Next A1200 hardware project...

[Wasagi]

Regardless of wether an 020 board is crap is irrespective. Amigakit will need to produce a board that will be able to cover the cost of development and make a profit. I think this will be easier on a higher end item as they can charge a premium (obviously not more than current solutions!)

But of course they could go for a lower end option and go for a higher volume. I just feel that for such a niche item, people will pay whatever the price is!

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

I think simple things would sell well and be of much benefit to the community - Now, lets talk *cheap* so lets talk Plastics =D


An idea that might be good could be - Custom A1200 Plastic casings and keyboards.

I thought plastics were expensive to manufacture? Had similar thought a year or so ago with the 500
With regards to accelerators.... a 68030 would be ample for most folk I'd imagine... Be nice if we could retro-fit the Zor-ram in there on some kind of add on for the board? Not sure if that's possible or not?

[Zetr0]

@Jimbo

unfortunately - through cost and target machine, it would need a miracle to bring just an 8MB card out to market and stand a chance to be competative with 2nd user market being about £45 - £60

I honestly dont think its possible for just an 8MB card either - thats not to say an A1200 with 8MB fast is crap - on the contrary.

An 060@60 + 128MB RAM with a target of £200 with lots of trimmings would be an endevor as well, since there are many varients of 060 (XC's and MC's having subtle voltage regulation differences) its going to take a fair bit of time to develop - hence cost

As Cammy kinda points out, it really comes down to what is available to source within a reasonable Minimum Order Quantity.

-----

now this thread really shouldn't be about this kinda detail, but more so ideas and thoughts about what one would like to see for one's A1200

I would love an 060@100 with 512MB SDR, holy crap - a great idea just occoured

I have been playing around with some intergrated SiS630 intergrated chip - has USB / Network / upto 1GB Ram PC133 / 4 COM / 1 Par / 10/100 Ethernet / 2D/3D accelerated 8MB + Shared Memory (upto 64MB)

By todays terms the SiS630 chipset (North and South Birdge in one chip) is pretty much retired and out to pasture, but there are bigger / better faster 1 chip solutions like Nvidia's Nforce - some of thme have PhysX support LOL...


Imagine an 060 marries to an integrated Nforce Chipset - it coud have all of the above an more...

*drools*

[modrobert]

Originally Posted by alexh

Never going to be anywhere near the speed of an 060 with todays FPGA's.

Actually the Spartan 6 series of FPGA's from Xilinx (eg. XC6SLX16 @ ~ USD $30) will take you over 100MHz easy, but the problem is that there is no 68060 soft core available (yet). The Spartan 6 series also have dedicated memory controller blocks for DRAM (either DDR, DDR2, DDR3, or LPDDR) which might come in handy.

I've looked briefly at the TG68 core (the one yaqube has used to integrate with Minimig in his AGA version), maybe it could be used as a base for a 68060 core, not sure.

Im new to the Amiga 1200 (Always was an Atari man, but really nice to try a "new" computer out) but what i find hard to get hold of, or very expensive:

A 68060 accelerator board for sure. Superb if it used sdram. Would be a dream.

Second on the list would be a flicker fixer. Afaik u cant buy an indivision for the 1200 anymore.

But ppl here have given loads of good examples.

[cosmicfrog]

cor interfacing a pc north and south chip to the amiga drool drool ribbits

how about testing the market for edge connectors for the A1200, just one relativity simple component but opens up lots of posablites

[Wasagi]

Originally Posted by Cracked

Im new to the Amiga 1200 (Always was an Atari man, but really nice to try a "new" computer out) but what i find hard to get hold of, or very expensive:

A 68060 accelerator board for sure. Superb if it used sdram. Would be a dream.

Second on the list would be a flicker fixer. Afaik u cant buy an indivision for the 1200 anymore.

But ppl here have given loads of good examples.

You can, its just when they become available in small quantities they sell faster than fast. Hopefully some more will be available September

[daimakaimura]

Why not a new licensed 1200 model with CD-Rom, indivision 1200 and CF built in?

ps:
Is Indivision 1200 definitely out of stock?

Originally Posted by Wasagi

You can, its just when they become available in small quantities they sell faster than fast. Hopefully some more will be available September

This is great news indeed! I will save some cash for one.

[Zetr0]

The problem with an FPGA CPU is many fold, not only would need to load a soft CPU core at startup but also find a 5v signal tollerant components, and Alexh will correct me if I am wrong, but I dont think any FPGA that could house a 68kx core is going to be 5 volt tollerant -

dont get me wrong I would love to see this, it would be fantastic, but interfacing this with an actual amiga would be nigh god-like task.

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by daimakaimura

Why not a new licensed 1200 model with CD-Rom, indivision 1200 and CF built in?

ps:
Is Indivision 1200 definitely out of stock?

there was talk of the indy making a comeback sometime later this year...

[Techseeker]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

The problem with an FPGA CPU is many fold, not only would need to load a soft CPU core at startup but also find a 5v signal tollerant components, and Alexh will correct me if I am wrong, but I dont think any FPGA that could house a 68kx core is going to be 5 volt tollerant -

dont get me wrong I would love to see this, it would be fantastic, but interfacing this with an actual amiga would be nigh god-like task.

