New products for C64 and Amiga from Individual Computers

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by dJOS

Now just make the 4mb ram standard (design your board properly to start with and you won't need to resort to hacks like double-siding) and make a nice matching plastic case and I'll buy one for my 500!

I am not going to repeat myself about the cost of board size (4-layer board!) or 3.3V conversion, which requires even more board space and adds to the component cost. I'm kindly asking you (and others who have been complaining about specs) to either shut it, or come up with the funds to finance 500 units (or more) according to your specs. I am fed up reading these "I know it better" posts that have no foundation other than "I want more for less money".

Originally Posted by T_hairy_bootson

@Jens, Please explain how having kickstart on the flashrom affects A1000 owners in regards to kickstarting from floppy.

The A1000 version will be substantially different with external Agnus, requirement to make a connection from the external board to the internal Agnus socket and some other features that I'd like to try, just because the A1000 is special and not as cost-sensitive as the A500 market. More memory and more flash is easy to do if you're planning for a lot higher budget.

Choosing Kickstarts is just a press of an F-key in the startup-menu. Loading Kickstart from an image is no different than an early A3000 that loads it's Kick-file from the DEVS: directory. Just keep the files on the CF card (where plenty of space is available for very little money) and don't worry about loading times from floppy.

Jens

[_ThEcRoW]

If i already have kick 1.3, that means that i could switch between the 1.3 physically in the Amiga, and the rom in the Aca?. Is the combination of 1.3/3.1 you mentioned having 3.1 compressed?.
Can you disable the rom on the aca to boot from the Amiga own rom?.
Thanks in advance!!

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

I am not going to repeat myself about the cost of board size (4-layer board!) or 3.3V conversion, which requires even more board space and adds to the component cost. I'm kindly asking you (and others who have been complaining about specs) to either shut it, or come up with the funds to finance 500 units (or more) according to your specs. I am fed up reading these "I know it better" posts that have no foundation other than "I want more for ....
Jens

You could just use a single larger RAM chip! I have an 8mb module from Tom Thul that fits entirely under the CPU using a single ram chip - this is all just symptematic of your failure to listen to the community who have been asking for more ram from day 1!

The product itself seems decent and I would buy one if you sorted the ram out without gouging!

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by dJOS

Where can i get one of this?
It looks great, it stands under the CPU right?

[dJOS]

Yep, sits completely under the CPU.

TomThul on amibay makes them, they aren't auto config but I find that handy when running games from my HxC as some don't seem to like fast ram being present - you enable it using autoaddram from aminet via the startup-sequence file.

[Schoenfeld]

The memory chip on that unit is operated outside it's specifications, which you can download here:
http://documentation.renesas.com/doc...1wv6416rds.pdf

A 3.3V part, which is not specified to be 5V tolerant, will fail sooner or later. I do proper designs that stand the test of time, not such tinkering as the board you're referring to here.

Once again, stop the discussion. I know you're not a customer for the ACA500. If you want a custom design, I'm willing to negotiate a contract.

Jens

[Leffmann]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

I do proper designs that stand the test of time, not such tinkering as the board you're referring to here.

Don't some of your designs require modifications to motherboards, require being sent back to you or the dealer a round or two for fixing after they crash or overheat, or fail to produce a picture on 9 out of 10 flat screens? Correct me if I'm wrong here.

[lukassid]

yep stop random shit in "New products for C64 and Amiga from Individual Computers" thread.

Kickstart on the card for sure fantastic feature.


http://hyperion-entertainment.biz

In addition to the binary license, Hyperion will grant Individual Computers access to the source code of the IDE driver for further development which may facilitate installation of AmigaOS 4.1 and beyond.

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by Leffmann

Don't some of your designs require modifications to motherboards, require being sent back to you or the dealer a round or two for fixing after they crash or overheat, or fail to produce a picture on 9 out of 10 flat screens? Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Oh snap!

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by lukassid

yep stop random shit in "New products for C64 and Amiga from Individual Computers" thread.

What's random about agitating for a better product?

[desiv]

Looking forward to this Jens, especially interested to see what you can do for my 1000...
Great info on the kickstart..

Originally Posted by dJOS

.....agitating for a better product?

Bwahahaha..
That's the funniest phrase I've heard in ages...
I'm reminded of a phrase about flies, honey and vinegar.. But i digress..

desiv

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Leffmann

Don't some of your designs require modifications to motherboards,

Not really no. His designs relay on motherboards adhering to design specifications, which, well proven, Commodore never really paid that much attention to.

Originally Posted by Leffmann

require being sent back to you or the dealer a round or two for fixing after they crash or overheat,

I'm not sure, the only overheating i remember is where his hardware pushes the miggy further then it's been running for a long time, or eve, causing known gremlin's to show up. And then there is that piece of hardware that was an exception, where they to late figured out they needed a cooler on a chip, and mailed one out to everyone who had bought the hardware, and provided one with every new unit sold. Thats what, one, out of 100 products or so?

Originally Posted by Leffmann

or fail to produce a picture on 9 out of 10 flat screens?

It's cool that you got statistical data for how many screens the MKII works, or doesn't work on. It's a shame you don't share it tho. That said, yes, it's a shame that the software isn't here yet. But it's hardly a fault with the hardware, so i'm not sure what your driving at.

Originally Posted by Leffmann

Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Your not "wrong" but you are taking things out of context, and possibly worse, you seam to be holding a grudge for some reason, claiming things like that the ACA630 will possibly destroy your Amiga.

