Another new A500+ bmotherboard

[sampedenawa]

Should you be interested in embedding a couple of HID2AMi interfaces, for both of the joy/mouse ports, I would be happy to join.

[cv643d]

Maybe add support for 1MB Agnus too (like A2000EATX). Nice work.

[snz138]

Very nice project kipper2k!
Thank you for taking the time using your skills to improve SukkoPera's excellent opensource A500 PCB.

I would like to suggest the idea of integrating an optional FF OSD support with embedded Gotek and RGBtoHDMI.

Tried and tested:
I have built this Solarmon's RGB2HDMI and using FF OSD with Centuriontech's Goex (SD card and integrated FF OSD functionality without the need of an external bluepill. Sadly not opensource) drive.
This FF OSD image of course "wobbles" with this combo:
https://github.com/solarmon/RGBtoHDM...---rev-2-tssop

Not tried yet:
I have not yet tried if this other solution gives a more "sober" FF OSD image or just the CPLD supported version:

"RGBtoHDMI Amiga Denise DIP CPLD Rev 1.1"
https://github.com/solarmon/RGBtoHDM...ip-cpld-rev-11
"FF OSD Adapter - Rev 2"
https://github.com/solarmon/RGBtoHDM...dapter---rev-2
Tried and tested:
Another nice addition that Solarmon has created is this keyboard connector breakout board:
https://github.com/solarmon/PCB-Proj...tor%20Breakout
In general I think integrating direct access to those signals could be useful for many things.
(I have this in "all my Amigas"

...Regarding A314 there is also A314CP (Clockport version) that does not require the unobtanium MAX10:
https://github.com/niklasekstrom/clockport_pi_interface
If you decided to integrate clockport suggested earlier.
A314CP seems to at least give network capability, but I don't have one so I don't know if this is the best way to get network and what else useful it actually has.

Good luck with the project. It is looking great so far!

[kipper2k]

Hi All, Thanx for the inputs...

For the USB mouse i do have the USB Smally mouse embedded and am currently testing. The Hid2Ami would be good for opening up the Joyport to the various console Joystick controllers so that is a interesting option. Do users need to pay for a Firmware ?

- for the RGB2HDMI i think i can fit a CPLD version on the board (i dont have a verified schematic of that version, only the 3 chip version which has too much routing going on.

- i see there are 14 x 3 pin jumpers needed for the Agnus control, Maybe there is a logic chip option that can be controlled by a toggle switch that makes it a lot more compact.

I will check on all these items mentioned. the 8MB Fastmem in now routed on the board, (I used the same schematic as my working 8MB fastmem board. The IDE schematic will fit, but, i have a dilemma as to what to use for the IDE connector. The 40 pin connector and CF adapter is too big so i think the only options are to use either a 40 pin FFC header people can use to plug in their device to an addon board or maybe a 44pin 2mm header (which also is a little on the big side.(I will chew on these options

[SukkoPera]

Please note that everything that is included in this board MUST be released under a license that is compatible with CC-NC-BY-SA.

That means everything MUST be shared in source form, which means KiCad project files for hardware, not only gerbers. Full source code MUST also be provided for any firmware, bitstreams, and any other kind of binaries that might be required.

Anyone must be able to study, modify, produce and assemble a board from scratch.

I will not allow anything to be released if it does not satisfy this requirement.

As far as I'm concerned, I will happily lift the NC restriction for Kipper and for anyone who does significant contributions to the project, but this must also be approved by the authors of anything that is included.

Please be careful with licenses. Open source does not mean "do whatever you want" as many people seem to think.

[kipper2k]

Agree with the limitations.

For the creation i did not use the editor, All modifications are being done on the board file itself by manually importing other board files and adding nets etc. For the original board te gerbers were not included i had to figure out how to generate them myself

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by SukkoPera

Please note that everything that is included in this board MUST be released under a license that is compatible with CC-NC-BY-SA.

That means everything MUST be shared in source form, which means KiCad project files for hardware, not only gerbers. Full source code MUST also be provided for any firmware, bitstreams, and any other kind of binaries that might be required.

Anyone must be able to study, modify, produce and assemble a board from scratch.

I will not allow anything to be released if it does not satisfy this requirement.

As far as I'm concerned, I will happily lift the NC restriction for Kipper and for anyone who does significant contributions to the project, but this must also be approved by the authors of anything that is included.

Please be careful with licenses. Open source does not mean "do whatever you want" as many people seem to think.

