New 68030 accelerators for A1200

[spudje]

Couldn't resist and bought an ACA1233 as the CPU card to drive a future Amiga Reloaded, which will be housed in the new Amiga Case! Jens can you give some more details about the network module mentioned on the Reloaded wiki, in the Reloaded thread maybe, asked same question there? Here's also hoping that the Prisma will work on the clock port. Then I'll have an Amiga system based on all new hardware (except for the ICs on the Amiga reloaded and CPU chip of course).

[Amiga1992]

Jesus, I am glad my 030 accelerator is still working, I could never afford an expansion like this
Glad to see new hardware of this type, shame I won't be able to own it!

Originally Posted by eXeler0

What is the main reason for not producing a 040 card?

Isn't the 040 very incompatible? I thought the best chips to use are either the 030 or the 060.

[snoopy77]

Anyone got a sysinfo screenshot on the 55mhz card?

Cheers,

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Akira

Jesus, I am glad my 030 accelerator is still working, I could never afford an expansion like this
Glad to see new hardware of this type, shame I won't be able to own it!



Isn't the 040 very incompatible? I thought the best chips to use are either the 030 or the 060.

Commodore produced a lot of official 040 based Amigas and theres a ton of 040 accelerators for various Amiga models out there since the early 90s. Dont think its a big issue ;-) And its a choice...

[dannyp1]

I know 040's run hot. Could this be a reason?

[snoopy77]

Originally Posted by dannyp1

I know 040's run hot. Could this be a reason?

Would imagine so, plus the chips are probably a fair bit harder to come by than 030's.

I'm guessing the 25mhz-40mhz 030's must be easy to get in good volumes which paves the way for occasional 50mhz boards when those cpu's can be sourced. Might be a different story altogether to do an 040 board if the even the slowest 040 chips are going to be hard to come by.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by snoopy77

Would imagine so, plus the chips are probably a fair bit harder to come by than 030's.

I'm guessing the 25mhz-40mhz 030's must be easy to get in good volumes which paves the way for occasional 50mhz boards when those cpu's can be sourced. Might be a different story altogether to do an 040 board if the even the slowest 040 chips are going to be hard to come by.

The reloaded mobo will have no CPU, the reasoning being that whatever he (Jens) chooses, it will be the wrong choice for a lot of ppl. Fair enough.. bring your own accelerator, right? Except, he wont guarantee functionality beyond his own accelerators, which is sort of understandable... still.. a lot of ppl out there wont accept to be "maxed out" at a 55MHz 030. Especially not if you've used 040 or 060 since the 90s.

So for the sake of his own market reach, it would be good to have a card at 040 or 060 performance levels. Could be a card with 128MB memory and an empty socket for either 040 or 060 and a 3.3 / 5v voltage regulator switch.
And let other worry about acquirering the CPU.

Then again... if the Vampire 1200 works with the reloaded mobo, then we can forget this whole 040/060 idea soon enough. ;-)

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by Akira

Isn't the 040 very incompatible? I thought the best chips to use are either the 030 or the 060.

AFAIK the 060 is even more incompatible than the 040 030 is the best one compatibility-wise.

Jens should just produce a new 040/060 design just like the old Blizzard cards. Call it ACA1240/1260, leave the CPU slot empty and let the users source the CPUs themselves! I've got an E41J 060 which would be very happy to sit in such a card! I know it's a warranty nightmare and that's _exactly_ what Jens wants to avoid, but there's an huge demand for it, so something MUST be done!

[crazyc]

When we say incompatible - what do you mean?
WHDLOAD takes care of compatibility for games as far as I know, and I have not yet found anything that doesn't play nice with my B1260.

I have had a few B1230s and have seen no difference in compatibility with the 1260 apart from needing to add the libs to workbench, which is a one off anyway.

[CrashMidnick]

060 is very compatiblble, 040 too. I had more problems with some 030 accelerators compared to 040/060 one when using the right libraries. 90% of time I use my 060 accelerated Amiga's, everything I use is working just fine (whdload, softwares such as wordworth, turbocalc, lightwave, sound trackers, amigaamp...).
Even a monkey like me can add a CPU on its sockets, I can't see where is the difficulty and how we can destroy something except the CPU itself.

Anyway thanks Jens for this new accelerators, even if I am not a "030 target" at that price.

[spudje]

A new 68060 board would be awesome, but I believe these 060s are the hardest to be found. And I don't dare to think what the price will be, seeing the Blizzards 1260 go for 700+ Euro these days...

[Sandro]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

@Schoenfeldt I'm always impressed when new hardware comes out for the classic Amiga.
However, there is one thing I've wondered about, (and likely it has been asked numerous times before, but cant find the answer right now).
What is the main reason for not producing a 040 card? AFAIK 040 chips are easily obtainable and prices are reasonable.. (Heck, I have one lying around at home that Im not using).
(It could use the same "unlock system" as used on ACA1221?)
I have a vague memory of an argument that e.g. a 060 card would simply be too expensive, but seeing 030 cards @ €400 makes me question whether it would be possible to produce a 040 at that price?

if Schoenfeldt for a 030 clocked at 50mhz wants 300, for a 040 turboboard board expect to pay 800, I don't think you will be interested

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by CrashMidnick

060 is very compatiblble, 040 too. I had more problems with some 030 accelerators compared to 040/060 one when using the right libraries. 90% of time I use my 060 accelerated Amiga's, everything I use is working just fine (whdload, softwares such as wordworth, turbocalc, lightwave, sound trackers, amigaamp...).
Even a monkey like me can add a CPU on its sockets, I can't see where is the difficulty and how we can destroy something except the CPU itself.

