Introducing ACA 1221 Low Cost Accelerator At AmigaKit.com

[turrican9]

So this unlock licensing stuff works really good. I just opened shell in Classic workbench and typed: 'ACAControl A xxxxxxxx' (license codes obtained from Jens) to unlock the feature I bought. Of course the jumper on the ACA 1221 needed to be set to unprotected. After this the features was unlocked and I could remove the jumper again.

One thing though, I tried 28MHz in trial mode and I couldn't see much/if any difference from the standard 17MHz. I tried the Frontier Elite II intro amongst others. The card seemed stable at 28MHz but I just didn't notice the difference from the stock 17MHz. Any others tried 28MHz over 17MHz and noticed any difference in speed?

[bubbob42]

Did you really clock the card to 28 MHz with its software package? You have to do so after every power on - the difference to 17 MHz is quite noticable.

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by bubbob42

Did you really clock the card to 28 MHz with its software package? You have to do so after every power on - the difference to 17 MHz is quite noticable.

Yes I used ACAClock to overclock it. I checked with SysInfo and it showed it was overclocked and gave a higher benchmark score.

[turrican9]

One interesting note about my ACA 1221 used in my ACA 500 with an Amiga 500 is that after I overclocked it from 17 to 28MHz I no longer needed to type 'Cache' in tooltips for games like Flimbo's quest. At 17MHz it suffers from slowdowns unless I use cache. This goes for quite a few games. But as soon as I overclocked it to 28MHz I no longer needed cache. No more slowdowns.

[TjLaZer]

I run mine at 28 MHz and I can definitely tell the difference

[Caseh]

How do I get the license keys to upgrade these cards? I have one in my Amiga 1200 but it didn't come with any type of documentation, most searches I've done just turn up where I can buy the card itself and nothing about upgrade options.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Caseh

How do I get the license keys to upgrade these cards? I have one in my Amiga 1200 but it didn't come with any type of documentation, most searches I've done just turn up where I can buy the card itself and nothing about upgrade options.

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

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Caseh

How do I get the license keys to upgrade these cards? I have one in my Amiga 1200 but it didn't come with any type of documentation, most searches I've done just turn up where I can buy the card itself and nothing about upgrade options.

AmigaKit covers the sentence "Upgrades only available on www.icomp.de" with their own sticker - at least on some units that I have seen. This sentence is printed on the bottom of the card.

However, this should not keep you from checking wiki.icomp.de, which is mentioned on the box and in the instruction sheet that comes with the card: http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/ACA1221

Jens

[SmoothEmJay]

Hello everyone, haven't been here in quite a while (so long I had to re-register). But I've finally dusted off the A1200 and really liked the idea of this card, nice and affordable.

However it's now vanished (obviously due to high demand) with no date for any restock. Does anyone have any idea if this will ever be available again? Should I keep waiting.

Thanks everyone, also hope you are all well.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by SmoothEmJay

Hello everyone, haven't been here in quite a while (so long I had to re-register). But I've finally dusted off the A1200 and really liked the idea of this card, nice and affordable.

However it's now vanished (obviously due to high demand) with no date for any restock. Does anyone have any idea if this will ever be available again? Should I keep waiting.

Thanks everyone, also hope you are all well.

The manufacturer of this card might (or might not) be busy handing out soup to the homeless to regain some recently lost karma points, but I'm sure he'll be back with more of these cards. ;-) ;-)
Did you check with several retailers btw?
(Amigakit, Vesalia, GGS data, Amedia, amigastore.eu) Although once it's out of stock in one place it usually dries up quickly everywhere.. the track record for accurately announce the next shipment is not good...
Anyhoo, It's reasonably priced and if running old stuff with a speed-boost is your goal then it might be a good choice. You can start low, then unlock it later for max boost .

Other options are second hand 030 cards. Don't get alarmed by Blizzard 1230 mk 4 cards prices.. A mk 2 should be obtainable for a reasonable amount.
(You might even find Blizzard 1220s)

Then of course, if you really want to take your 1200 to the next level and don't mind waiting til the end of the year or so, Google for Vampire 1200 or search these forums for more info.

Skickat från min HTC One via Tapatalk

[SmoothEmJay]

Hello sir

Thanks for the sites, the only one I hadn't checked was Amedia. Wowzer at the price difference when you include shipping though (almost £15 extra when compared to AmigaKit). This might become a bit of a thinker, but I really fancy tidying up my 1200.

Right now it has a HXC Floppy Emulator installed (before the nice looking USB ones became the norm) and has the LCD fitted to the case. But I now want to get a new case, replace the HXC with a USB version and grab some RAM (primarily) for WHDLoad.

Have to think about that £77 price (thereabouts) from Amedia. I'll probably think on it so long that it too goes out of stock.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

The manufacturer of this card might (or might not) be busy handing out soup to the homeless to regain some recently lost karma points,

All re-gained by publishing what *really* happened, which has been confirmed by all involved people. Those who don't bother to follow German discussion forums can just wait until there's real news to publish.

ACA1221 is discontinued due to "no more CPUs in stock". However, I'm working on the ACA1221EC, which is almost the same design with a different CPU: Instead of a 68020-16, it uses a 68EC020-25. The CPU is faster, but it can only address 16MByte total. With 16MByte physical memory, it means that not all of this can be used as fastmem. It's 9+1+6MB memory:

9 MB fastmem
1 MB MapROM
6 MB RAM disk

Clocking is also different on the ACA1221EC: Only three different clock rates are available:

21,28 MHz
28,38 MHz
42,56 MHz

The latter will only work with a certain mask of the CPU (mask set E13G). Switching between clock rates can be done while the computer is running, so the CPU governor can be adapted to this card.

