A1200 Acceleration - which route?

[Mick]

What happened to the Individual Computers accelerators? any news on those?

[Overmann]

Jens does write updates and answer questions in the iComp forums. The last I read was that the 1260 is more or less completed. That was a few months ago.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Mick

What happened to the Individual Computers accelerators? any news on those?

Who knows, probably the same thing that happened to the replacement A1200 motherboard and Clone A...

Personally I would go for a Warp 1260 if I still had a decent A1200 motherboard to stick it in, either that or an old Blizzard 1260 running at 80 Mhz

I don't refer to the Vampire as an accelerator, it's actually an FPGA computer.

PPC doesn't do much for me, very expensive and not compatible with 68k code.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Who knows, probably the same thing that happened to the replacement A1200 motherboard and Clone A...

Personally I would go for a Warp 1260 if I still had a decent A1200 motherboard to stick it in, either that or an old Blizzard 1260 running at 80 Mhz

I don't refer to the Vampire as an accelerator, it's actually an FPGA computer.

PPC doesn't do much for me, very expensive and not compatible with 68k code.

Well the vampire is an FPGA processor. The warp is pretty much the same accept it takes a real hard to find and expensive 060. Apart from that they are pretty much identical .

[lilwshu]

I do wonder why people haven't made more 040 accelerators - those CPUs are cheap and plentiful in comparison to the 060, are much faster than an 030 and give as much acceleration as classic Amiga enthusiasts are likely to want (power/heat considerations aside).

I ran an 040 in a desktop A1200 for a bit in the early 2000s to tinker with, and after replacing it with a towerised 060 1200 with a Picasso card my horizons weren't greatly expanded (Internet still basically unusable, Doom/Quake still much slower and uglier than on an old PC, etc etc).

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by lilwshu

I do wonder why people haven't made more 040 accelerators - those CPUs are cheap and plentiful in comparison to the 060, are much faster than an 030 and give as much acceleration as classic Amiga enthusiasts are likely to want (power/heat considerations aside).

I ran an 040 in a desktop A1200 for a bit in the early 2000s to tinker with, and after replacing it with a towerised 060 1200 with a Picasso card my horizons weren't greatly expanded (Internet still basically unusable, Doom/Quake still much slower and uglier than on an old PC, etc etc).

I think its because the 040 is not as compatible as the 030 ?

[lilwshu]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

I think its because the 040 is not as compatible as the 030 ?

I would have thought that WHDLoad has fixed most of those problems, but I guess the majority of Amiga games work as well as they are going to work with an 030.

I generally struggle with the appeal of expensive 060 accelerators for Amigas as they are generally far too slow to do anything modern but their additional power will be wasted on 99% of the classic Amiga library.

[klx300r]

had and sold my Vampire...Warp 1260 for me all the way for my 1200 !

btw, I wouldn’t sell my CS-MKIII in my A4000 for anything new or old ever ;-)

[crazyc]

Originally Posted by lilwshu

I would have thought that WHDLoad has fixed most of those problems, but I guess the majority of Amiga games work as well as they are going to work with an 030.



I generally struggle with the appeal of expensive 060 accelerators for Amigas as they are generally far too slow to do anything modern but their additional power will be wasted on 99% of the classic Amiga library.

I agree entirely. But I wouldn't trade down from my b1260.....

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by lilwshu

I do wonder why people haven't made more 040 accelerators - those CPUs are cheap and plentiful in comparison to the 060, are much faster than an 030 and give as much acceleration as classic Amiga enthusiasts are likely to want (power/heat considerations aside).

I ran an 040 in a desktop A1200 for a bit in the early 2000s to tinker with, and after replacing it with a towerised 060 1200 with a Picasso card my horizons weren't greatly expanded (Internet still basically unusable, Doom/Quake still much slower and uglier than on an old PC, etc etc).

