Budget A1200 accelerators

[Radertified]

• The Vampire 1200 costs 450€
• The ACA1233n-55 costs 379,92€ (68030 @ 55MHz with MMU)
• Presumably the ACA1240/1260 will be expensive too.
• The Warp 1260 looks interesting but pricing is yet unknown (AFAIK).
• ARES Accelerator - https://twitter.com/edu_arana/status...77317175693312 - Very little is known about it.
• TF1260 - Promising...

Will budget A1200 accelerators ever be a thing? Something in the 200-300€ range for a decent 030/040/060. (maybe not 040, what with potential heat issues in the trapdoor)

I understand an Amiga 500 FPGA accelerator is in the works. Does such a thing exist for the A1200?

---

EDIT: Added TF1260 and ARES to the list.

[loonsta]

My guess is that economies of scale aren't really much of a factor when it comes to Amiga gear anymore.

[LieutLaww]

Part of the problem is they are not exactly cheap to make (certain chips are getting harder to find and there are a lot of fakes out there these days) and they are not selling in huge amount so unfortunately that pushes the prices up even on cheaper things

[ealm]

I'm getting a Vampire V4. 579 EUR for an entire Amiga system faster than the fastest A1200 + 060 accelerator. Much cheaper also, considering you don't have to buy accelerator + RTG + flicker fixer + NIC + SD card module etc.

Next step will be to get a retro case for it. I'm considering an old A600 or A1000 case, or else I'll just get the Checkmate A1500+.

[trixster]

Your best hope will be the Terrible Fire TF1260

[Lord Aga]

Well there was an affordable ACA 030 model, 20...something MHz, for a while. But no more. I guess that was a nice mid range entry.

[sneeker]

I thhink my old aca 1232/40 was only £130-140 at the time so half the price of the current offering for 15 mhz less. Even my current apollo 1240 was 50 euros less then the current aca.

Im looking forward to seeing the prices of the tf1260 and warp1260 are as they're looking to be the most likely candidates for an upgrade.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Radertified

• The Vampire 1200 costs 450€
• The ACA1233n-55 costs 379,92€ (68030 @ 55MHz with MMU)
• Presumably the ACA1240/1260 will be expensive too.
• The Warp 1260 looks interesting but pricing is yet unknown (AFAIK).

Will budget A1200 accelerators ever be a thing? Something in the 200-300€ range for a decent 030/040/060.

I understand an Amiga 500 FPGA accelerator is in the works. Does such a thing exist for the A1200?

ACA1232 @ 33-50 MHz is/was within your 200-300€ price range. 1233 @ 55 is a very low volume premium product, hence the premium price.

A1200 FPGA accelerator: You mention Vampire 1200 yourself so yes it does exist.

[duga]

Get a fast ram card and your A1200 will fly compared to only chip mem. Costs <€100.

Or a used or new 030 card for the price you're prepared to pay.

[d4rk3lf]

I wonder, what are the number of games and apps that will utilize 030 strength, over fast 020?
Doom?
Well, from what I saw, on 030 is also pretty slow, and you'd need an 040 to get really smooth gameplay. Maybe some rendering apps will use it? Are you going to do renders?
From what I saw on youtube in recent years, I feel that jump from 020 to 030 is not that big as with 030 to 040.

Btw, the above questions are not rhetorical.
I also ask, because I don't know.
How many apps and games you can really feel works a lot better on 030, then on fast 020 (Some of cheap Aca 020 cards, for eample)?

[Radertified]

I forgot about the TF1260. Sourcing a legit 060 could be a hassle but assuming it also goes open source, that'll definitely keep costs minimal.

I also forgot to mention the Ares Accelerator which has an 030, though very little is known about it. The only reference I can find about it is at: https://twitter.com/edu_arana/status...77317175693312

I know it's difficult but it's just strange to me that in 2020, FPGA accelerators haven't become more of a mainstream thing.

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

I wonder, what are the number of games and apps that will utilize 030 strength, over fast 020?

Yeah, it is kinda difficult to justify. It's more of a "How much do you have to spend to make yourself feel good" conundrum

A fast 020 (20+ MHz) with FAST RAM kicks your Workbench into overdrive. The system is snappy and colorful. 2D games (strategies, general loading time) are also improved. 3D games... nothing is ever enough! A 50MHz 030 is noticeably faster then a 40MHz 020. But we could always use more speed!

[Amiga4000]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this from iComp, the ACA1221lc is available for purchase at the moment for 149,94 €.



https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/...aca1221lc.html

[dodke]

Originally Posted by Radertified

Will budget A1200 accelerators ever be a thing?

Almost every Amiga shop now sells a A1200 8 MB Fast RAM expansion for around £70 so I'd say budget accelerators are definitely a thing.
Surely all these cheap fast memory boards popping up are partly due to the recent open source efforts from TerribleFire etc. For faster accelerators sourcing processors is tricky but hopefully they will be available one day soon as well. Perhaps it will be possible to get the boards for cheap without a processor so buying an 060 CPU only for now might not be the worst idea.

Anyway, simply adding fast memory does give quite a big boost to the speed of an A1200 for old software and games. And I'd imagine most games that utilise the chipset for drawing graphics (with blitter etc) will not even benefit much from faster processors.
The games that will however be quite slow with only extra fast RAM would be ones that draw everything with CPU (textured 3d generally) and copy the graphics from fast to chip memory to display it.

[Higgy]

TF1260 will be a game changer. ~€150 but you need to source the CPU.
If you dont want an FPU then an LC 060 can be had for ~€40
Software adjustable speed (Mhz clock) is really nice for this card. Run at 50Mhz 95% time then ramp up for demos and 3d

Warp 1260 has really impressive spec and the mechanical engineering behind the heat sink and fan look top notch, but it's all going to cost.

A faulty Apollo 1240 sold for £244 on ebay last week, so it is certainly time for budget accelerators to shine.

[eXeler0]

If the tf1260 is released as Open Source one day and someone "converts" it into a 1240 design (5v instead of 3.3v etc) then that would probably be good bang for the buck design as full 040 (25MHz) can easily be found for €20-25

[Lord Aga]

That would indeed be a powerhouse for both Amiga systems, and Mac emulation. But I am a bit skeptical when it comes to all those easy-to-find, cheap-as-dirt CPUs.

[amigakit.com]

Almost every Amiga shop now sells a A1200 8 MB Fast RAM expansion for around £70

We noticed all of these other expansions are simply 8MB RAM with no extra features and were being sold for around 100 EUR. As soon as we released our new A1200 8MB RAM card at £59 the average price of cards came down sharply.



Apart from the lowest price, the AmigaKit A1200 8MB RAM card has extra features such as:


* optional FPU up to 40MHz
* optional Real Time Clock
* Second clockport header for further expansion



We are working now to make this product even better in future and keep prices affordable for the community.

Surely all these cheap fast memory boards popping up are partly due to the recent open source efforts from TerribleFire etc

The AmigaKit A1200 8MB RAM card is a new development from ground up and does not use technology from any open source efforts.