Aca1230/28 - Some questions

[Johan1973]

I recently started playing around with amigas again, after having sold my old machines in 96, and as part of that I was given a ACA1230/28 for my A1200, which is a very nice card.

However, there are some questions that I would like to find the answer too, and so far has been unable to find.

1. The CPU is socketed so I could take a fullblown 50Mhz 68030 and insert in the socket. However, since there is no clock generator, I assume the Xilinx FPGA is what controls the clock frequency. Is it possible to adjust this to be able to run a cpu at a higher than 28 Mhz clock frequency?

2. When trying to use the Maprom feature, I either get guru meditation (ACATune 1.7, original 3.0 kickrom on machine, 3.1 to be soft kicked), or when trying to use my own custom 3.9 kickstart to softkick, get the message that the file is to large (no matter that it is 512k in size). Any suggestions on this?

[tom256]

AFAIK clock is taken from motherboard and multiplied by 2. 2x14= 28MHz. :P

But if You want to try I have few spare MC68030, rated at 50MHz.

[Johan1973]

That would be awesome. First test I had planned was to get a cpu and just swap it, to see how it behaves. From there it should be possible to do something. What do you want for a cpu?

Did you get anywhere trying this?
I want to do the same and I can't believe there is no information on the net about modding the ACA1230.

[Johan1973]

Originally Posted by kgc210

Did you get anywhere trying this?
I want to do the same and I can't believe there is no information on the net about modding the ACA1230.

I have not yet got a faster cpu to put in place.

And I have talked to Jens, who was not happy about me wanting to try to mod the card to run faster, as I had not paid for the license to run the faster version of the card.

However, he told me it is in system programmable, the CPLD onboard that handles the clock frequency and data transfer clocks. In 28 mhz version it is synced, while on faster it is asynced. So I need information from the CPLDs to compare (if at all possible to read out).

Would be interesting if he would do the software upgrade for us.
Maybe if we say got 10 of us as a "group buy" type of setup he would do them all as one batch?

I would be willing to pay him if we sourced our own 50mhz CPU's.

[Johan1973]

I am not sure if he would, he seems very concerned that someone would steal his design. But I would be more than willing to buy an "upgrade kit" for the card, if he would provide it.

That said, I am not yet giving up on studying the card and its design, to see if I can find way. But for now, I can not do much because I do not have a full 030.

Originally Posted by kgc210

Would be interesting if he would do the software upgrade for us.
Maybe if we say got 10 of us as a "group buy" type of setup he would do them all as one batch?

I would be willing to pay him if we sourced our own 50mhz CPU's.