New products for C64 and Amiga from Individual Computers

[Calabazam]

Am i the only one to care about the ACA500 here?
I thought that this thread was called "New products for C64 and Amiga from Individual Computers" not just "New A600 accelerator from Individual Computers".
So any release date or update of any kind? Will it be available for Christmas?

[Retrofan]

At least you are the following in the list. I still will have to wait for the year that a new fast Ata Controller will be on this thread.

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by Retrofan

At least you are the following in the list. I still will have to wait for the year that a new fast Ata Controller will be on this thread.

i thought elbox made those?

[Retrofan]

I mean an Individual Computers one.

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by Calabazam

Am i the only one to care about the ACA500 here?
I thought that this thread was called "New products for C64 and Amiga from Individual Computers" not just "New A600 accelerator from Individual Computers".
So any release date or update of any kind? Will it be available for Christmas?

It's vaporware and not very good vaporware at that!

My 2c worth:

I wouldnt waste your time on Jen's aca500, that thing is an insult to a500 owners with it's tiny 2mb ram and 14mhz 68k - he should make a proper accelerator for the 500 that's at least as good as the aca620!

If Jens wants a500 owners to buy his aca12xx boards (& fair enuf, it's a good idea), he should make an adapter with no redundant ram, no redundant CPU and just IDE + some useful stuff like Ethernet and USB and he'd sell boat loads!

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Retrofan

I mean an Individual Computers one.

I think he means the new version of the IdeFix Express which uses SATA.

God only knows when that will be released but I'm hoping it will at least be sometime next year.

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

I think he means the new version of the IdeFix Express which uses SATA.

God only knows when that will be released but I'm hoping it will at least be sometime next year.

ah i see,i completly forgot about that one

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by dJOS

My 2c worth:

Without a CPU on the expansion, it wouldn't work at all as a standalone, and would force buyers to buy an ACA12XX. Now buyers get a small performance upgrade, are able to play a bunch of WHDloads, get boot'able storage... I can't quite honestly see what your gripes are about.

[Retro-Nerd]

It's far away from vaporware. Sometimes i can't understand what people think they could get for 79,90€ these days. What is it? Pure bitterness about too little Fast Ram?

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by Mr B

Without a CPU on the expansion, it wouldn't work at all as a standalone, and would force buyers to buy an ACA12XX. Now buyers get a small performance upgrade, are able to play a bunch of WHDloads, get boot'able storage... I can't quite honestly see what your gripes are about.

Jens told me the 68k* on the aca500 and the 2mb ram is disabled as soon as you plug in an aca12xx - that's the very definition of redundant hardware and merely drives up the cost of an aca12xx adapter.

I dont have an issue with him making an adapter that allows a500 owners to use his aca12xx cards, I have an issue with him thinking the current aca500 design is good enuf as a standalone board when a600 owners have a much better and affordable single board option.

*and the onboard 68k is also disabled so now you'll have two useless 68k's in your a500.

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

It's far away from vaporware. Sometimes i can't understand what people think they could get for 79,90€ these days. What is it? Pure bitterness about too little Fast Ram?

Jens has never even posted a single aca500 prototype pic, until he does it's vaporware - im not trying to be rude to Jens either, there's been lots of talk but no substance provided.

My criticisms (even if they come across a bit gruff) are meant to be constructive, im not just saying "xyz is a crap idea", im providing a rationale and suggestions for improvement.

Currently you can get an 8mb autoconfig ram board from Kipper2k for $49 and an IDE68k board from MKL for $60 (I have both) and the aca500 has been estimated to cost the same as these two combined - my point is that the aca500 should ditch the cpu and ram then it would cost maybe $50 and then adding and aca12xx would make sense as an upgrade for a500 owners.

[Retro-Nerd]

It's still in development and he is open for suggestions. But i think you are not the target for this lowcost card. Just like Mr B said. It is meant for some A500 users who wanted to use modern IDE stuff and maybe play a few WHDLoad classics. Not a big power upgrade like other turbocards.

Currently you can get an 8mb autoconfig ram board from Kipper2k for $49 an IDE68k board from MKL for $60 (I have both) and the aca500 has been estimated to cost the same as these two combined

This is homebrew hardware, not a real retail product with full guarantee. You can't compare that.

[dJOS]

Kipper provides excellent after sales support and would prolly not be impressed by suggestions to the contrary.

[Retro-Nerd]

That's not the point. With a proper registered hardware design/selling company you have restrictions and several other costs. Be more realistic.

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by dJOS

Jens told me the 68k* on the aca500 and the 2mb ram is disabled as soon as you plug in an aca12xx

Yes, your point is? Not everyone who gets a ACA500 is going to get a ACA12XX, ever. It's my understanding that for it to be useful as a standalone unit it gets a little CPU & memory. Just enough for WHDLoads, but not much else. The ACA500 isn't intended to be sold as a means of adding a ACA12XX to your A500. That ability is just a bonus feature. The ability to boot of a CF, have a CD-ROM, and play your WHDLoads on the A500, is the selling point.

