Another new A500+ bmotherboard

[SukkoPera]

It's not: I still want to know where I would have called you a loser.

[seb132]

Originally Posted by SukkoPera

It's not: I still want to know where I would have called you a loser.

My guess is the post #36 has been mis-read by someone here... just my 2c.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by seb132

My guess is the post #36 has been mis-read by someone here... just my 2c.

That would be my guess too ;-)

I felt like telling a short Steve Jobs story here. When Steve was a kid some dude on his street had a stone tumbler machine /thing. You throw in some rough rocks and let them tumble for a few hours and when its done you have some nice shiny rocks.
This analogy stuck with him for life. He saw this friction, this "tumbling" between individuals as a process to get to the nice and shiny stuff (designing products at Apple etc..) ..

We are all adults here, 80 posts later, lets not get too personal and try to understand each persons point of view here. In the end I truly believe we all want the same thing. Shiny new stuff for the Amiga-loving community.

Cheers, fellas.

[kipper2k]

Ahhh, apologies to Sukkopera, my error.

I have started to redo my 2020 SMD board, i have through hole and SMD logic chip version, whichever one i choose i will make the Gerbers available to everyone

[nonarkitten]

@SukkoPera

Well, possible import issues aside, the design has a lot of minor errors in it as well as countless deviations from a real Amiga 500 PCB. Probably nothing catastrophic, but off nonetheless. You might want to make sure the design is perfect before you go off on "protecting the integrity of the project."

[nonarkitten]

I believe the Amiga 500 is:
- Traces are default 12.5 mil
- Grid spacing is 25 mil
- Power traces are 50 or 150 mil
- Vias appear to be 26.25/46.25 mil
- IDC holes are 31.25/46.25 mil

The distance from pin 1 of the 68000 to pin 1 of the expansion header should be 6800 mil x 1375 mil. You have a "shift" around halfway through the board where everything aligns to the next grid spacing over. Post import I didn't see any natural alignment and some traces that should be perfectly parallel were a little uneven.

Some of this MIGHT be import error, but I don't think so.

I know some of the older A500 PCBs used crosshatching on the fills. The A500+ doesn't seem to and I'm not sure if there's a huge difference between these, so that probably doesn't matter. I think cross hatching feels more "retro" as it's seldom done anymore.

I know mils bugs those raised on metric, but it's how a lot of vintage hardware was made, and to me, precision is more important.

[SukkoPera]

The only thing I'm protecting of my project(s) is, and will always be, the freedom to be studied and modified (as long as they are shared alike).

An absolutely perfect reproduction has never been my goal. Actually it was quite the opposite: if you bothered reading the readme (AAAAAH, READING! That good ol' habit!), you'd know that:

The initial objective was to come up with a new mainboard as similar to the original one as possible, while including minor modifications that would improve its usability. This mainboard was designed with reasonable - not maniacal - accuracy to the original design. Most care was taken in the positioning of components that ought to be in a certain position (i.e.: screw holes and I/O connectors), to ensure drop-in replaceability. Other components and tracks are "more or less" there, but as the board was wholly laid out from scratch by hand, don't expect sub-millimeter accuracy.

(It should say by EYE rather than by HAND, BTW.)

I don't even see much point in reaching perfection: as long as the board fits the original case and ports, the rest of the stuff can be positioned freely. The only usefulness in staying close to the original layout at first was to cross-check the schematics, but now that we know they are correct, things can be moved around.

However, if you really feel that a .5mil offset makes the whole project worthless, you are more than welcome to fix it and submit a Pull Request, I'd happily accept it. The GitHub page contains all the design files, enabling you (or anyone) to work on it exactly as I would.

[kipper2k]

redoing from scratch doesnt need a pull request or credits

[SukkoPera]

Sure. So why check my board to this level of detail? Just to childishly bash my work?

[kipper2k]

mine will not be close to original, it has too many additions i had to make lots of changes to my old files

[MigaTech]

Sukkopera, like Kipper2k you are a very intelligent person, this is clear from your work alone.

