Individual Computers - New accelerator cards for A600 & A1200

[Retro-Nerd]

ndividual Computers: New accelerator cards for Amiga 600/1200?
Jens "Paradroid" Schönfeld from Individual Computers is developing new accelerator cards for Amiga 600- and 1200-computers. An officual announcement or confirmation is still not available but obviously three different models are going to be published in December:

• A1200: 56 Mhz, 64 MB RAM, about 199 Euro
• A1200: 28 Mhz, 64 MB RAM, about 99 Euro
• A600: 25 Mhz, 32 MB RAM

According to Jens Schönfeld the main focus is a fast memory access. Therefore all boards will not include a FPU.

Besides, the boards will also not have a jumper or other preferences. You can only add a clock.

Source

Nice, especially the price for the 28MHz card.


ACATune download : http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...postcount=2316

[Cammy]

I'm looking forward to that A600 accelerator most of all.

[Fabie]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

[url="http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?t=23088"]

Source

Nice, especially the price for the 28Hz card.

the second accelerator it seems should be a 020/28 mhz like the ones on the TRA1200 turboboard or the blizzard 1220 turbo ....
are faster than the 030/25


btw, I wonder what kind of cpu is the 56mhz...maybe a 030/50 overclocked to 56?

[desiv]

No, I'm sorry. You have to tell him no, he can't do that..

You see, we just had this long discussion here about 1200 expansions, and it was generally accepted that you couldn't do a low cost RAM board or low end Accelerator..

So, I found an 8Meg RAM board that is on it's way.

Now, I'm hearing about 64M RAM board and accellerator for around $130 USD?

I'm sorry...

Tell him no.. Or just have him re-price it to $250 USD....

That would make me feel better..

desiv

[mfletcher]

Hotdiggity! *drools*

[squidbass]

Any idea when they're available? This is awsome news...

[mihcael]

From what i undertsand...

Nothing is guranteed to be produced at this stage

All the CPU's are not new, but the card will be!
They will not contain an FPU.

The cards are all 030.
030 28mhz may go for as little as 89 euro

I think he expects the the 030 28mhz may be as fast as traditional 030 50mhz, due to very fast RAM and no FPU. Already showing better then 2/3 of the speed.

[mihcael]

Originally Posted by squidbass

Any idea when they're available? This is awsome news...

He did mention christmas time was near, but again he hasnt confirmed he will indeed produce them.

[kriz]

jens is the Fucking KING of Amiga hardware.. All salute the King.. WOW !!

[fitzsteve]

I read about this yesterday, is indeed awesome news

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by Fabie

the second accelerator it seems should be a 020/28 mhz like the ones on the TRA1200 turboboard or the blizzard 1220 turbo ....
are faster than the 030/25

Jens uses SDRAM. I'm sure this new 28MHz 030 card is fast as hell. btw: Hardware details aren't final. All cards are PCMCIA friendly.

[Fabie]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Jens use SDRAM. I'm sure this new 28MHz 030 card is fast as hell. btw: Hardware details aren't final. All cards are PCMCIA friendly.

sincerely I don't believe that the TUrboboards will be fast cause SDRAM...maybe a little but not very much
and now I think that Jens will use 030/25 overclocked to 28mhz and 030/50 overclocked to 56mhz
it seems that it's the maximum overclock possible for those 030

[daxb]

Originally Posted by Fabie

and now I think that Jens will use 030/25 overclocked to 28mhz and 030/50 overclocked to 56mhz
it seems that it's the maximum overclock possible for those 030

It has something to do with systemclock 14MHz x 2 and 14MHz x 4. However, Jens is working on it and time will give more information/facts.

[Zetr0]

well according to motorola / freescale

The 020 has a theoretical limmit of 3MIPs at 14Mhz -
the 030 at that speed will be pretty much the same - as there is very little difference.

one could expect a 28mhz 030 to achieve 5.5mips - the only thing slowing this would memory latching timmings - SDRAM would aleviate most of the delay that DRAM sufferes from - however there is a physical maximum the CPU can actually do at a said frequency.

Now, an 030@56 with SDRAM would be interesting in performance terms - I think it could achieve a good 10 / 11 MIPS

however in terms of the Amiga, this is only half the story - as it will need "quick write to chip and read from chip" - this would be down to the motherboard - as A1200 mobo revision will differ quite a bit - this will be the speed breaking point of the accelerator. as far as I know the APollo 030 - 060 cards are the faster chip-write cards (nearly 10% faster than the blizzards) however this is a trade off as we have found these cards can have compatability issues with certain motherboards (namely 2B and 1D.4)

This is very iteresting news from Jens - I look forward to the realease of these products especially how he achieves this on the A600 030 design =)


I just hope he can release them and it doens't got the way of the A630 project- as these products would indeed be a great boon to the community.

If Jens is reading: Some extra features in time for Christmas =)

Please Santa-Jen's - could I have one of the following made into my Accelerator card

1. An onboard 10mbit Network card
2. An onboard Fast IDE or SCSI
3. An MP3 decoder (possible MP4 ?)
4. An onboard Graphics card? - perhaps an FPGA implemenation of a Voodoo3?

thanks Santa!

