Looking forward to the Vampire 4?

[Puggsy]

I rather buy a MiSTer. It's already out there.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Puggsy

I rather buy a MiSTer. It's already out there.

If it's already 'out there', why don't you have one already?

I already have a Vampire'd A600 so buying another one is hard to justify. But the A1200 version is very tempting. Might be time to put my spare A1200 motherboard to use!

[MickGyver]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

If it's already 'out there', why don't you have one already?

Maybe he doesn't need one? I have a MiSTer though and it's enough for my Amiga needs. Although not as fast as a Vampire, and lack of RTG at the moment (will probably come), the MiSTer can do SO much more and it is well cheaper (~150€ for the DE10-Nano + SDRAM). If you really need the extra speed and RTG, then go for the Vampire, I'm not bothered though, personally I love the limitations of the A500/A1200/CD32, with some added ram perhaps.

[golem]

Question for any muso Vampire beta testers..
Does OctaMED Soudstudio work in 16-bit with the new PAM audio?

[digiflip]

Originally Posted by MickGyver

Maybe he doesn't need one? I have a MiSTer though and it's enough for my Amiga needs. Although not as fast as a Vampire, and lack of RTG at the moment (will probably come), the MiSTer can do SO much more and it is well cheaper (~150€ for the DE10-Nano + SDRAM). If you really need the extra speed and RTG, then go for the Vampire, I'm not bothered though, personally I love the limitations of the A500/A1200/CD32, with some added ram perhaps.

don't tell gunnar this, got banned from apollo forums for mentioning mister could hold v4 core since de 10 nano has bigger fpga logic

[MickGyver]

Originally Posted by digiflip

don't tell gunnar this, got banned from apollo forums for mentioning mister could hold v4 core since de 10 nano has bigger fpga logic

The Terasic DE10-Nano used for the MiSTer is sold at a bargain price so it's very hard to compete with. The Cyclone V chip used in it costs over 200€ alone if bought at Mouser, so there would be no point in designing an own board around it when you can get the whole development board for about 130€.

It would be nice to see an option to buy only the Vampire V4 core for use on the MiSTer, even if MiSTer is mainly an open source project.

[studio460]

Vampire V4 standalone compatibility:

Since selling my A2000HD/Toaster way back in 1995, I only just bought a used A1200 with 3.0 ROMs, and the main reason I bought it was to run Magellan 1.1 (NOT "Opus Magellan" or "DOpus"). Magellan 1.1 is an AI "expert systems" app from Emerald Intelligence. This app only runs on 3.0 ROMs [CORRECTION: 1.3], and NOT on 3.1 ROMs (as I discovered on my old A2000). Questions:

• I read Vampire standalone is dual-boot. Does that mean 3.0 and 3.1, or 3.1 and 4.1 Final Edition?
• Can the standalone Vampire run in some kind of "1.3 emulation" mode?
• I highly doubt anyone at Apollo owns Magellan 1.1 (disk images are on the archive), but would love to know if it will run on the standalone Vampire before I buy.

Thanks!

[daxb]

If your A1200 has enough fastram or better an accelerator with fastram that supports ROM remap, you can softkick (remap) your 3.0 ROM or any other version. I don't know but I'm guessing that Vampire V4 standalone could have problems with a 3.0 ROM if it works. OS4 isn't supported as far as I know because it is PPC and Apollo core is 68k. Maybe it is better to fix/patch Magellan 1.1.

[studio460]

Originally Posted by daxb

If your A1200 has enough fastram or better an accelerator with fastram that supports ROM remap, you can softkick (remap) your 3.0 ROM or any other version . . .

Really? That's cool! Thanks! Yes, the A1200 I bought from the EU (I'm in Los Angeles) won't be here for a week or so, but it does have 8MB of RAM expansion installed, but no accelerator. Which accelerator would be best for an A1200 to be able to do that (sorry, OT)?

As for a fix/patch to Magellan, I would have no idea how to do that. As cool as Magellan was, they never got past the shrink-wrapped 1.1 version (the only version I ever saw commercially released), and the original developers are nowhere to be found (I've been searching for over a decade).

[studio460]

Originally Posted by daxb

. . . I don't know but I'm guessing that Vampire V4 standalone could have problems with a 3.0 ROM if it works. OS4 isn't supported as far as I know because it is PPC and Apollo core is 68k. Maybe it is better to fix/patch Magellan 1.1.

Interesting. What OS will the Vampire V4 standalone run? Only 3.1?

Yeah, if Magellan was picky enough not to run on 3.1 [CORRECTION: 1.3], I'm pretty skeptical about it running on anything else, FPGA or otherwise. Thanks for your comments!

