Individual Computers - New accelerator cards for A600 & A1200

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Correct. 68EC020@16.6MHz with all the 0-waitstate fastmem the thing can address, plus Maprom - that is the plan. However, that's just a theoretical thing in my CAD system.

Jens

I used to have the 28mhz Blizzard 1220 and that was pretty good. I'm sure the extra tweaks you'll put in will make this well worth owning. Count me in!

[mutch]

Jens :"Nope, the ACA630 will not be produced any more."

Bummer. Really like the new concept though!

Best tell Amigakit and Vesalia, they both still have them listed.

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...oducts_id=1003
http://www.vesalia.de/e_aca630-25.htm

[FOL]

Originally Posted by mutch

Jens :"Nope, the ACA630 will not be produced any more."

Bummer. Really like the new concept though!

Best tell Amigakit and Vesalia, they both still have them listed.

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...oducts_id=1003
http://www.vesalia.de/e_aca630-25.htm

Its listed for reference, you cant order it.

[Methanoid]

Actually I'd buy a 28mhz 020 for an A1200 from Jens and a 16mhz 020 for an A600... Get some made PLEASE

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Correct. 68EC020@16.6MHz with all the 0-waitstate fastmem the thing can address, plus Maprom - that is the plan. However, that's just a theoretical thing in my CAD system.

Jens

Jens

If/when this gets made, I know you think about other expansions inside any Amiga. The ACA630 blocks use of CF-HDD adaptors (without cable). Would be nice if the new accel could co-exist with those that clip in instead of a HDD

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

Jens

If/when this gets made, I know you think about other expansions inside any Amiga. The ACA630 blocks use of CF-HDD adaptors (without cable). Would be nice if the new accel could co-exist with those that clip in instead of a HDD

Not sure what you mean by blocking the CF adapters, both of mine can coexist with the ACA630, or mabbe i am not understanding what you meant ?

[thgill]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

Not sure what you mean by blocking the CF adapters, both of mine can coexist with the ACA630, or mabbe i am not understanding what you meant ?

I assume he is talking about the small CF adapters that press down over the IDE pins that don't need a cable.

Like these:

[FOL]

Simple way around it is to use a 6cm cable, this allows you to lay the cf board over the pcmcia slot perfectly.

No need for anything else then.

[Crumb]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Correct. 68EC020@16.6MHz with all the 0-waitstate fastmem the thing can address, plus Maprom - that is the plan. However, that's just a theoretical thing in my CAD system.

Jens

I use NedoPC's A608 and it can be configured to use 5.5MB of fastmem without blocking PCMCIA port. 68EC020 means it won't be able to use more than 5.5MB of fastmem without blocking PCMCIA port, right?

Perhaps another 0.5MB could be added for the MAPROM if the same addresses are used and still keep the 5.5MB.

Would a full 020 make the design much more expensive?

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by Crumb

I use NedoPC's A608 and it can be configured to use 5.5MB of fastmem without blocking PCMCIA port. 68EC020 means it won't be able to use more than 5.5MB of fastmem without blocking PCMCIA port, right?

Perhaps another 0.5MB could be added for the MAPROM if the same addresses are used and still keep the 5.5MB.

Would a full 020 make the design much more expensive?

The cost of a refurbished 020 chip alone is about $30 - $45. so they are not cheap unless you can buy in bulk

[Schoenfeld]

"buy in bulk" is not really an option, as all the stock out there is scattered in small quantities all over different chip brokers. The trick on this new low-cost card is that all components are SMT and they're mounted on the same side as the 68-pin socket that goes on the 68000 processor. The result is that the whole thing can be produced in a standard process without too much manual work. The appearance of the card would be that all components face down after it's installed in the A600.

Also, 5.5MBytes is not what I'm looking for. The smallest 32-bit SD-Ram chip you can buy these days is 16MByte, and a lot of that will be idle/unusable on the card. However, the PCMCIA vs. Fastram thing is a kickstart limitation, not a hardware limitation. To get around that, I'd make just a few MBytes auto-config, then let Kickstart do it's PCMCIA thing and add the rest of the fastmem to the freemem list when PCMCIA is fully activated. It *should* result in a machine with 9MBytes fastmem, and no loss of usable memory if you activate Maprom. As a result, 6MBytes of physical memory would be unused.