Originally Posted by dJOS

I dont have an issue with him making an adapter that allows a500 owners to use his aca12xx cards, I have an issue with him thinking the current aca500 design is good enuf as a standalone board when a600 owners have a much better and affordable single board option.

Um. The ACA620 is actually less feature equipped. Has more memory, and a faster CPU, but thats it. This whining just proves you can't make everyone happy.

Originally Posted by dJOS

*and the onboard 68k is also disabled so now you'll have two useless 68k's in your a500.

I'm not even sure you get to keep the original 68000 in your A500, but then again, i'm not to convinced thats your point, really. Dude. Either he sells a standalone budget alternative that lets A500 owners use WHDLoads. Or he sells a budget bridge that lets you add a ACA12XX to your A500. The savings in the later case is diminished by the fact that he has to make 2 production runs, design 2 different sets of hardware, and a much smaller production of each. I'm not so convinced the end result would actually be cheaper for you.

But the bottom line is: Either buy it, or don't. If your not pleased with his design, get a competing product thats more to your liking, it's not like your out of options.

[dJOS]

Im not going to get into an argument, as I said that was my 2c but I'll sum up for those that are having trouble keeping up:

1/ Build a cheap adapter without redundant HW, this will mean more sales of of higher end (usually more profitable) aca12xx's because the price barrier to entry is lower for a500 owners

2/ build a decent aca620 style accelerator board (obviously with IDE included) for the a500 with 8mb ram and an 020 (that will be well worth owning for many of us)

FWIW, I really like the idea of the aca12xx adaptor board for a500's, I just dont like the idea of including wasted ram and cpu because it only puts up the price and makes for a mediocre standalone accelerator.

Originally Posted by Mr B

Either he sells a standalone budget alternative that lets A500 owners use WHDLoads. Or he sells a budget bridge that lets you add a ACA12XX to your A500. The savings in the later case is diminished by the fact that he has to make 2 production runs, design 2 different sets of hardware, and a much smaller production of each. I'm not so convinced the end result would actually be cheaper for you.

Jens makes multiple aca1200 series boards, why not make 2 really good products for the a500 instead of 1 really mediocre board?

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by dJOS

1/ Build a cheap adapter without redundant HW, this will mean more sales of of higher end (usually more profitable) aca12xx's because the price barrier to entry is lower for a500 owners

Removing the CMOS 68k and memory would hardly save any money. Those parts come from chip brokers who have carried this stuff over the year-end-mark for quite a few years, and the total saving in component cost would be way below 5,- EUR. If you'd have to pay 74,- EUR instead of 79,- EUR for that adapter, you'd really have something to complain about.

Originally Posted by dJOS

2/ build a decent aca620 style accelerator board (obviously with IDE included) for the a500 with 8mb ram and an 020 (that will be well worth owning for many of us)

...and get the same complaints as from those who don't like the ACA620, because it's so much less than the ACA630 - as already written by someone else in this thread, this is just proving that you can't make everyone happy with a single product.

In addition to that, I'd have to make that 020 accelerator compatible with external mass-storage. Oh, and don't forget that there's no Gayle inside the A500, so the logic for 020 access to the CIA chips is a lot more complicated (E-Clock syncronization). I wonder how you'd fit that into the same size of logic as on the ACA620. If you can do that, I should hire you - you know where to find me on the net. I accept electronic job applications.

Originally Posted by dJOS

Jens makes multiple aca1200 series boards, why not make 2 really good products for the a500 instead of 1 really mediocre board?

That's because one really good product is enough. What you pay for on the ACA500 is the mechanical solution and the CF/IDE adapter. RAM and CPU come almost for free.

I haven't published pictures for a reason: There's another A500 accelerator in the works, and I don't want to give away all my ideas. There's a few very effective and solid mechanical solutions in the ACA500 that don't cost too much, and it's likely that they will make the majority of customers prefer my design over Zeus. I'd be stupid to publish pictures of the mechanical elements before I can ship quantities.

Also, there's some features in the works that improve usability and ease of installation. After all, this product targets those who come *back* to the Amiga, not those who are already active on the forums and own a collection of Amigas.

Jens

[cosmicfrog]

to my mind them are fair points dJOS

edit dam posted before reading jens post, going read it now

indeed take these as comments/suggestions as until the product is released we have nothing to judge/evaluate

great post Jens

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

great post Jens

Agreed.

@Jens Good answers, I didn't realized the extra components where so cheap. I shall shut up now.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by demolition

That is weird as I am able to perform memtests on all 11.3MB without any problems?

There appears to be a bug in MBR2-test: The $c0 memory area is listed as 1.5M, and there's "another 512k" at $d0. This is not the case - the freemem list only contains 1M at $c0, and then 512k at $d0, but they are not continuous. Sysinfo and the showconfig tool from workbench show the correct memory nodes, where MBR2-test will test the $d0 area twice.

The good thing is that ACAtune V1.7 works fine with the Rev.2 logic, because it automatically sees that $f0 is write-protected. So no need to panic here - it adds the right amount of memory and leaves out the $f0 ROM emulation area, which *was* usable as RAM in the previous version.

Jens