Reference this, i am going to hold off on this project as i dont believe that open source should come with all these strings. My initial plan was to recoup my dev costs (of roughly ~1k) by selling a few boards and allow anyone to make/use however they want. Can a A500+ motherboard designed and released by Commodore have a "lein" placed on it by someone forcing anyone down the line to be held hostage with all these terms.I was doing this for fun and now it seems all the fun is being sucked out

[sampedenawa]

@kipper2k
For my little bit and answering your question above: in case I would release a dedicated free version of the firmware, tied to this peculiar hw design.

But (considering also Sukko's statement above, which I fully understand) I am not going to release the fw sources, in case, so an agreement on this point should be set should we proceed further

[SukkoPera]

That "Open Source" means "do whatever you want" is a die-hard false myth. "Public domain" is the closest to "do whatever you want", but open source stuff (both SW and HW) is NOT necessarily public domain. It often comes with a license, and you are responsible for checking its terms if you want to do anything with it.

You are free to replicate Commodore's PCB design from scratch, then you can do anything you want with it (as long as Commodore - or whoever has the rights - is fine with it), but you derived your work from mine, thus you are subject to my licensing terms.

In the case of Raemixx500 V2, the license is CC-BY-NC-SA. This is clearly printed on the board itself and mentioned in several places in the docs, including every schematic sheet and on the board project, so it should have been pretty clear. Anybody who does not understand why some restrictions are necessary with Open Source stuff should read the GPL *carefully* and understand what it is all about (Hint: a 1-minute skim through it is NOT enough). While the GPL is absolutely a great license, it is not suitable for hardware, since it has a software-oriented terminology (yes, there is a lot of Open HW released under the GPL but that is fundamentally wrong!), but the CERN OHL license is basically a straight port of the GPL to the HW world. Unfortunately I had to switch to the CC-BY-NC-SA to prevent commercial usage of my designs, which I hate, but this was a necessary step thanks to all the stupid scalpers out there, and to the average Amiga addict not caring a sh*t where he gets his stuff from and how much he pays for it.

That said, I'm not sure I understand what is wrong here. I seem to understand that most of the stuff you included is distributed under similar terms, and while you are responsible for making sure of that, I don't think you will have much trouble: the SmallyMouse HW IS CC-BY-SA (which might be a small problem but I'm sure we can work it out with the authors), while the firmware is GPL'd; LIV2 is a very open guy and I'm sure he will comply for his contribution; I'm assuming the Gotek design was derived from OpenFlops, which is fine, and it can run the very open FlashFloppy firmware... What else did you include?

I even stated that I will let you use the board commercially, which is normally prohibited (NC = Non Commercial), so why give up?

@sampedenawa: You know I love you, but if no Open firmware is available, that can't be included.

[MigaTech]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

With all the options for drop in accelerators now i dont think modifying the a500 would be a good idea as it would lose all of the capabilities of these accelerators being added. I want to try to leave it as stock with just adding the common items that most people have in their A500 already.

Fully understandable, thank you for your reply.

As for all this licensing talk, I understand their points. BUT...

Before anyone gets the wrong idea here, Kipper2k is a careful person who doesn't use other people's work without mentioning it. Definitely not the type to ignore any restrictions etc. Also his pricing is very fair, like he stated, usually only trying to return his costs. Showing that it's passion for Amiga, rather than gain.

IMHO, if Kipper2k was to shelve this project, it would be a colossal fail for the Amiga scene. It's extended projects like this that keep Amiga followers filled with utter admiration, to those who make it possible.

[Lemaru]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

- for the RGB2HDMI i think i can fit a CPLD version on the board (i dont have a verified schematic of that version, only the 3 chip version which has too much routing going on.

Personally I wouldn't embed an RGB2HDMI onboard as other solutions that are not Pi based are in development. These don't even use the same signals as the RGB2HDMI (the sit on the RGA bus rather than used the RGB signals). It's prob be better to just expose the signals for the RGB2HDMI rather than out the whole thing onboard

[Daedalus]

It's Kipper2K's hobby and it's entirely up to him how he spends his free time. If a project is no longer fun because of restrictive licences, people helicoptering about licence terms or having a project exist subject solely to the whims of someone else, then that's absolutely fair enough. He should drop it and do something he enjoys instead; the community has no right to expect or demand any further work from him. It would be a pity, yes, but it's more important that he enjoys his hobby than getting jaded by it or satisfying random internet users' expectations.

[Lemaru]

Originally Posted by MigaTech

Fully understandable, thank you for your reply.

As for all this licensing talk, I understand their points. BUT...

Before anyone gets the wrong idea here, Kipper2k is a careful person who doesn't use other people's work without mentioning it. Definitely not the type to ignore any restrictions etc. Also his pricing is very fair, like he stated, usually only trying to return his costs. Showing that it's passion for Amiga, rather than gain.