If there's some space in the logic, I could add some memory here and there, provided that the Amiga OS and programs can handle memory in unusual areas:

1472 KBytes at $a8.0000 to $bf.0000
512 KBytes at $d0.0000 to $d8.0000
896 KBytes at $ea.0000 to $f8.0000

This would add 2.8MBytes to usable system ram, resulting in a machine with a total of 11.8MBytes fastmem. Again, Maprom would come for free in that system, PCMCIA would work for networking and you just have to forget about 3.2MBytes that will be completely unusable (not even for special software).

Jens

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by thgill

I assume he is talking about the small CF adapters that press down over the IDE pins that don't need a cable.

Like these:

Yes, fact of matter is these are VERY cheap and work. Personally I think Kipper2k's solutions ARE better but inevitably more of the cheaper ones will be sold.

If Jens new accel isnt friendly to the cheapie CF adapters then I'll just have to buy Kipper2k's one!!

Hi all

Just thought I would let you know of a cure to the problem I had been having with my ACA 1231/42 card which appears to have been resolved. My card was delivered new with the metal heatsink, however I had not removed the two Capacitors as advised E123C and E125C from the motherboard and am only using a 25W PSU with an external CDrom attached. For a number of weeks I had been having the problem of the system just locking up with a 800002 Error message appearing. Often this would take place within about 30 mins of use and the heatsink itself was rather hot.

However I did remove the timing capacitors from my motherboard and this really made no difference whatsoever to the problem. What has cured the problem however is a tower fan unit blowing cold air on to the next to the machine and under the open trapdoor slot and this has kept the processor cool. I left the machine running overnight and found the next morning using this method that there wasnt a problem.

As my A1200 is still its original casing, placing a fan inside is a a tad impractical, however what I have found works rather well is placing the A1200 on top of a laptop chill mat. I have purchased one from Clas Ohlson with a twin fan and it keeps the A1200 cool, although the trapdoor slot still has to be left open. So far so good as it has yet to crash in about 3 days of heavy use.

Also please note that the Card appeared not to be compatible with the Archos CDrom drive (and I suspect the Zappo CDrom drives as these were the same) as there appeared to be a conflict with the card and the CDrom drive. So for others who do have this type of CDrom drive you may want to swap to an IDE solution.

Other than that its a fantastic card, much quicker than the Apollo 1230 I used to have and nice to have the extra memory on board too so a big thanks to Jens :-)

[Coltch]

I think heat is the problem with my 1231, I haven't tried the card in my other A1200 yet - but it does get very warm (trapdoor cover off and in an AT 1200, heatsink pre-installed). The laptop cooler sounds a nice work around.

[melbourneben!]

I have a 1D4 motherboard and haven't had any problems with heat or crashing. I keep the trapdoor cover on.

[Coltch]

I've now put my 1231 in my 1D1 A1200 and have had none of the issues I had in the 1D4 board in my AT A1200, the card doesn't get anywhere near as warm and I dont have any lock-ups.

I do have to use ACATune in the startup sequence though as I only have KS3.0 and the memory wasn't being recognised.

I experienced the problem on a 2b revision motherboard and the card was getting hot enough to provide a cheaper rival to my central heating in winter ;-) but the twin fan laptop cooler appears to have been a wise choice as it still hasn't crashed once now one week on.

[Retrofan]

Hi:
I've bought an ACA1231/42 and I've just received it. I've dowloaded the Acatune from the link in Vesalia, but I'm not sure if the commands are the right ones for it. All is running fine, but is this ok?:



Those commands are the same I'm using with the ACA1230/56.

EDIT: Ok, no. I see it's better ACATUNE -maprom ** p -cache on -burst on >NIL:

Now it shows maprom activated and the last options all on.

[mfilos]

As I wrote you on your PM regarding the same question...

ACA1231 only supports cache and burst modes and not the other special options that ACA1230 and ACA630 supported.
AFAIK even the burst mode is disabled in the new versions of safelogic boot firmware but I'm not quite sure.

[Schoenfeld]

Burst is enabled on all ACA1231. It was disabled only for internal trials, which I mentioned in some post, but that version of the logic never reached any customer.

Jens