Individual Computers - New accelerator cards for A600 & A1200

[duga]

Originally Posted by Photon

And if you use it for that you have no card adapter or any fastram. A real expansion slot has an expansion bus.

Fastram = on the accelerator.
With a Internet connection you have less need for a PCMCIA<>CF adapter imho.

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by Photon

And if you use it for that you have no card adapter or any fastram. A real expansion slot has an expansion bus.

I don't see how Jens will internet-enable the A500 with this A500 accel (even if it would be a nice impossible feature, hehe), so if that's your point in favor of A600 accel and not in favor of A500 accel, it's a strange one...

There were ethernet adapters for the 500 if I recall but how difficult this would be nowadays I don't know... Be cool if it could be done!

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by p@rity

With the 25 version though, if I push it all the way, a click sounds and the A600 doesn't boot (white screen, no disk activity). When I lift it slightly, the system works great and has worked for days.

As others wrote, AmigaKit will be glad to help. This really sounds like microcracks on 68000 solderjoints. Chris knows about this, and I have given him microscope pictures to point him to where you need to look.

Originally Posted by p@rity

However, this morning it started generating a Watchdog error (caps lock blinking). After wiggling the accelerator a bit, the A600 started to boot normal again and runs solid without any errors for hours on end.

This has nothing to do with the CPU socket. Caps lock blinking means that the keyboard MPU has found a short in the matrix, so you should check the keyboard connection. It may not be all the way in, at an angle or otherwise not properly installed. These FDC connectors are totally flaky and very delicate. Be careful with that thing, and never pull out/insert with the upper plastic pushed down!

Jens

Question to Jens, how come I can't run the 1200 with the trapdoor on without the card overheating? when I leave the trapdoor off the amiga will run fine all day long, but with the trapdoor on, after about 1 hour it starts locking up.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Elmariachi

Question to Jens, how come I can't run the 1200 with the trapdoor on without the card overheating? when I leave the trapdoor off the amiga will run fine all day long, but with the trapdoor on, after about 1 hour it starts locking up.

This is a support case. Please file a support ticket with your reseller.

Jens

[stachu100]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

as Indivision AGA MK2 is top on my list.

Jens

Great!
I'm looking forward to buy at least one MK2 unit for A4000.

[dabone]

I ordered the 28mhz accel for my 1200 (I sold off an Apollo 1240/40mhz) and I can't wait for the aga mk2 also. That and the set of caps I just ordered will make my a1200 as stable and usable as I could ever hope for. (WHDload machine ).

Thanks for all you hard work Jens! We really do appreciate it.

I do have one question, I order the 28mhz card and also bought a 68030rc25. I should just be able to remove the ec cpu that comes on the card and pop in the rc and then enable mmu correct?


later,
dabone

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by dabone

I do have one question, I order the 28mhz card and also bought a 68030rc25. I should just be able to remove the ec cpu that comes on the card and pop in the rc and then enable mmu correct?

That'll work, yes (provided that the CPU you've bought works). Remember that this is not a recommended thing to do; you'll lose warranty if you scratch the board or otherwise damage parts while trying to change the CPU. If you don't have a desperate need for an MMU, better stay with the EC CPU.

The most common use case for the MMU ist fastrom, and that is best replaced with the built-in Maprom function. No MMU needed!

Jens

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Nothing written in stone. We're discussing some ideas over at a1k.org, where different opinions about "what's an A500 good for" have been expressed.

It's really nothing that has been decided yet, as Indivision AGA MK2 is top on my list.

Jens

How far down the list is the Chameleon Jens ?

[Exit]

really lookin forward to buy a Indivision AGA MK2...really do, please jens make enough stock! thnx

[trebormills]

looking forward to get my 56mhz aca

regret selling my a500 with hard drive all those years ago...picked up a 500+, should have kept the a500 and saved the money for the a1200....hindsight is so handy.

A500 aca would be good, i think my mate still has my a500+
a cd32 aca would also be awesome

ps
mk2 flicker fix....hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm tasty

[PulsatingQuasar]

I think it's pretty difficult to figure out what will sell the best.

The Indivision AGA mk2 seems to be an easy sell. Lot's of people have an Amiga 1200 with an expansion and if they don't the new ACA accelerators are excellent. So yes, I hope there is enough stock so I can pick up one or two.

The only reason I bought an Indivision ECS for the A600 is because I could put an ACA630 in it. I think that will be true for a lot of people. So if there won't be a new batch after this ACA630 then sales will I think mostly be limited to the ACA630 sales.

For the Amiga 500. I have no idea how much demand there is. I have no 500 nor do I want one.

An Amiga CD32 accelerator would be great. It will be more expensive than the ACA630 I reckon. But most people seem to want one. Maybe this accelerator could have Indivision onboard? That would be great! One solution fits all.

Here's my modified Indi ECS adapter. Shorter wires.