Clock ports are identical: The ACA1221EC has the RTC/Clock port, and the fast RapidRoad port that can be used at the same time.

The ACA1221EC looks almost identical to the ACA1221: Black PCB, same size, same position of components. Only the CPU and RAM size are different. I am currently finalizing the CPLD design, as there are a few things to take care of for full availability of all RAM when used on the ACA500plus (limited address space requires banking, and I want all RAM to be available at least for use as RAM disk).

Jens

[Zetr0]

Sounds pretty much the same as my ACA620 - which truly is a delightful card and puts my A600 in A3000 territory in terms of performance - slap on my Indivision ECS and it truly is a lot of FUN to play with!

With the ACA620, I was truly impressed with the price - performance and I suspect the ACA1221 is going to be some what better with the faster clock.

While it is probably to early to ask: - while the CPU would support a faster clock - it would have substantially less memory than the earlier version of the ACA1221 - would this be reflected in price point?

Its a sad shame that there is a lack of full core 020 CPU's, I am pretty sure you expected these low levels hence why the EC route - one thing that has surprised me though, ever since the development of the Chameleon, why has Individual Computers not developed an FPGA based upgrade for the Amiga?

[SmoothEmJay]

Hey Jens, pretty awesome news.

Any idea on an availability date? itching to get an accelerator in this thing but might be able to hold out a little longer if the difference is going to be worth it.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

While it is probably to early to ask: - while the CPU would support a faster clock - it would have substantially less memory than the earlier version of the ACA1221 - would this be reflected in price point?

ACA1221 and ACA1221EC have caused about the same development cost. As explained a number of times, you don't pay for components, but for development.

Since I don't know the final cost of this production run (you can only know after the number of failures is known), there's no final price yet. I do want this to be in the same area as the ACA1221, so the target for 28MHz, 9MB Fastmem and MapROM is "around 100,- EUR". There's a few options on how to put a price tag on 42MHz overclocking, and I tend to choose yet another new pricing model: Have it always included in the price, and give a refund if it doesn't work or the customer doesn't like it for some reason. This means that the "around 100,- EUR" tag is reached after the refund has been issued, but the price of the card will be "around 120,- EUR" in the shop.

Originally Posted by Zetr0

one thing that has surprised me though, ever since the development of the Chameleon, why has Individual Computers not developed an FPGA based upgrade for the Amiga?

I did develop quite a few FPGA-based upgrades for the Amiga, and the "Reloaded" Board will continue on this history. It's just that I didn't attempt a CPU yet due to the high testing effort. We've opened a huge can of worms with the Chameleon on the C64 side, and we still haven't collected all of them. The project is running for over ten years now, and it is causing huge losses. Guess what an even more complex project will do in ten years.

I do see a chance for Gunnar&Team (Vampire/Apollo-core) to make a fully compatible CPU, but I really don't want to discuss that here. While I still get chunks of real M68k CPUs for affordable prices, it's cheaper to make accelerators "the old-fashioned way". Well, not all that old-fashioned, as memory speed and power consumption have improved over the years.

Originally Posted by SmoothEmJay

Any idea on an availability date? itching to get an accelerator in this thing but might be able to hold out a little longer if the difference is going to be worth it.

ACA1221EC and ACA1233n may both be available in late june. Production of both is running already. I know a lot of people want a 128MByte 68030 accelerator, but the 55.55MHz version is very expensive. The ACA1233n with 40MHz will be around 240,- EUR.

Jens

[SmoothEmJay]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

ACA1221EC and ACA1233n may both be available in late june. Production of both is running already. I know a lot of people want a 128MByte 68030 accelerator, but the 55.55MHz version is very expensive. The ACA1233n with 40MHz will be around 240,- EUR.

Jens

In that case I will wait until then and hope I manage to snag one from Amiga Kit (or another place).

[dirkies]

Hopefully there will soon be a fix for the 1221 for 28Mhz mode as my A1200 just locks up completely when selecting that mode. Needs a power cycle to get out of it.

[Daedalus]

@dirkies

Are you sure it's not simply that the CPU doesn't work at that speed?

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Are you sure it's not simply that the CPU doesn't work at that speed?

I'm in contact with him, because it looks like the "red screen behaviour", which I have considered a cosmetic and not a functional problem so far, is causing the hang. I have developed a CPLD-fix that may get his card running properly at 28MHz.

Initially, I developed the fix for the ACA1221EC, but it is now back-ported to the ACA1221 and ready for a try.

Jens

[traal]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

There's a few options on how to put a price tag on 42MHz overclocking, and I tend to choose yet another new pricing model: Have it always included in the price, and give a refund if it doesn't work or the customer doesn't like it for some reason.

So instead of preconfiguring it with the fewest options, preconfigure it with the most options?

Why not make it more like ordering a computer online: let everyone configure it however they want at the time of purchase? It would save buyers from needing to pay more money again later to finally get what they want. I think people are resentful when they have to pay twice like that.

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

I know a lot of people want a 128MByte 68030 accelerator, but the 55.55MHz version is very expensive.

Have you considered the 68EC030? I think it has the full 32-bit address bus so it won't be limited to 16 MB.