Zeus68k – Accelerator/IDE/RAM for the A500/2000/CDTV and others

[mr.vince]

The BootMenu is for the Amiga at the moment, but of course you can put any other 68k code in the flash and do other fancy stuff.

[gunni]

I'm interested dependent on price, good work!

[twiggy]

Why would you want ha 68000 cpu in a 68020 machine?

I was thinking more for the other benefits, IDE and RAM.

[rare_j]

I wonder what this bad boy would do a megadrive or a neo geo
Your market could be a LOT bigger than you think.

[mr.vince]

We think big. that's why most of the design is fully reconfigurable via the FPGA.

However, most games weren't made for faster processors, at least not on consoles. But of course such games could be modded to take advantage of the processing power and RAM.

[frank_b]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

[/list] Yes, of course.

No, as it's been made for an 68k DIL socket.

It should work in all devices that have a DIL socket. Now read that again... yes, it does not say Amiga. Although this was designed for the Amiga, reprogramming the FPGA should make it compatible with other devices as well, e.g. an Atari ST.

Toni, yes, it has Flash. Please email me with what you specifically need and I'll check.

Yes please. I'll take two. I'd also buy one for the STE

[mr.vince]

For the record: The boot menu would need to be recoded for the ST and someone would need to help with the Atari quirks which we are not experts for. But since people will be able to mess with FPGA logic and Boot Menu source, this should not be an issue.

Note: Most STs have the CPU soldered onto the mainboard with very little space above. Therefore it might be necessary to build a small adapter cable. Fancy but... we should try this...

[frank_b]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

For the record: The boot menu would need to be recoded for the ST and someone would need to help with the Atari quirks which we are not experts for. But since people will be able to mess with FPGA logic and Boot Menu source, this should not be an issue.

Note: Most STs have the CPU soldered onto the mainboard with very little space above. Therefore it might be necessary to build a small adapter cable. Fancy but... we should try this...

I've posted this on Atari forum to see what the hardware experts there say.

[mr.vince]

Erm... I actually intended to post there myself. Maybe the mods will have to combine threads...

[frank_b]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

Erm... I actually intended to post there myself. Maybe the mods will have to combine threads...

Bigger the market the cheaper the end user cost

[Reynolds]

I have some A2000s, A500/+s and a CDTV around here... all would wlecome something like this... Everything depends on the price and if it will be truly available....

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by frank_b

Bigger the market the cheaper the end user cost

Yes, but does not help to drown in requests when you can only handle a certain amount a day...

[desiv]

Weird thought..
Have you considered Kickstarter?

The only reason I mention it is that I was thinking the tricky part is figuring out the actual number of units needed...

If you think you can get a great price break at 500+ units, you could start a kickstarter with a project goal to be able to pay for the 500 units.
At $xxx dollar donation, the person gets a unit when it's done.

If it works out, great...
If not, no one is charged, but you have a more realistic number to go by...

You can have tiers as well to cover resellers. So it you kickstart $xxxx you get more units (bulk purchase)...

Probably a bad idea, but I've been engrossed with Kickstarter recently.. ;-)

Anyway, good luck with this..
My 500 and I will be watching this closely..

desiv

[frank_b]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

Yes, but does not help to drown in requests when you can only handle a certain amount a day...

Ok Well good luck in any case

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by desiv

Have you considered Kickstarter?

Kickstarter does not (yet) work for us. We're in the UK, and Herzi, the main dev, is in Germany. But yes, maybe some alternative, or when Kickstarter comes to the UK.

But hey, we made KryoFlux happen with the help of EAB and A1K, we'll get this baby made some or the other way...

Originally Posted by frank_b

Ok Well good luck in any case

I posted it.

[desiv]

Forgot about Kickstarter not being global yet.. ;-(

Originally Posted by mr.vince

But hey, we made KryoFlux happen with the help of EAB and A1K, we'll get this baby made some or the other way...

Yep, and I still love my Kryoflux. You make great hardware.. ;-)

desiv

[mr.vince]

This accelerator is not our own design, it's solely made by Herzi and Scrat. It's our way of saying thanks, passing on the stick and helping others to get something out...

Herzi said he liked making it, but feared all things related to bringing this to market. So here we are.

[XDelusion]

If this could make my 600 run at 50Mhz, I'd be all over it!

Very cool either way!

[mc6809e]

I'm curious, with the CPU at 50 MHz, will Gary/Agnus handle back to back 280ns reads of chip ram if no DMA is active, or must the CPU still wait 500+ns between words?

[mjnurney]

brilliant ...any ball park ££ figure?

[SleepyMan]

Count me in for two these baby's, really cool

[cosmicfrog]

awesome

best of the pond ribbits to ya

[mr.vince]

Any ideas how to communicate the following so people read it?

We can not name a price unless we know how many units we will be making. This is four devices in one, so it won't be less than EUR 100.- for sure. As it looks now, it will be at least EUR 200.-, maybe cheaper. The parts are very expensive: RAM... FPGA... Gold plated boards. No cheap stuff from Asia. These will be built to last.

[Lord Aga]

The right approach

Next thing we need - the mobo replacements.

[Leffmann]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

These will be built to last.

A bit different from certain other current Amiga hardware which seems to be built to overheat, require motherboard modifications, be unstable, and to be replaced every year by the succeeding product which offers small incremental upgrades.

Almost too good to be true If I had an A500 I would definitely buy one of these.

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by gunni

I'm interested dependent on price, good work!

Me too... would be great if adapter boards could be produced for more than just ST though.. how about A600?