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

an FPGA implementation of a Voodoo3?

Heh, funniest thing I've read in a long time

[Skope]

What he should add on the cards is an L7-interrupt switch saving people who wants one having to manhandle their mobos with a soldering iron.

Edit: Forgot to mention how much I appreciate someone actually taking the time to design and produce turbo boards for Amigas these days.

[AlfaRomeo]

Awesome news I would be interested in A1200 56MHz and A600 28MHz
as all others Individual products, they would certainly be great products

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by alexh

Heh, funniest thing I've read in a long time

lol, most people wouldn't get that joke.... it would seem I dont have such a singular wit afterall lol...


besides.... we all know Jen's love FPGA's =D

[Predseda]

Zetr0, will the new A600 accelerator collide with our beloved A608, the eternal evergreen?

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Predseda

Zetr0, will the new A600 accelerator collide with our beloved A608, the eternal evergreen?

It will replace it should either ever see the light of day.

[klx300r]

awesome news!..Jens you the man..though I'll still be keeping my Blizzard MKIII030@50

[Paul_s]

Good news Would be even nicer if there was an A500 option available

[Akiko]

I'm not getting too exited as it was also announced years ago and never materialized, although I will buy one for sure if released.

[Fabie]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Please Santa-Jen's - could I have one of the following made into my Accelerator card

1. An onboard 10mbit Network card
2. An onboard Fast IDE or SCSI
3. An MP3 decoder (possible MP4 ?)
4. An onboard Graphics card? - perhaps an FPGA implemenation of a Voodoo3?

thanks Santa!

do you think that Jens is God?

[Predseda]

he is

[desiv]

Therefore all boards will not include a FPU.

So, after a bit of quick googling, it appears that there is very little software that uses the FPU? Some 3D rendering software, but not much else..

Maybe it's because I remember the difference that the Math Coprocessor had on DOOM performance on the very early PCs, but I would have thought that it could make a difference in the FPS games???

So, is there really no loss with this accelerator without an FPU?
Is it just that the games don't use it or would the design of this card suffer from having an FPU?

Just wondering.. Is an Amiga FPU basically pointless?

desiv

[TheCyberDruid]

Originally Posted by desiv

Maybe it's because I remember the difference that the Math Coprocessor had on DOOM performance on the very early PCs, but I would have thought that it could make a difference in the FPS games???

Originally Posted by Doom FAQ

5A. Does DOOM benefit from a FPU for floating point calculations?
No. All calculations in DOOM 1.1 and beyond use integers. Hence, DOOM does not suffer from the Pentium floating point bug in any way.

http://www.gamers.org/pub/archives/d...CD_FAQ.html#S5

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by Fabie

do you think that Jens is God?

and on the 8th day, Jens created the Amiga 1200 accelerator with optional fitting service provided by a beautiful lady wearing a bikini.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

http://www.gamers.org/pub/archives/d...CD_FAQ.html#S5

Yes, but...

Gamers who spent years playing Doom and its derivatives on a 486 computer were probably in shock when id Software's Quake wouldn't run on systems with NexGen and 486sx chips. Specifically, the pre-release "demo," called qtest1, was released in early 1996 to see how the game would run on various systems. id said that it was possible to run the test using an emulator (Q87 or the WMEMU387 in DJGPP). However, the frames would run extremely slowly. Evidently, the game needed floating-point math support, and a math coprocessor was the ticket.
In this case, the chip was used to offload the extra math calculations the 486 couldn't handle on its own.

From here: http://www.tomshardware.com/pictures...yrix-3dfx.html

So my memory might be shaky.. Perhaps it was quake and not doom, but the concept is the same..

desiv

[TheCyberDruid]

Yes, but that's Quake, not Doom. Anyway, there are a few threads about the actual use a FPU has here.

[desiv]

It was really more of a question about this card's design around fast memory, and is it right that it would be much more important than use of an FPU..

That, and to slip the really bad joke in there... ;-)

But never mind...

desiv

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Skope

What he should add on the cards is an L7-interrupt switch saving people who wants one having to manhandle their mobos with a soldering iron.

Unfortunately, I don't have the IPL-lines on the logic chip, so no support possible from that side. A few parts would still be required to get an L7 IRQ with a single button - at least three diodes, if not open-collector drivers.

Which software supports that kind of mod?

Jens

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by desiv

Just wondering.. Is an Amiga FPU basically pointless?

Although it's floating-point-less (if that's the "bad joke" you wanted to throw - pardon the question from a German), I don't know of any useful software that requires an FPU these days. If you want to render something with an Amiga, you either go '060 or emulation, but not '030.

I created these cards because I was amazed about the prices that A1200 memory expansions go for on eBay. The goal was to make an accelerator at the price of a memory expansion. Now that 72-pin SIMM sockets are more expensive than SD-Ram memory chips (and hardly available RoHS-compliant), a new logic design was required. I have access to brand new Winbond 200MHz SD-Rams (AFAIK, I'm the first in Europe who has them in quantities), and I wanted to play with them.