What about skipping the a1200 board altogether ala GB1000 but with FPGA.
An AGA logic board replacement based on fpga. with SD adf/hdf support.
With a trap door slot for native 68k .....

Oh yea...

[Wasagi]

Originally Posted by Paul_s

I thought plastics were expensive to manufacture? Had similar thought a year or so ago with the 500
With regards to accelerators.... a 68030 would be ample for most folk I'd imagine... Be nice if we could retro-fit the Zor-ram in there on some kind of add on for the board? Not sure if that's possible or not?

When I was quoted $20,000 to set up production for a replacement 1200 case I gave up!

[Jimbo]

A case would be nice though.

[Jakodemus]

Not A1200 related, but I read at some Indivision ECS thread that the A3000 could be theoretically upgraded to AGA. That kind of upgrade would be über cool, and I would by one even if it would cost more than a real a4000.

[modrobert]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

The problem with an FPGA CPU is many fold, not only would need to load a soft CPU core at startup but also find a 5v signal tollerant components, and Alexh will correct me if I am wrong, but I dont think any FPGA that could house a 68kx core is going to be 5 volt tollerant -

dont get me wrong I would love to see this, it would be fantastic, but interfacing this with an actual amiga would be nigh god-like task.

You can use level shifters (eg. SN74CB3T3245 8-Bit @ ~ USD $2) to interface with the Amiga.

[Zetr0]

@modrobert

I can honestly say that I would love to see SOFT CPU for an amiga, the ammount geekery I could have would be AWESOME!

however when we start talking level shifters, we need to look at 32bit arrays in the SMD package, probably cheaper than $2 a pop - but you will need a few of these.

this will complicate an alraedy complicated board, I am not saying it cannot be done, I do believe it can - however this would be more of a crusade for a few than a real commercial development for the masses.

Another IDEA would be to look at a Crusoe Transmetta CPU - LOTS of power in the GHz Range and can use a nice 2MB cach for instruction conversion and byte/word swapping.

the Transmetta CPU also has the benefit of being low power, hence passively cooled - but again we are stuck without 5volt conversion or tollerance. =(

I have to admit I think the transmetta could work better than an FPGA, mainly because it could run as two different CPU's at the same time pending on its instruction fetch.

[modrobert]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@modrobert

I can honestly say that I would love to see SOFT CPU for an amiga, the ammount geekery I could have would be AWESOME!

I agree.

however when we start talking level shifters, we need to look at 32bit arrays in the SMD package, probably cheaper than $2 a pop - but you will need a few of these.

I was thinking along the lines of a A1200 trapdoor design accelerator rather than a pin compatible 68060 CPU replacement, less pins to level shift and to take advantage of the integrated FPGA memory controller blocks where cheap DDR2 DRAM can be used for example.

this will complicate an alraedy complicated board, I am not saying it cannot be done, I do believe it can - however this would be more of a crusade for a few than a real commercial development for the masses.

How do you mean exactly?

EDIT:

I just realized the 68060 have FPU integrated, that would mean a lot of hardware to design on top of the TG68 unless there are Motorola 68881 / 68882 soft cores available out there.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by modrobert

Actually the Spartan 6 series of FPGA's from Xilinx e.g. XC6SLX16 @ ~ USD $30 will take you over 100MHz easy, but the problem is that there is no 68060 soft core available (yet).

I work with these things day in day out and the 100+MHz speed ratings they give in datasheets are marketing bullcrap. They are like the maximum frequency for a one flop or something. Once there is a semi complicated design in with a fair amount of routing and clocks and the speed drops off fast. I'm not saying it isn't possible because I've not tried that device but I would have to see it to believe it. I don't think you're going to get anything near the complexity of a 68060 in a $30 Spartan 6 running at 100MHz. Dream on.

I've got a £2k Virtex 6, fastest speed grade, largest capacity device here and it struggles to do my designs at 150MHz.

Originally Posted by modrobert

I just realized the 68060 have FPU integrated, that would mean a lot of hardware to design on top of the TG68 unless there's are Motorola 68881 / 68882 soft cores available out there.

TG68 is (or was) a standard 68000 core. 16-bit with a single integer execution, no caches, no FPU and a different stack etc. It is very good work but a long way away from the Super Scalar 68060.

[modrobert]

Originally Posted by alexh

I work with these things day in day out and the 100+MHz speed ratings they give in datasheets are marketing bullcrap. They are like the maximum frequency for a one flop or something. Once there is a semi complicated design in with a fair amount of routing and clocks and the speed drops off fast. I'm not saying it isn't possible because I've not tried that device but I would have to see it to believe it. I don't think you're going to get anything near the complexity of a 68060 in a $30 Spartan 6 running at 100MHz. Dream on.

I've got a £2k Virtex 6, fastest speed grade, largest capacity device here and it struggles to do my designs at 150MHz.

I was checking the licensed soft cores for Spartan 6 when estimating the clock speed where MicroBlaze was tested around 120MHz. This was a mistake I gather from your experience, probably due to the gate count a 68060 would require. So how about 50Mhz then? It would still make an interesting product.