Zeus68k – Accelerator/IDE/RAM for the A500/2000/CDTV and others

[BarryB]

When are the pre-orders being accepted?

[mr.vince]

Let's finish the design, let's put up the website... then find out about final production cost... then ask for binding pre-orders.

You haven't seen these, have you?

[TotO]

Impressive !

[TotO]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I already replied earlier that problem is missing Amiga IDE DMA controller implementation.

It's true. The Amiga power goes through it's DMA capabilities, and getting an IDE DMA will allow the best for our computer and it's multitask.

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

Let's finish the design, let's put up the website... then find out about final production cost... then ask for binding pre-orders.

You havn't seen these, have you?

Attachment 32353

Attachment 32354

Awesome work!

Any chance you could go back to using the right angled IDE connector from the original prototype or offer a right-angle IDE adaptor as an option?

[1time]

Looks wonderful. Cant wait.....

I really hope this one will be a MAJOR hit, so you guys can do more hardware projects to our Amigas.

[luncheon]

Looks great! I can't wait for its release, I'll be buying one of these for my A500 for sure!

Modifying the contents of the Spartan3 it could also be made useful for Mac 128k, Mac 512k and Mac Plus owners IMHO.

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by dJOS

Any chance you could go back to using the right angled IDE connector from the original prototype or offer a right-angle IDE adaptor as an option?

This means you are not interested in using this in a computer that might be using a third party flickerfixer?

We might change it for the final production run if there's enough space.

[gibs]

Originally Posted by luncheon

Looks great! I can't wait for its release, I'll be buying one of these for my A500 for sure!

Modifying the contents of the Spartan3 it could also be made useful for Mac 128k, Mac 512k and Mac Plus owners IMHO.

Maybe the cores from the Turbo Chameleon 64 can be ported ?

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

This means you are not interested in using this in a computer that might be using a third party flickerfixer?

We might change it for the final production run if there's enough space.

Hmmm good point, scratch that idea.

[CUF]

Originally Posted by FastRobPlus

Definitely want this is it fits the A1000 or the Phoenix 1000

So... Will these fit in an Amiga 1000?

[mr.vince]

Open it up, take a look... I can't say because of different revisions, it might collide with some piggback or whatever.

Maybe we create a cutout shape as a PDF so you guys could help by cutting it out and trying if it would.

[BarryB]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

Maybe we create a cutout shape as a PDF so you guys could help by cutting it out and trying if it would.

Sounds like a right 'Blue Peter' job that

You sure this Zeus thing isn't made out of some Stickyback Plastic and Cardboard Toilet Rolls??

[FastRobPlus]

I've already applied a best-guess based on the pics here, using the known size of the 68000 outline as the baseline to get the overall size. It *might just* fit fine without issues. The real concern is with the IDE connector bumping up against the underside of the disk drive or the 1000's massive disk drive mounting plate.

The mounting plate is a non-issue, you can dremmel that away - the thing is made of recycled battleship steel or something - you could cut way 8-90% of it and it would still be more than strong enough to suspend the floppy disk drive firmly.

Then there's the disk drive itself. The A1000 uses 3 different makes of drive mechanisms. All are different thicknesses, but all must align with the A1000's front drive slot opening.

Depending on which drive mechanism you have, you might be able to get away with cutting away at the drive's own external housing, and either raise the device high enough on socket extenders to clear the drive, or cut away enough of the drive underside to let the device clear that way.

Here's a 68040 board in one of my A1000s where I had to cut away both the drive mechanism's housing and the mounting plate:


Hopefully, with the Zeus it won't be quite that extreme.

What is really needed is a small 68000 socket-shifter - a device that moves the A1000's 68000 socket down about one inch. That would probably allow most A500 plug in accelerators to fit, including the two new ones being discussed here. I've seen a few people make their own - I even saw someone publish an egl pcb file for one a few years back, but nobody has ever actually produced a run of this adapter.

[luncheon]

Originally Posted by gibs

Maybe the cores from the Turbo Chameleon 64 can be ported ?

Thing is, does a Spartan3 has enough gates to host not only the Gayle IDE and the rest of the necessary glue logic, but also a 6510, SID and VIC chips? The question would be how many 'idle gates' does the Spartan3 have with all the stuff already on the Zeus68k?

Maybe with a 50mhz 68000 we can run real time C64 software emulation directly on the A500?

[mr.vince]

No, this is an 68k accelerator...

[TotO]

[luncheon]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

No, this is an 68k accelerator...

That's what I meant: what's the point on doing that, if you can emulate a C64 in software? (I'd rather use my proper C64 instead of emulating one, but that's just me )

Besides that, it would be interesting to know how many space is left on the FPGA to implement additional expansion hardware.

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by luncheon

Besides that, it would be interesting to know how many space is left on the FPGA to implement additional expansion hardware.

I'd like to see FPGA-based hardware assist for things like JPEG and MP3 decoding. One of these days I'll get around to trying to implement such things on one of the Minimig ports. If I ever find time, and actually succeed, the sources will of course be available for inclusion or adaptation in projects like this.

[TotO]

You can natively display great HAM pictures and play amazing 8svx audio streaming in real time... Why you ever want to make it a PC instead of using it as a glory AMIGA !?