To take advantage of 3.3V rams in a 5V system, you need 5V-tolerant drivers between the voltage domains. The drivers I'm using have a guaranteed propagation delay for up to 50pF capacitive load. If I add the pin capacity of the translators, the data bus drivers and the CPU to the trace capacity of the board, I end up barely below 50pF, so the 2-cycle access that I use here is within spec. If an FPU would be on the data bus as well, I'd have to add another waitstate to the memory timing, which would add up to 4 waitstates for a cache line burst, which is currently 2-1-1-1. Although my target was never "high performance", the 28MHz-A1200 version (which is the only functional model at the moment) is probably the fastest non-static mem 28-MHz-68030 ever made for the Amiga.

Jens

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Although it's floating-point-less (if that's the "bad joke" you wanted to throw - pardon the question from a German), I don't know of any useful software that requires an FPU these days. If you want to render something with an Amiga, you either go '060 or emulation, but not '030.

Yep.. :-) I know, REALLY BAD JOKE! ;-)
I'm actually a bit surprised considering how many RAM w/FPU and accelerators with FPU options there are that so little software uses them, but the more I look, the more I see that there's not much FPU software out there..

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

I created these cards because I was amazed about the prices that A1200 memory expansions go for on eBay.

I know, I complain about that a lot. I've been holding off on getting more RAM for my 1200 for that reason.. I finally did break down and agree to buy one at a decent price (last week, it hasn't even arrived yet), but even that isn't all that far from the proposed price for your new card. So you're right on target there. I know I'll be ordering, even tho I will have a RAM card. That's just my timing.. ;-)

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

To take advantage of 3.3V rams in a 5V system, you need 5V-tolerant drivers between the voltage domains. The drivers I'm using have a guaranteed propagation delay for up to 50pF capacitive load. If I add the pin capacity of the translators, the data bus drivers and the CPU to the trace capacity of the board, I end up barely below 50pF, so the 2-cycle access that I use here is within spec. If an FPU would be on the data bus as well, I'd have to add another waitstate to the memory timing, which would add up to 4 waitstates for a cache line burst, which is currently 2-1-1-1. Although my target was never "high performance", the 28MHz-A1200 version (which is the only functional model at the moment) is probably the fastest non-static mem 28-MHz-68030 ever made for the Amiga.

That's exactly what I was thinking!
OK, I have no idea what you just said, but I assume it means you have a great design that allows you to use less expensive parts and make a SUPER FAST card!

I'm not much of a FPS person, but that seems to be the gauge a lot of people use..
I wonder how your 28Mhz card will run AB3D or Gloom or ???

Personally, I'm more interesting in seeing how well it will run a web browser. I'm not expecting to watch youtube or play flash games with it, but there's still plenty of older websites out there that should make it fun..

And I have no idea what I would do with that much RAM on a 1200, but I'm looking forward to finding out..

Thanx,

desiv

[Leffmann]

I'm curious of how many cards will be made, and where the 030's come from. Are they new or sourced?

[Dexther]

Umm..
030 in the year of god 2010 ?
No way tank's ...
For a 50 Euro i'm buy a Apollo 030 Overclok at 45 hz end 8 mb on board.
Are in the year of LORD (a Black Sabbath fan cit.) 2002.
My friend , winuae is much better for this(end not espansive i'm imho).
Ah look on the internet a Duke Nukem Forever are REALITY... but is a reason to wait the project NATAMI

[ami_junkie]

Wow this is great news, I know what I am asking for xmas this year! New expansion boards for my A1200 whoo hoo!

[Fabie]

Originally Posted by desiv

I'm not much of a FPS person, but that seems to be the gauge a lot of people use..
I wonder how your 28Mhz card will run AB3D or Gloom or ???


Thanx,

desiv

a 020/28mhz or a 030/28mhz doubles the speed of any A1200 with fast ram
I have a TRA1200 turboboard 020/28mhz and I can affirm that AB3D and Gloom runs very smooth on that Turboboard

anyways dont dream to play Quake or AB3D II because they are unplayable even on the 040 or 060...leave that work for winuae

[Skope]

Originally Posted by Dexther

Umm..
030 in the year of god 2010 ?
No way tank's ...
For a 50 Euro i'm buy a Apollo 030 Overclok at 45 hz end 8 mb on board.
Are in the year of LORD (a Black Sabbath fan cit.) 2002.
My friend , winuae is much better for this(end not espansive i'm imho).
Ah look on the internet a Duke Nukem Forever are REALITY... but is a reason to wait the project NATAMI

As fantastic as WinUAE is it's still not a real Amiga. Some people just favour real hw to an emulator any day. I'd consider buying a 030 in the year 2010, easy.

[Predseda]

Dexther: do you think we all should throw our Amigas to trash and switch to WinUAE? I think not. And to keep our hardware fresh, we need accelerators. There are thousands Amiga users and tens thousands working amigas, but only hundreds working accelerators.