[kipper2k]

Hi All,

Here is what i done so that the ACA1230 floats in place without being tugged or pulled by the trapdoor or the expansion slot guides on either side of the card. The card sits square now and the trapdoor closes with no bulging. I used a utility knife to gradually srore the edges until it was weak enough to snap off

[rockersuke]

Hi there!

Just to let you know how things are going on with my ACA630: 100% stable behaviour after hours of ordinary workbench activity. A few WHDLoad games that run fine in my Blizzard-68030 accelerated A1200 are giving problems here, but that will probably not be ACA630 related at all. Just to name a few, Blues Brothers will unpredictably crash every now and then, and function keys are not responding in Escape From Colditz. Most games seem to be running nice... and fast, anyway!

Networking with Amigakit Easynet wireless kit seems to be fine too. My A600 pings OK with the other computers in the LAN and I even can mount a shared folder from my windows PC for fast and easy file transfering. I haven't succeded with web-browsing, though. Both versions of Aweb I've tried (latest 3.5.8 and 3.5.9) will mercilessly crash with a 8000000B guru, which sugests they're trying to do some FPU-requiring stuff even when they are not spposed to (that kind of problems with Aweb have been reported before).

Some of you are succesfully netsurfing with ACA630, so, can anyone confirm which browser will work in a KS3.1 + WB 3.1 Amiga 600 with ACA630 setup?

Thanks!

--

[Mozzerfan]

Originally Posted by rockersuke

Hi there!

Some of you are succesfully netsurfing with ACA630, so, can anyone confirm which browser will work in a KS3.1 + WB 3.1 Amiga 600 with ACA630 setup?

--

I'm successfully using Aweb 3.5.8 and Ibrowse. I wouldn't call it netsurfing though.
I'm just using it for downloading from aminet.
Edit: With aweb I turned off image loading because otherwise it crashes.

[fitzsteve]

Ok so I finnally gave in and ordered my ACA630, I'm sad its not the 64mb version though. Don't care about the speed so much but would have like the extra Ram.

Could someone with hacking skills upgrade the Ram?

Of course I know that would wipe out the warranty

What if I offered Jens £XXX to pimp my ACA? 50mhz / 128mb version?

You know you want to

Anyway so now I'll have ACA630/A603/IndiECS and a HxC Floppy emulator on the way. Should be a nice setup

[Photon]

Still a good decision Steve Glad to see you decided on one. Will be a nice setup that.

[Photon]

Originally Posted by p@rity

I seem to have a bit of an issue with the socket on the A630/25. I installed a 630/30 on another machine earlier and noticed that the socket had to be pushed to ensure it covered the CPU all the way.

With the 25 version though, if I push it all the way, a click sounds and the A600 doesn't boot (white screen, no disk activity). When I lift it slightly, the system works great and has worked for days. However, this morning it started generating a Watchdog error (caps lock blinking). After wiggling the accelerator a bit, the A600 started to boot normal again and runs solid without any errors for hours on end.

The 68000 CPU legs were cleaned before installation, so I can rule out corrossion. Also, the Caps in the system have all been replaced (properly).

Amiga 600HD (rev. 2B)
A601 Memory Expansion (added and removed to test)
A630/25
Brand new capacitor set
Classic WB Green Alien
External Rom 3.1 (tested)
Internal Rom 2.1 (tested)

Bit late reply, but the accelerator shouldn't be able to wiggle at all (if that's what you meant). I'm assuming you've checked that the socket is flush to the motherboard along the socket edges. IIRC I had to file the socket (of ANOTHER board!) to make the socket flush due to R102, a resistor near the 68000's front left corner. You've probably checked already, just an idea.

If the socket is okay and you've read that folded majig (gave your Amiga some alcohol and screwed it moderately), you've done your part.

(To be honest I've a hard time to see how the infamous microfractures both make a 68000 screwed-on add-on utterly unstable and also make the 68000 stable as soon as you remove the add-on, main reason for posting was the resistor thing and checking the socket's flush. Certainly it doesn't feel right to have the socket not flush to make it work.)

[rockersuke]

Originally Posted by Mozzerfan

I'm successfully using Aweb 3.5.8 and Ibrowse. I wouldn't call it netsurfing though.
I'm just using it for downloading from aminet.
Edit: With aweb I turned off image loading because otherwise it crashes.

Thanks for answering! Yup, turning images off worked for aminet... and nowhere else! For pages as this forum, whdownload or Google I had also to turn javascript off. So now we know images and javascript plug-ins in Aweb demand (or so I guess) the presence of an inexistent (in this case) FPU and then everybody dies

And yeah! Posting this from the A600 (now we'll see if i figured out correctly how to set the italics and the laughin smiley in a plain text enviroment... eer, no I won't be doing this often )

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Photon

(To be honest I've a hard time to see how the infamous microfractures both make a 68000 screwed-on add-on utterly unstable and also make the 68000 stable as soon as you remove the add-on

Took a nice picture of such a crack today. No real macro on the camera, but still good enough. It should be easy to see that the corner pin will only have contact if pushed down, but is a lot less likely to have contact when pushed on from the side.

Jens