Quite frankly, my biggest worry is that loads of people with A500's will pick a ACA500 up, and when the Amiga toasts it self due to the numerous dead capacitors, leaked batteries and such, they will blame the ACA500. Much like a lot, if not all of the complaints about the A1200 & accelerators of late.

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by Mr B

Quite frankly, my biggest worry is that loads of people with A500's will pick a ACA500 up, and when the Amiga toasts it self due to the numerous dead capacitors, leaked batteries and such, they will blame the ACA500. Much like a lot, if not all of the complaints about the A1200 & accelerators of late.

I think you hit the jackpot right there.

The problem is that some people don't inspect their amiga hardware properly and when they fail for the thousands of reasons we all know, especially for their age, they blame on the last new piece of hardware they put in.

For me, Individual Computers products are 100% and i never had any kind of trouble what so ever with any of them.

I don't understand why dJos says "agitating for a better product" really????
Where are the other products???
What Jens is doing for the comunity i don't see anywhere else.
Is earning money ??? Sure he is and i think he should for his amazing work, and, come on, 79,90€ for a 500 acelerator???? Can someone do better ????

I'm all ears..

Come on guys, peace....

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by paulo_becas

I don't understand why dJos says "agitating for a better product" really????
Where are the other products???
What Jens is doing for the comunity i don't see anywhere else.
Is earning money ??? Sure he is and i think he should for his amazing work, and, come on, 79,90€ for a 500 acelerator???? Can someone do better ????

I'm all ears..

Come on guys, peace....

As many others hav pointed out, 2mb is not enuf to allow whdload to pre-cache disk images.

I think overall the product is shaping up much better than I expected but the tiny amount of ram is a show stopper for me personally.

It's quite possible to match everything Jens is providing in the aca500 except the 14mhz 68k via other methods and get 8mb ram in the process without spending a fortune. Yes it requires more HW skills (eg ide68k requires soldering 2 wires) so those solutions won't pass a GF test but all up $120aud would get you a very nice a500.

I'd actually like to support Jens by buying the aca500 (have the aca1220 for my a1200) but am very disappointed with the low ram - I don't think we should have to have to spend another $100 on top of the $90 for the aca500 to make it a worthwhile purchase - it should be a complete product in its own right IMO.

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by dJOS

As many others hav pointed out, 2mb is not enuf to allow whdload to pre-cache disk images.

I think overall the product is shaping up much better than I expected but the tiny amount of ram is a show stopper for me personally.

It's quite possible to match everything Jens is providing in the aca500 except the 14mhz 68k via other methods and get 8mb ram in the process without spending a fortune. Yes it requires more HW skills (eg ide68k requires soldering 2 wires) so those solutions won't pass a GF test but all up $120aud would get you a very nice a500.

I'd actually like to support Jens by buying the aca500 (have the aca1220 for my a1200) but am very disappointed with the low ram - I don't think we should have to have to spend another $100 on top of the $90 for the aca500 to make it a worthwhile purchase - it should be a complete product in its own right IMO.

I understand your point but Jens is doing what the comunity asks. For a total of 4Mb people can ask Jens to put it in when they purchase ACA500.
Initially it was going to have, correct me if i'm wrong, a 68020 CPU but, answering peolples requests, he changed it to the 68000 and who ever wants more can add an accelerator aca1220 or 1230.
For me personally i would prefer the first design where it was going to be more powerful but i totally understand why he is doing this way.
It's going to have a lot of features and, once more, the CF slots are something i desire for a long time for my 500 and it's one of the key features in my point of view.
For the memory people have a lot of diferent option for it out there.

[dJOS]

4mb ram would be Good enuf IMO but Jens wants 30€ for the extra 2mb which is simply insane - yes it costs more to put it on the bottom of the board but that's only due to him not designing it with 4 mb in the 1st place!

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by dJOS

As many others hav pointed out, 2mb is not enuf to allow whdload to pre-cache disk images.

As many others have pointed out, 2MB is enough to run WHDLoad. Your fuzzing about a pre-load, for something that originally was read of the floppy, and now will be stored on the CF.

Originally Posted by dJOS

I'd actually like to support Jens by buying the aca500 (have the aca1220 for my a1200) but am very disappointed with the low ram - I don't think we should have to have to spend another $100 on top of the $90 for the aca500 to make it a worthwhile purchase - it should be a complete product in its own right IMO.

And it is, on it's own, a complete low end product.

Originally Posted by dJOS

It's quite possible to match everything Jens is providing in the aca500 except the 14mhz 68k via other methods and get 8mb ram in the process without spending a fortune. Yes it requires more HW skills (eg ide68k requires soldering 2 wires) so those solutions won't pass a GF test but all up $120aud would get you a very nice a500.

So, get these things instead then? As far as i know, Jens isn't even aiming this product at you, or me.

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by Mr B

So, get these things instead then? As far as i know, Jens isn't even aiming this product at you, or me.

You're right about that, it's very hard to reach everybody wishes.
I think Jens has been very patient about this issue.
To tell you the truth from the moment this thread started i was anxious for the ACA500, i was a bit sad to be the last one Jens started to produce but i waited for it and now here it is has promissed and i can't wait to get my hands on one.

[TCD]

Some people (I mean dJOS) must be very bored (or simply ignorant)... you've been told for months by the one who designs the ACA500 that your ramblings won't get you anywhere. Time to drop it finally I'd say.

[paulo_becas]

It helps to understand reading the entire thread