[Lord Aga]

A600s are SMD, like A1200. You can not plug chips in and out. Also A600's 68000 CPU is physically different (it's squarish, compared to the elongated A500's CPU).

Hopefully we can end the A600 questions.

[mr.vince]

Well if you are good with a soldering iron... it's just 64 cables x 2 to be soldered.

[Scrat]

Hi there,

I'm the software guy on this project and I'll try to answer some of the questions that came up recently. Some of this information is still a bit preliminary, since our current prototype (that wirewrap monster on the pictures above) doesn't have a Flash ROM yet

a) Kickstart ROM

The card allows you to store Kickstart ROM images in an onboard 8MB Flash ROM and you can switch between them from the card's boot menu. For maximum flexibility, the ROM banks are organised in blocks of 256k and each block can be mapped into a different location in Amiga's address space. In theory, this should allow any ROM image from 256k to 2MB size to work.

b) Fast Memory

Fast Memory can be configured in blocks of 2MB size. The card handles each 2MB block as a separate Autoconfig device, so with the maximum of 8MB you will see 4 Autoconfig boards.

c) Slow Memory

You can choose between No Slow Mem, 512k or the possible maximum (1.8Meg without IDE, 1Meg with IDE enabled).

d) External expansion devices

External devices on the 86pin connector are supported as long as they follow the Autoconfig protocol. The Zeus68k configures its internal devices first, then the external card(s). External DMA devices haven't been tested yet, so eventually they won't work.

e) IDE

The current IDE implementation emulates the A600 Gayle style controller.




Ok, that's it for now. Btw.. we're planning to make this project Open Source, so any interested developer will be able to change almost every aspect of this board

[Toni Wilen]

Finally true technical information, thanks

The card allows you to store Kickstart ROM images in an onboard 8MB Flash ROM and you can switch between them from the card's boot menu. For maximum flexibility, the ROM banks are organised in blocks of 256k and each block can be mapped into a different location in Amiga's address space. In theory, this should allow any ROM image from 256k to 2MB size to work.

Perfect!

Fast Memory can be configured in blocks of 2MB size. The card handles each 2MB block as a separate Autoconfig device, so with the maximum of 8MB you will see 4 Autoconfig boards.

AFAIK older KS roms won't merge autoconfig RAM boards. (Max single allocation of fast ram will be still ~2M, not ~8M)

Slow Memory

Also perfect.

External devices on the 86pin connector are supported as long as they follow the Autoconfig protocol. The Zeus68k configures its internal devices first, then the external card(s). External DMA devices haven't been tested yet, so eventually they won't work.

CDTV CD is autoconfig DMA device (same DMA controller chip used also in A590) so it is better to work if it is supposed to be CDTV compatible

The current IDE implementation emulates the A600 Gayle style controller.

Can it also handle A4000-style IDE? Just for fun

[SpeedGeek]

Well, it's certainly nice to see any new hardware projects under development! But I am left with much disappointment when I see 68000 based "accelerators" when you need at least a 68020 to run OS3.9.

In addition any 68020 or 68030 based system should at least have the option for an 68881/68882 upgrade. Some of the very first accelerators made could meet these requirements!

[Lord Aga]

Baby steps
A long time ago there were companies backing Amiga hardware development. Now it's only enthusiasts and devoted geniuses.

[Bastich]

If the price is good then I would definitely buy one

[Scrat]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

AFAIK older KS roms won't merge autoconfig RAM boards. (Max single allocation of fast ram will be still ~2M, not ~8M)

So if I'd take some 2 Meg expansion cards and plug them in an A2000, the machine would only use the first board and ignore the rest? Sounds strange...

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

CDTV CD is autoconfig DMA device (same DMA controller chip used also in A590) so it is better to work if it is supposed to be CDTV compatible

We don't have a CDTV for testing at the moment, but we'll get our hands on one soon.

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Can it also handle A4000-style IDE? Just for fun

I don't know but it might be possible to implement A4000 style IDE in the FPGA core.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Scrat

So if I'd take some 2 Meg expansion cards and plug them in an A2000, the machine would only use the first board and ignore the rest? Sounds strange...

No, it will see them all, but you will have four 2MB blocks of RAM and the OS will refuse to allocate a contiguous 4MB area for you even though you have ample free RAM left.

[frank_b]

Originally Posted by Scrat

So if I'd take some 2 Meg expansion cards and plug them in an A2000, the machine would only use the first board and ignore the rest? Sounds strange...

I think he means it would be treated as 4 * 2 megabytes of RAM. You would still have 8 meg of fast RAM but a single allocation can't span more than 2 meg.

[AmigaDave]

Great to finally hear that someone is considering producing something for my CDTV!

My Grandson will appreciate one of these for his A500, to replace his existing Supra external hard drive & 2mb RAM expansion. Or better yet, I will buy a 2nd of these accelerators for a spare A2000 I have and gift it to my Grandson to replace his A500, so he can also enjoy the benefits of using a video card and other Zorro peripherals.

Depending on the final price of this board, I will probably want at least 2 of them.

Please make sure it works and fits into my CDTV with the case closed and no ugly cutting of the CDTV casework.

A version for the A1000 using some kind of extender cable, might get me to purchase a 3rd.

[Retrofan]

I'm not insterested, but I've never seen so many posts demanding a product!

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Can it also handle A4000-style IDE? Just for fun

Is there a significant difference, besides base address?

[alenppc]

Question, does this use a real 68k CPU or is the CPU simulated in the FPGA? Makes me think it is a softcore one, since the real thing can't run at 50 MHz... right?