From what you have mentioned here I really do understand your points. Yet... allow me to enter a difference of opinion here. Kipper2k is trying to allow the continuation of Amiga projects, without restrictions or set backs.

He knows, that like him and you, there are many others who can take what both of you started, even further. This means that in respect to passion not gain, Amiga will continue on forever.

Your work is brilliance and I can even understand the precision of nonarkitten. Only... I learned long ago that...
'if you seek perfection, expect to never find it!'

[SukkoPera]

Originally Posted by MigaTech

He knows, that like him and you, there are many others who can take what both of you started, even further

Sure, there are a lot of people muuuuch more talented than me (I am not even an Electronics Engineer, so that shouldn't take much!), but does this mean that can just start from scratch everytime? It quickly gets boring and discouraging. Do you have an idea of how big an effort and of how easy it is to make a mistake in a board as big as the A500? It took Edoardo and me YEARS (literally, just look at the GitHub history!) to get that right, people should now build upon that. But, since we shared our work in order to allow them a jump start, we demand that they share theirs alike, so that the next guy can build upon that in turn. This allows for quicker development times and lower expenses (you do not have to redo/retest what has already been done/tested). It also guarantees that if I get run over by a bus today, my project(s) will survive, as I have no secret stuff in my drawers nor any secret tricks in my brain: it's all there, public and available for anyone to pick up from where I left.

Want a practical example? Some time ago, Kipper made a CD32 riser with support for a PS/2 keyboard. Now I would like to add support for USB keyboards, can I just do that? No, because Kipper has only shared the gerbers of that project. I would have to look for documentation, take measurements, redraw the schematics, reroute the board, get it produced, test it in all conditions and ONLY THEN, add the USB stuff. A 2-week effort just turned into a 6-months project, at least, and I really don't feel like committing to that, so there will just be no USB-enabled CD32 riser for the community, I'm sorry (yes, I know there's one around, they just had to go through all of the above and in fact it's still work in progress after years).

Originally Posted by MigaTech

Kipper2k is trying to allow the continuation of Amiga projects, without restrictions or set backs.

He's actually doing exactly the opposite: he's preventing knowledge to be shared. He's the actual control freak who wants to be the only one having the schematics and design files at hand. If he really cared for that, he'd just join the Open Hardware philosophy, draw proper schematics and make those public with all the project data, firmware, etc. so that others can bring on his work.

That would actually also be the quicker solution for him, I mean: do you really think that redrawing some schematics you already have in a different CAD program takes longer than remaking an A500 board from scratch??? If he's ready to take the latter effort, he clearly cares A LOT about keeping his stuff secret, and in fact all the talk about pricing is just smoke in your eyes in order to drive you away from the real reason.

But you (the community) just want the stuff, you don't give a **** about sharing knowledge and he thrives on that. It would be about time that you started caring more for the latter and support people who strive for that.

[LIV2]

Even after redrawing the whole thing yourself, you may be required to release the sources if you incorporate open source hardware designs into it unless you get permission from the authors.

Gerbers do not satisfy this requirement.

Personally I don't give a crap about the 2MB chipram thing though, I didn't invent anything there.

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by LIV2

Even after redrawing the whole thing yourself, you may be required to release the sources if you incorporate open source hardware designs into it unless you get permission from the authors.

Gerbers do not satisfy this requirement.

Personally I don't give a crap about the 2MB chipram thing though, I didn't invent anything there.

So this is a mess then, as who allows the recreation of all the Commodore Amiga boards, for instance, the a500, a600, a1200, a2000, a3000, a4000 etc.

For the 2MB chipmem you took your own time and got it working so it is your creation and people benefit from it, Great job! It cleans up the board big time, makes building a lot easier and makes space so other things can be added


Most boards have been copied by use of tracing over original boards and various boards like the "Red A500+" boards having released nothing and kept closed. Is there an owner of copyrights for Amiga who is going to pop their head up and say dont do that.

