Macrosystem Falcon 1240 accelerator

[gulliver]

Hi all, i have a Falcon 1240 accelerator made by Macrosystem for an a1200. I am trying to upgrade the 68040 cpu with a 68060. Does any of you know how to do this upgrade or perhaps have the manual for this accelerator? (Some brochures i found on internet say its upgradeable, but then there is no precise info whatsoever).

Thanks

[DDNI]

I looked at BBOAH and amiga hardware database. No more info there I am afraid.

Yours is the first Falcon 1240 that I have heard of that is in use.... I think it must be a rare card.

The pictures on BBOAH are quite poor. Maybe you could take some better high resolution ones and send them to the BBOAH team?

[Zetr0]

heys gulliver

if its anything like the Blizzard or Apollo 040's then you will need a ROM update and a voltage regulator to step down from 5 volts to 3.5 volts.

It might be wise to get into contact with Per Gunnar from amiga.org he upgrades a lot of 040 accelerators.

[gulliver]

Thank you all !!! (I hope i get lucky and someone uploads the manual)

@Zetro I understand that i will need a voltage regulator, but a rom update, why?
Anyway, i will contact Per Gunnar

[Zetr0]

@gulliver

well as i understand it, in a non-technical explanation, the 68060 in a lot of ways has to re-interpret a fair few 68000 instructions and then map them to its own. an 040 and an 060 have a different set of mapped instructions, thus you need a different ROM to tell it how and what to do.

essentially an 060 emulates a 68000 chip, argaubly so does an 040, but not to the same degree.

A smidgeon more technical

Another interesting fact about the FPU of the 040/060 is that dont have the full instruction cache of the 68881/2 FPU, infact although its comparible on speed it loses a lot of this due to having to implement an instruction handler as it transposes 68881/2 instructions to function in the 040/060, have a look for HSMaths this will explain a lot more, and this can drastically IMPROVE your computers ability (in speed) to calculate floating point math

anyway i hope that ramble helps

[musashi5150]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

the full instruction cache of the 68881/2 FPU

Set?

[Zetr0]

yeah yeah

its early.... i haven't had my cornflakes

(all thats left is to say.... match.... and game )

[Toni Wilen]

Accelerator's ROM only (*) disables 68060's FPU (writes to 68060-only PCR register). Thats basically the difference between 68060 booting or crashing.

Kickstart FPU detection routine crashes because 68060 FPU has longer FPU stack frame which overwrites Kickstart's data structures..

68060.library patches FPU routines and re-enables the FPU.

* It can also include RAM initialization, accelerator enable/disable feature etc but that has nothing to do with 68060 support. Blizzard 1260's ROM is very simple for example.

[gulliver]

Thanks for the technical information, now i understand the rom issue!

[Zetr0]

@Toni

have you tried HSMaths on WinUAE ? i havent as of yet, just curious if you have and if you noticed a difference running in 060 mode compared to the fpu implementation ?

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@Toni

have you tried HSMaths on WinUAE ? i havent as of yet, just curious if you have and if you noticed a difference running in 060 mode compared to the fpu implementation ?

No, not interested. (and there are no sources available)

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

No, not interested. (and there are no sources available)

I can certainly understand that