A while ago when 060 chips were more sensibly priced (rev 0/1 for €60, rev6 for ~€110 then the total cost difference between a 040 accelerator and 060 wasn't that big and so not really worth it, but now it might be the time to have another look. But, lets say you'd get a warp 1240 for €500 would you really want a 040 on it?
I would like to see a mainstream 040 card though.. I think that once Stephen L (TerribleFire) releases the sources for the 1260, someone should probably be able to convert the design into a minimalistic 040 accelerator and build the whole thing for €200. (ballpark figure)

[IanS]

Are there FPGA clones of the 040 and 060 processors? An FPGA 060 would outpace the real thing but would cost less.

There's always the option of an accelerator using an ARM processor running 68K emulation. The old BBC Micro can have a Raspberry Pi connected to the TUBE interface which runs a variety of emulated processors. The Amiga's expansion bus should be somewhat more capable than the 1Mhz Tube bus.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by IanS

There's always the option of an accelerator using an ARM processor running 68K emulation.

But do any exist? If not then it's not an option.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by IanS

Are there FPGA clones of the 040 and 060 processors? An FPGA 060 would outpace the real thing but would cost less.

There's always the option of an accelerator using an ARM processor running 68K emulation. The old BBC Micro can have a Raspberry Pi connected to the TUBE interface which runs a variety of emulated processors. The Amiga's expansion bus should be somewhat more capable than the 1Mhz Tube bus.

A few people have already looked nto this idea as a lower cost 68k CPU replacement. Basically it would be a pin compatible drop in replacement 060 using an FPGA to act as a bridge to an ARM CPU on a micro board. As far as the Amiga is concerned it would work just like a regular 060 (or 030/040 depending on the core)

With this kind of approach the FPGA wouldn't actually replicate how a real 060 functions internally but it doesn't really matter as long as it gives the same outputs to a given input and is much cheaper than the real thing.

I guess such a solution would also need it's own 060.library developed to work with an Amiga.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

Well the vampire is an FPGA processor. The warp is pretty much the same accept it takes a real hard to find and expensive 060. Apart from that they are pretty much identical .

I agree that it's a fine line when talking about enhancing the original computer but I think the Warp 1260 (just about) stays on the right side of this line

Obviously the Warp 1260 won't do much unless you plug it into an A1200 motherboard whereas a Vampire can run as a standalone computer much like a Raspberry Pi or MiSTer.

That's why I personally would go for the Warp 1260 if I still had an A1200 motherboard but each to their own of course

[Chucky]

TF1260 will soon be for public beta-testings or what to call it (earlybird that accepts that firmware might need flash OR slight HW changes)

[sean_sk]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Obviously the Warp 1260 won't do much unless you plug it into an A1200 motherboard...

And neither will the Vampire 1200.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

I agree that it's a fine line when talking about enhancing the original computer but I think the Warp 1260 (just about) stays on the right side of this line

Obviously the Warp 1260 won't do much unless you plug it into an A1200 motherboard whereas a Vampire can run as a standalone computer much like a Raspberry Pi or MiSTer.

That's why I personally would go for the Warp 1260 if I still had an A1200 motherboard but each to their own of course

I think your are getting confused, there is a standalone version of the vampire that is a complete computer. The A1200 version of the Vampire is the same as the warp accept it contains the fastest 68k compatible processor money can buy.

It cant be used without an Amiga, and does not replace any of the custom chips

[Chucky]

"any of the customchips" well not sure about the V1200. but there have been updates for the V500/600 that they have "improved cia timings" meaning it does replace the CIA in some way.. if this is a part of customchips or not is questionable..

[klx300r]

Originally Posted by Chucky

TF1260 will soon be for public beta-testings or what to call it (earlybird that accepts that firmware might need flash OR slight HW changes)

awesome news! please make some YouTube videos during testing

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Chucky

"any of the customchips" well not sure about the V1200. but there have been updates for the V500/600 that they have "improved cia timings" meaning it does replace the CIA in some way.. if this is a part of customchips or not is questionable..

Where can I find out more about this?