Anyway thanks Jens for this new accelerators, even if I am not a "030 target" at that price.

Maybe most games have been fixed by now? I remember reading this...
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=34854

Anyway, yes, adding a CPU to a Socket is easy enough, but apparently Jens doesn't want to deal with supporting a crapload of different combinations (pretty understandable) which can happen with different 040/060 masks, frequencies, fake CPUs etc... The truth is even if you put a giant sticker that says "No support nor refunds are offered for this, you are on your own!" on the card someone will STILL complain to him and that's what he wants to avoid as it's just not worth it.

Originally Posted by spudje

A new 68060 board would be awesome, but I believe these 060s are the hardest to be found. And I don't dare to think what the price will be, seeing the Blizzards 1260 go for 700+ Euro these days...

The 060s can be found for pretty cheap usually (20-80EURs) and 040s for even less, the issue is there's no reliable source to buy them in quantities, and that's why Jens can't offer a complete 040/060 board.

A bare 040/060 accelerator without CPU and warranty would probably cost 300EUR max... (I hope)

[CrashMidnick]

Originally Posted by jbenam

Anyway, yes, adding a CPU to a Socket is easy enough, but apparently Jens doesn't want to deal with supporting a crapload of different combinations (pretty understandable) which can happen with different 040/060 masks, frequencies, fake CPUs etc... The truth is even if you put a giant sticker that says "No support nor refunds are offered for this, you are on your own!" on the card someone will STILL complain to him and that's what he wants to avoid as it's just not worth it.

Well, why not sending our CPU to him so that he can fit it correctly on a socket ? It takes approx 5 seconds...


For whdload games, for sure Apydia and Zool are fixed and/or are working with mmulibs on my 3640. The others I do not know as I do not play them.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Sandro

if Schoenfeldt for a 030 clocked at 50mhz wants 300, for a 040 turboboard board expect to pay 800, I don't think you will be interested

Dont quite follow the logic here tbh. You're not paying a fixed € / MIPS ratio here ;-)
Generally speaking, dont see why a 040 automatically must be more expensive to produce just because the CPU is faster. Back in the old days, the main difference between buying a 040 card vs 060 was actual difference in CPU price.

But as we still havent seen one from Jens by now.. Therefore Im guessing that the Vampire is a much more likely solution to happen within our lifetime ;-)

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

But as we still havent seen one from Jens by now.. Therefore Im guessing that the Vampire is a much more likely solution to happen within our lifetime ;-)

That's because Jens has clearly stated he'll never make one

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by jbenam

That's because Jens has clearly stated he'll never make one

He isn't against FPGAs

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

...The next step would be to work with faster CPLDs (or an FPGA) and have another go at 100MHz (or more) system clock. The whole magic is in generating the right clock phases and reading the SD-Ram datasheets between the lines :-)Jens

[Sandro]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Dont quite follow the logic here tbh. You're not paying a fixed € / MIPS ratio here ;-)
Generally speaking, dont see why a 040 automatically must be more expensive to produce just because the CPU is faster. Back in the old days, the main difference between buying a 040 card vs 060 was actual difference in CPU price.

But as we still havent seen one from Jens by now.. Therefore Im guessing that the Vampire is a much more likely solution to happen within our lifetime ;-)

despite Jens or any other hardware developer gets 040 cpus at only 1 dollar per unit, a 040 turboboard will be priced way higher than a 030 because is viable and they can do it according to demand and according to the ebay prices of the 040 turboboards

it seems you lack basic knowledge about marketing,definitively you are not a sales man

[Retrofan]

I don't understand why to worry about 040 or 060; if they run hot, if they are few, if some give problems... a fully working cheap FPGA is all that you should worry about. Then you can emulate any of them or just a 020 with 100 MIPS.

Prices will become cheaper and we'll have the fastest Amigas ever. Then some of you will be more interested in better OS/programs and less in just playing games.

Jens will also be using them sooner than later. In my opinion he should be already supporting the Vampire somehow.

Just my two cents.

[Amiga1992]

What is certainly true, for me, is that if the trend of peripherals, add-ons and new Amiga hardware is going this way, economically, I'll have a hard time upgrading any machine I own ever again, and it's a bit of a shame.

THEN AGAIN, most people have accelerators for no good reason. Most software most people use has absolutely no need for an accelerator.
If there were more NEW KILLER game developments, demos, utilities, that need an 030, I would gladly save up and a purchase would be justified. But the Amiga scene, software wise, is pretty dead, and further expanding my machines seems ludicrous.

You can say that comparatively I paid more for my C64's 1541-II Ultimate and you are right, but it was SO worth it, because that scene is super active and the 1541 becomes a requirement if you are a C64 enthusiast. I would love for Amiga hardware to be the same way, but the software isn't helping. We have killer stock hardware and killer new hardware developments expanding that already cool hardware, but nobody is putting it to good use.