IMHO, if Kipper2k was to shelve this project, it would be a colossal fail for the Amiga scene. It's extended projects like this that keep Amiga followers filled with utter admiration, to those who make it possible.

Unfortunately Sukko has had his work taken advantage of multiple times. From someone who took his designs, removed all the silkscreen and put their own on saying it was designed by them and taking credit, to a UK retailer selling his stuff for a substantial markup with the excuse that the non-commercial part of the license "depends on how you interpret it" (which I am sure will stand up as a reason in court lol).

I have known Sukko for a few years now, he is a great guy, very helpful and reasonable. If people were to contact him directly beforehand, then I am sure agreements could be reached. Maybe even something simple like keeping it closed for a certain amount of time to recuperate dev costs with some sales before releasing all the source files.

Unfortunately when people start being unable to adhere to basic licence terms, it makes people think twice about ever releasing stuff again. I have seen several people now either just stop producing stuff for the Amiga totally and move to other systems, keeping stuff closed and only releasing to certain sellers, or just never releasing stuff at all and keeping it for their own private use. I have seen some great bits of hardware that will sadly never make it out in the wild.

When the licence terms are all visible on a project for all to see, the least people can do is stick to them or contact the original developer beforehand. One thing I do notice people always ignore (along with the non-commercial aspect) is the "Attribution" part of the CC licence, where they should give appropriate credit with the name of the original creator and a link back to the licence and original project.

It will be sad to see this totally shelved, especially with the work already gone into it. Hopefully if Kipper and Sukko talk some they can come to an agreement

[Lemaru]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

It's Kipper2K's hobby and it's entirely up to him how he spends his free time. If a project is no longer fun because of restrictive licences, people helicoptering about licence terms or having a project exist subject solely to the whims of someone else, then that's absolutely fair enough. He should drop it and do something he enjoys instead; the community has no right to expect or demand any further work from him. It would be a pity, yes, but it's more important that he enjoys his hobby than getting jaded by it or satisfying random internet users' expectations.

Too true, this is something else I see quite a bit, with people forgetting that many of the developers create these awsome things in their free time for fun. You then see people kicking off, complaining, or demanding features. Once this starts happening it really does take the fun out of it. When things become a chore, its no wonder why people give up.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by MigaTech

IMHO, if Kipper2k was to shelve this project, it would be a colossal fail for the Amiga scene. It's extended projects like this that keep Amiga followers filled with utter admiration, to those who make it possible.

Agreed

[SukkoPera]

Just to clarify: I'm not afraid that Kipper is not crediting my work or anything like that. He is clearly not one of those lame losers (BTW: please don't buy any A500 board on eBay! If it's not an A500++, it's from someone who actually stole my job or is breaching my licensing terms. The only one who could sell it was sordan.ie but they've run out of them and they don't seem interested in stocking more. If you want one, ask me for the gerbers.). The problem is with making sure licenses are respected, which is something that everyone is clearly understating.

The reason for that is not that I like to be picky as some seem to think, it is rather absolutely necessary for the long-term survival of the project! Just to give you an idea, here is a list that points out which licenses are compatible with the GPL and which are not. As you can easily see, things are complicated, the list is long and quite often a license is incompatible just because of a very minor detail that takes a lawyer to understand. Things should be easier with hardware (there are many less licenses) but still it's something that requires a lot of attention. At least authors should be contacted and asked if they are ok with their stuff being used under CC-BY-NC-SA.

If this thing is overlooked, we risk that one day someone might be able to bring down the whole Raemixx project, which is clearly not anyone's desired outcome, so we have to be careful and long-sighted: it's better not to have something rather than including it and having problems later.

The same thing happens on Wikipedia, for instance: if you go there and add great pictures to some page that improve it a lot but which have "bad" licensing terms, they will be taken out in order to avoid any future issues, even though that will make the page worse.

Apart from that, as I have already said, my inspiration for all of the open stuff I have released comes from the free software idea (where free shall be intended as in free speech, not as in free beer). I particularly care for the freedom to study and modify the hardware, because it's a very good way of spreading the knowledge of how something works and it makes it very easy to make improvements or replace components that are no longer in production (and the fact that this only happens very rarely with open retro stuff clearly shows how little understanding of this the retro community has, sigh; see for instance how I modified the SDBox or the PlipBox just to reuse some components I already had in a different package. Some of the changes I did to the SDBox were actually welcomed by the original authors and included in their V2, see how it thrives?). That is why it is absolutely fundamental to me that the design files are released.