[studio460]

[Back on-topic:]

Am I looking foward to a Vampire V4 standalone? Hell yes!

There were many graphics apps for Amiga which actually aren't really bested by modern macOS apps (or Windows for that matter). Mostly the digital signage apps and Chyron-type apps: e.g., Scala, Broadcast Titler, etc. Sure, you can do this in Adobe After Effects or an NLE, but the AGA-driven signage apps were killer for rapid, easy-to-create type and color-field animation.

If and when the V4 ships, I would be loading it up with those apps. Then I would convert some decent Adobe typeface libraries to the required bitmaps (e.g., Helevtica Neue, Futura, etc.) since the Amiga never had any decent typeface libraries produced for it (I owned them all, and they were actually quite bad). I suppose I would have to outline them in Adobe Illustrator and export as bitmaps, but would need some sort of Amiga font utility to turn them into font libraries.

So the most recent news I found:

• Prototype boot-up into 3.1, February 2019.
• Product expected to ship July, 2019.

So, I'm building my V4 look-alike out of a genuine A1200 as soon as my Apollo case and Kipper2K keyboard ships, but to have a modern-spec'd FPGA Amiga in that sexy jet-black case would be a 30-year-dream come true. I've always hated Apple-beige (I spray-painted my Apple II matte-black, then bought a Franklin), and hated even more, Commodore-beige. I mean, how sexy is this:

[daxb]

First, I would try the software way to run Magellan if you will use >= 3.1 ROM. For example http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/TUDE is worth a try. At least it says "Kickstart Degrader." With http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/skick346 you should be able to rekick to ROM 3.1. For old Blizzard accelerators there is BlizKick and for old Apollo 040/060 there is RemApollo. The new ACA accelerators use its own software for ROM remap. There might be other cards that support it too but I don't know. Start a new thread about it, because it's to offtopic here.

About what OS version will work on Vampire's I would say at least 3.1, 3.9 and 3.1.4. An Atari OS (TOS?) is also supported.

[studio460]

Yeah, sorry for the off-topic, but thanks for all your advice! I just found out about the Kilpper2K dual-/quad-ROM Kickstart keyboard-switchable boards (hold reset to switch boot-ROMs). Seems awesome! Now I'm on the hunt for an Indivision AGA MK1 adapter (my A1200 only has the low-res ScanJumper Lite in it). Okay, back on-topic . . .

Vampire V4 standalone supported OS versions?

Originally Posted by daxb

About what OS version will work on Vampire's I would say at least 3.1, 3.9 and 3.1.4. An Atari OS (TOS?) is also supported.

Thanks. Yeah, I swore I saw "dual-boot" capability mentioned in either the Forbes article or some Apollo Facebook quote. Atari OS is also supported in V4? That's fantastic!!!

[digiflip]

Originally Posted by MickGyver

The Terasic DE10-Nano used for the MiSTer is sold at a bargain price so it's very hard to compete with. The Cyclone V chip used in it costs over 200€ alone if bought at Mouser, so there would be no point in designing an own board around it when you can get the whole development board for about 130€.

It would be nice to see an option to buy only the Vampire V4 core for use on the MiSTer, even if MiSTer is mainly an open source project.

true they could design an vampire amiga io board for it if they did

[digiflip]

Originally Posted by daxb

First, I would try the software way to run Magellan if you will use >= 3.1 ROM. For example http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/TUDE is worth a try. At least it says "Kickstart Degrader." With http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/skick346 you should be able to rekick to ROM 3.1. For old Blizzard accelerators there is BlizKick and for old Apollo 040/060 there is RemApollo. The new ACA accelerators use its own software for ROM remap. There might be other cards that support it too but I don't know. Start a new thread about it, because it's to offtopic here.

About what OS version will work on Vampire's I would say at least 3.1, 3.9 and 3.1.4. An Atari OS (TOS?) is also supported.

EmuTos has added Standalone v4 vampire support recently in his changelog notes

[studio460]

Can anyone post a link or tell me how to find the Apollo Vampire V4 Facebook page? Thanks!

[digiflip]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1426384837419519/

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by digiflip

EmuTos has added Standalone v4 vampire support recently in his changelog notes

It can be good news for Atari users, for Amiga users I think it's time and resources lost, on the Vampire in so has not been produced any software, games or a modern operating system for that card, in my opinion is a small failure, sorry for my frankness, i do not want to ignite controversy.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by AMIGASYSTEM

i do not want to ignite controversy.

So why do you do then?

(and not the first time regarding this topic)

[AMIGASYSTEM]

I think there's a free thought here, the fact that you don't like it shows that I said something right.