Help Fund the Amiga 4000 Replica Project!

[Acill]

I've started a Go Fund Me campaign for getting the 4000 (NON-CR) Rev B reverse engineered. All project files will be open and public. The cost for this being done by a US company is not cheap but also very fair for what we get in return. Please take a look at the page here and help if you can!

Everything is out in the open, public and secure using GoFundMe.

https://www.gofundme.com/amiga-4000-...ith-schematics

[thgill]

Donated!

[hiho]

Ditto!

[4pLaY]

Currently repairing some really time consuming boards, wish i had a few of these now. Thanks for this Great initiative Acill .

[Yulquen74]

Good project, will certainly donate.

BTW, which CAD package will be used for re-creating the schematic and PCB?
If all project files will be available, in theory, individuals may do changes to
the design to fit their needs, unless the CAD package used is a $10.000 one.

Producing such cards will also be rather expensive in single/low quantities, will there be
a similar effort to raise money for a group buy?

[SnkBitten]

Awesome, just donated.

[Acill]

Originally Posted by Yulquen74

Good project, will certainly donate.

BTW, which CAD package will be used for re-creating the schematic and PCB?
If all project files will be available, in theory, individuals may do changes to
the design to fit their needs, unless the CAD package used is a $10.000 one.

Producing such cards will also be rather expensive in single/low quantities, will there be
a similar effort to raise money for a group buy?

Seeing that I am raising money for a professional design company here in the US doing the work, I assume its not a freely available CAD software. I can ask them, but for now I am only trying to raise enough to pay for schematics and the ability to make new boards. You start adding in redesigns and that price goes way up, but the option is available through them.

[mpattonm]

Before I donate, whaich I eventually will, I would like to understand what data exactly we will get? Board design source data - in what format (Altium, Eagle, KiCAD,...)? Or gerbers only? Under what licence they will be released eventually?
I would be dissapointed to see people doing all sort (closed) commercial enhanced/modified versions based on data files we paid for.

[ajk]

Looking at the offer, it lists PADS which is a commercial package. Moving design data from one package to another is not trivial so it's something to consider.

Is there a particular reason to go with the revision B board? Rev D would seem more desirable, with one less SIMM socket to contend with and a place for a coin cell.

[alenppc]

I decided to open a new thread to give more visibility to a GoFundMe campaign currently running to reverse engineer the A4000 motherboard and create open-source schematics and gerber files available to all. You can find all the details here:

https://www.gofundme.com/amiga-4000-...ith-schematics

It's time for the community to take new board building into our own hands, new Amigas will be born again

[voxel]

nice idea ^^)

BTW : we already have the full schematics for that motherboard (and all other Amigas) so why would we need to pay $2000 for recreating it when it suffice to give it to that company to have the gerber files re-created from. ???

[Locutus]

Also it seems to me Hese already archieved this and to quote him:

Originally Posted by hese

Sure, I can publish the files so others can purchase the PCBs and also continue developing the project. I wasn't planning to be the only source for the PCBs anyway, I'm more interested in doing new hardware than sell PCBs. But first I would like to offload the remaining PCBs I have left to recoup what I have invested in this. After that I'll put the files on GitHub.

So it seems this will be released anyway.

And an additional comment, a design in Mentor PADS is essentially inaccessible to most people. KiCAD is nowadays Good Enough for a project like this and allows to remain truly open.

[intric8]

Some folks on Twitter (where I helped to promote this GoFundMe) have asked me tiresome questions about copyright concerns (their questions weren't tiresome, but to me the topic is). Do we really have to worry about such a thing at this point? I look at it like the Ultimate64 project. Say "inspired by", put a different number on there or call it Alice or whatever and go forward.

I funded this project and have no desire (today) to even build one of these boards. In case it isn't clear, this GoFundMe gets you nothing in return - but it contributes to a future product for this amazing community we're all a part of. It's a community effort to just get something done, with nothing given back to you at the here and now. It's a charity. And I FULLY support the concept. I hope it comes to fruition (the goal is nearly half-way met after 1 single day).

And eventually other boards might make a rebirth, too. Cheers to you, Acill. And to hese for the incredible inspiration. And to all of those that are able to contribute anything, no matter the amount. What an amazing inspiration just to see the community rise up, regardless of the ultimate outcome.

[Acill]

Reverse engineering is legal for one, two there is zero profit in these boards and no commercial gain being taken here. They are no longer available or in production. I looked into this a lot before I started it.

Lastly PADS and Altium are being used because the place I am using is a full fledged professional board layout and design firm. The files will be released and the end board will be 100% accurate and tested. Schematics are being done because it will go with this board and have a built in BOM, and be modern and digital. They also will used by anyone capable of advancing or editing the designs of the boards once done and released.

Its a huge deal being able to do this.

[grelbfarlk]

Why not just throw the cash at Hese instead? I mean I'd rather support work that's already done by an Amiga guy and when he releases his design people can "degrade" it back down to a Rev B if they want.

[Wrangler]

I second that motion ^^^^

[Acill]

Because I prefer to have it done in a controlled professional facility using industry standard tools and professionally designed. I am not forcing anyone to donate to this cause, but having a real board done to the same standards that large companies trust and use is a very good thing to have available. Hese did a great thing, but even he mentioned his was hand traced and this will be done in a much more industrial way.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Acill

Because I prefer to have it done in a controlled professional facility using industry standard tools and professionally designed. I am not forcing anyone to donate to this cause, but having a real board done to the same standards that large companies trust and use is a very good thing to have available. Hese did a great thing, but even he mentioned his was hand traced and this will be done in a much more industrial way.

Which makes no difference, if his board works.

Hese is as far as I know-a professional. Paying someone to do it in an office is not somehow more industrial. I don't think Hese is opening Dpaint to draw traces and printing it out on his inkjet to fax it to the PCB manufacturer.

Lets say the worst has happened and he left a via to close to a trace or something, open file, move via or trace, save. Oh wait, did someone check if he forgot the ground plane?

[idrougge]

Exactly how is "hand-traced" a bad thing? Is automatic routing supposed to be better?

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Exactly how is "hand-traced" a bad thing? Is automatic routing supposed to be better?

Not to mention, I doubt Commodore auto-routed the board back in 1991, the original was probably hand routed.