath.

A Vampire 1200 comes to mind as a more cost effective high end solution, doesnt it? ;-)

Not sure how many *genuine* (RC)060's are around and available these days even if Jens could produce a decent card.
(In any case it would probably make more sense to do a dual design that accepts both 040 and 060's with jumpers for the right voltage for each CPU rather than a pure 060 card as 040 availability is better....
but I doubt very much such a card could be produced at a decent price... it would have a tough time competing with the Vampire (both on price and performance).

[kolla]

Vampire will not suit my needs, since it will not be compatible on the level I need it to be. As for 68060 chips - well, I am happy to move mines over to new cards.

Btw - so far we have yet to see any 020+ software run on Apollo core, and we have no idea about the pricing.

[Mrs Beanbag]

9Mb? why 9?

[kolla]

I understand 9 (8+1), 17 (16+1) and 33 (32+1). 63 is the oddball - should it not be 65 (64+1)?

[SKOLMAN_MWS]

Memory Master also has 9MB