People who have worked to improve designs shouldn't be stifled, I don't believe anyone can claim ownership of a design as such if no copyrights exist to something, and if someone wants to improve the HW for the benefit of others then there should not be an issue. Give all contributors credit but if the original base HW has been used without permission from the original owners i.e. Commodore, then all changes / addons appear to be "The fruit from the poison Tree".

So, ultimately if someone designs hardware to lets say play an Amiga game you must follow Commodores design in order to achieve that task. There is only 1 way to do it and that is design the board with the same pinouts. So all designs need to be the same, you can manipulate the layout but thats about it

There is so much grey area if 1 make improvements and release it. If a person copies someone else's HW then why cant someone else use the combined knowledge.

For the addons of my board i am either the author or am using licensing that has been given permission to implement on a different project.

For the a500 boards the authors were Commodore employees and i would imagine that the actual authors who worked on design could not claim ownership as they were in the employ of Commodore. So where does the paper trail end. I am thinking due to the fact that the design is so old no one cares as the Amiga can now be placed on a chip.

So, here is an example, my Gotek design which i made by following the schematic that has been publically released. The design uses firmware created by Keir Fraser, so now, who do you need permission from to implement the design and the firmware, ?

Another... the 8MB Fastmem design i done years ago i obtained permission from the original author (sorry, cant remember his name ATM, He is Russian ... Ahhh, i remember now, it was NedoPC) there have been so many deviations from that design but no one cared, why should they, everyone was getting the benefit of 8MB back in 2015, It kept interest alive in the community, without all these improvements from many developers the Amiga would have died a long time ago

MKL designed the IDE and also a version of the 8MB and released that publically. All the addons i want to use are available to use and it seems like i have to jump through hoops to try to get all this implemented.

The quadrom autoselect design was done by Mike Stirling and myself. ATM it is closed but i am lthinking it can be opened up, if not then it wont be on the board.

Smally mouse is open for use so no issue there

If people want to find out about these things then they can simply go to the respective pages using links.(that would be made available

[Lemaru]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

Most boards have been copied by use of tracing over original boards and various boards like the "Red A500+" boards having released nothing and kept closed. Is there an owner of copyrights for Amiga who is going to pop their head up and say dont do that.

I guess that's classed as reverse engineering, which is legal most places. Whereas cloning is not. So I can reverse engineer a PCB and create my own version. But, I can't clone it, which I guess means make a perfect replica.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

Another... the 8MB Fastmem design i done years ago i obtained permission from the original author (sorry, cant remember his name ATM, He is Russian ... Ahhh, i remember NedoPC) there have ben so many deviations from that design but no one cared, why should they, everyone was getting the benefit of 8MB back in 2015

His name was Vladimir Sobolev and yes everyone has at one point used/modified his 1997 8MB FastRAM design but also his Gayle IDE recreation too.

http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/hddmem
http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/hddmem_exp_a50

Or were you thinking of Akimov Vadim aka LVD?

[LIV2]

Sounds like you're probably covered then.

I don't think any Amiga rights holders are going to be bothered by PCB clones so you're fine there too.

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by alexh

His name was Vladimir Sobolev and yes everyone has at one point used/modified his 1997 8MB FastRAM design but also his Gayle IDE recreation too.

http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/hddmem
http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/hddmem_exp_a50

Or were you thinking of Akimov Vadim aka LVD?

I think it was LVD

Originally Posted by LIV2

Sounds like you're probably covered then.

I don't think any Amiga rights holders are going to be bothered by PCB clones so you're fine there too.

i am thinking so, i dont think Intel etc would be quaking in their boots

[SukkoPera]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

Smally mouse is open for use so no issue there

IT IS NOT. READ THE F***ING LICENSE. Why are you so f***ing stubborn?!?



This is my last post in this thread. My patience has a limit and we're clearly well over that.

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by SukkoPera

IT IS NOT. READ THE F***ING LICENSE. Why are you so f***ing stubborn?!?



This is my last post in this thread.

Nice, sorry to see you go, mabbe you should talk to Simon

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