I know that 99% of the people who will read this will probably not understand it, but trust me: if we want projects like Raemixx500 to still be around in, say, 50 years, we have to be very careful about these two points and not allow a single step backwards.

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by SukkoPera

Just to clarify: I'm not afraid that Kipper is not crediting my work or anything like that. He is clearly not one of those lame losers (BTW: please don't buy any A500 board on eBay! If it's not an A500++, it's from someone who actually stole my job or is breaching my licensing terms. The only one who could sell it was sordan.ie but they've run out of them and they don't seem interested in stocking more. If you want one, ask me for the gerbers.). The problem is with making sure licenses are respected, which is something that everyone is clearly understating.

The reason for that is not that I like to be picky as some seem to think, it is rather absolutely necessary for the long-term survival of the project! Just to give you an idea, here is a list that points out which licenses are compatible with the GPL and which are not. As you can easily see, things are complicated, the list is long and quite often a license is incompatible just because of a very minor detail that takes a lawyer to understand. Things should be easier with hardware (there are many less licenses) but still it's something that requires a lot of attention. At least authors should be contacted and asked if they are ok with their stuff being used under CC-BY-NC-SA.

If this thing is overlooked, we risk that one day someone might be able to bring down the whole Raemixx project, which is clearly not anyone's desired outcome, so we have to be careful and long-sighted: it's better not to have something rather than including it and having problems later.

The same thing happens on Wikipedia, for instance: if you go there and add great pictures to some page that improve it a lot but which have "bad" licensing terms, they will be taken out in order to avoid any future issues, even though that will make the page worse.

Apart from that, as I have already said, my inspiration for all of the open stuff I have released comes from the free software idea (where free shall be intended as in free speech, not as in free beer). I particularly care for the freedom to study and modify the hardware, because it's a very good way of spreading the knowledge of how something works and it makes it very easy to make improvements or replace components that are no longer in production (and the fact that this only happens very rarely with open retro stuff clearly shows how little understanding of this the retro community has, sigh; see for instance how I modified the SDBox or the PlipBox just to reuse some components I already had in a different package. Some of the changes I did to the SDBox were actually welcomed by the original authors and included in their V2, see how it thrives?). That is why it is absolutely fundamental to me that the design files are released.

I know that 99% of the people who will read this will probably not understand it, but trust me: if we want projects like Raemixx500 to still be around in, say, 50 years, we have to be very careful about these two points and not allow a single step backwards.

Did you not see your credits printed in bold on the picture. all credits were completely shown.. Have a nice day! If this project is open source why do you password the gerbers forcing people to send you an email .

You never did send me a reply to my request so i created them myself. If i get this project (Red Keg) up and running i will make them available to anyone, if people want to sell, let them sell, it is about the community not your ego

[kipper2k]

A few years ago (Back in May 2020) i built an A500+ board free of all limitations.it worked but i never got around to completing it due to other priorities and cash flow. It is full SMD and you can see pictures. I think it is time to resurrect it.

https://github.com/gazzmaniac/Amiga-SMD-500

here is the thread, Oops pictures are lost due to my webpage closing down. but i obviously still have the boards i can resume from. it was done in Eagle (From Scratch) so i will convert it to Kicad. I can take fresh pictures showing it

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php...hlight=red+keg

[IMG][/IMG]

it will need a few changes.

[SukkoPera]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

Did you not see your credits printed in bold on the picture. all credits were completely shown..

To be honest I only see the project URL but I never complained about missing credits, it's other people who suggested it.

Originally Posted by kipper2k

If this project is open source why do you password the gerbers forcing people to send you an email .

Because that keeps away a lot of the greedy sharks (not all, unfortunately), even though it can easily be done in 30 seconds even if you have never used Kicad before. If you don't want to install it, I don't think sending an email is a huge, insurmountable task.

Originally Posted by kipper2k

You never did send me a reply to my request so i created them myself.

What request? I have always replied to every (polite) request I have received, and plenty of people can confirm that.

Originally Posted by kipper2k

If i get this project (Red Keg) up and running i will make them available to anyone, if people want to sell, let them sell, it is about the community not your ego

Well, it's still not clear to me what caused you to change your mind all of a sudden and what is preventing you from going on with this project. I think I have tried to be as constructive as possible, but feel free to go down the path you prefer. Just do not blame me for the abort of this project. Good luck.

[kipper2k]

If paople can sell then it will prevent a few people from forcing a high price, i will try to add items that people want and will include a partial pick and place file so people can get the majority of work done by JLC etc, i intended on doing this to your board but not when there are only a couple of permitted sellers who can control pricing