New Amiga motherboards from Jens

[Adrian Browne]

Originally Posted by Darth_X

Is there a website where Jens mentions this? Anyone know Jens website?

Individual computers.de

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

. The only thing it makes sense to put on board from my point of view is an (EC?)020 socket, so it can function as a stock A1200.
.

I think that's what the new low cost ACAs will provide. I just hope the cost of those is kept rather low, lower than ACA620 if possible.

[Photon]

Perhaps stick this in first post or something? So it's not lost in discussion somewhere at page n.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Yes! Presumably the ACA1221(EC) just has the 14MHz 68EC020, thereby requiring no extra logic, just wire it straight to the bus.

I have often wondered why no accelerators run synchronously, for instance 28MHz 68030 or 56MHz 68060 &c...

EDIT: oh and the revision history is interesting, too
http://wiki.icomp.de/w/index.php?tit...934&oldid=3927
so now it WILL support:
* original Amiga disk drives
* clock port
* parallel port

Good news!

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

so now it WILL support:
* original Amiga disk drives
* clock port
* parallel port

Good news!

Keep whining people. Seems like it's working

[Jope]

How about DS0 and DS1 at the internal floppy header with the ready pulse / motor latch logic in the corner of some programmable logic chip that's gonna be there anyway? Add the good old DF1 present jumper as is found in big box Amigas. :-)

(I, for one, still use floppies weekly)

[tom256]

Hi Jens

My 5 cents:
Please add 2 3-pins fans connectors.
Adding DSP as option(socket) like AT&T DSP3210 or MC56002 would be nice. Maybe in future some soft will make use of it.
Also build in USB with driver in ROM in year 2015 is not so crazy :]

[Mr.Flibble]

While I'm happy someone is making an attempt at a new board, what was announced leaves me cold

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by tom256

Adding DSP as option(socket) like AT&T DSP3210 or MC56002 would be nice. Maybe in future some soft will make use of it.

What for? :/

[tom256]

Originally Posted by Akira

What for? :/

Decoding MP3, MPEG, jpeg, -generally decoding data, You can also make a good use of it in games.

Also it could be optional - socket only and You decide if You want to have it or not.

Anyway it's only my idea and I don't think it will happen.

[matthey]

Originally Posted by tom256

Adding DSP as option(socket) like AT&T DSP3210 or MC56002 would be nice. Maybe in future some soft will make use of it.

If the 68k Amiga had a future, it would add an SIMD unit which is better than a DSP in most ways. There would also be advantages to replacing the blitter with an SIMD unit but this would require a new graphics.library (hopefully with AmigaOS classic development). It makes a lot of sense to go FPGA for the Amiga custom chips (with enhancements) where much more is possible. Jens has interestingly ignored FPGA 68k CPUs needed for a best compatibility CloneA, probably because he favors a different RISC CPU replacement (yuck!).

Originally Posted by tom256

Also build in USB with driver in ROM in year 2015 is not so crazy :]

This would make the Amiga much more usable today .

[Mrs Beanbag]

dear Jens i would also like moon on a stick, i can has moon on a stick pls

[eXeler0]

Those of you who want built in Indivision, USB, Ethernet and what not...wake up.. its not that he doesnt see the value of having USB...etc.. but
Jens has solutions for all of the above in existing product already. What he is creating now is a re-animated platform to continue selling them.
The best you can hope for it that the he sells some attractive bundles.
E.g. mobo + indivision + rapid road for a fair price etc...
Personally Im waiting to hear if theres gonna be a Vampire with built in improved gfx core for the Amiga reloaded. If yes then apart from having the most awesome 68k CPU known to man, you also wont really need the indivision. Sounds like a good deal to me.

[SKOLMAN_MWS]

Quake 2 on Falcon DSP
http://dhs.nu/news.php?t=single&ID=893

Atari Falcon - The power and might of the DSP
https://translate.googleusercontent....d7FjTs3OalM7BQ

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

dear Jens i would also like moon on a stick, i can has moon on a stick pls

I get your point but I think most ppl would rather Jens made the Amiga Reloaded board something really great that takes their Amiga 68k experience to the next level. Amiga parts just arent rare atm so lets have something "nextgen".

Lets have USB, Ethernet, advanced Video w/ HDMI and a Co-Pro (eg ARM Soc which could drive this current gen stuff) built in.

Sure leave off the CPU so we can have have 020's, 030's or FPGA's with loads of ram, but lets make the Amiga Reloaded something really great that we'll have for the next 30 years.

[NovaCoder]

There's no point in adding new hardware or improving the AGA chipset because no bugger is going to code for it and Jens will struggle to get the OS updated to support it.

USB, LAN and the IndyMrk2 are different because they don't require any new hardware, software or drivers....they are all proven Classic hardware add-ons.

[matthey]

Originally Posted by SKOLMAN_MWS

Quake 2 on Falcon DSP

Atari Falcon - The power and might of the DSP

A DSP (or custom blitter) was the affordable way to do a lot of simple data processing back in the day. Now we have SIMD units, GPU multi-processing and multiple core processors which are more flexible and easier for a compiler to use. The Falcon demo probably requires hand coded DSP assembler code. It only gives low resolution ~10fps (slow and ugly). I can do 2 to 3 times the Quake 1 or Quake 2 fps with double the resolution on my 68060 Amiga with Voodoo gfx card and older OpenGL games can be relatively easily compiled for it (FPU required though). Do we want to see what the Amiga 3000+ with DSP and no software would have been like or would we rather have a fast 68k with fast 2D/3D via GPU or FPGA?

I don't really understand this motherboard. Amiga I/O and display ports are outdated so we remove them but don't replace them with modern ports? Upgrades with the old custom chips are difficult so we keep them and ignore FPGA technology which is easy to upgrade? I'm happy to see new products but how about an upgrade and a complete product without a bunch of add-on hardware hanging off of it for once? I'm sorry my statements sound so negative as that was not my intention.

[snoopy77]

Originally Posted by Akira

Keep whining people. Seems like it's working

Should we now start on the 060 stuff?

[Locutus]

Originally Posted by snoopy77

Should we now start on the 060 stuff?

This thread is going exactly as expected

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by pandy71

Real cost of fast HW (maybe even with MC68k DMA-like coded on X-MOS for example) USB is around 5 - 10E - but i understand there is cost of software development (driver + app + testing) and profit - however surely not 50E...

I just picked that number from the air. Yes, parts would be cheap but development not. Think of the cost of the existing custom USB solutions - you'd need similar levels of development with a similar raw materials cost so it's not too far a stretch to think that adding USB to the board would add a cost not far off that of the stand-alone card.

As for the cost of the Raspberry Pi, there are a couple of reasons for this: First is the volume of Raspberry Pis produced which is already around 50,000 times higher than the number of boards Jens will sell. That's a different galaxy when it comes to economies of scale, buying parts etc. Second, the RPi is a not-for-profit venture so no profit is included in the price. This also means the RPi Foundation can avoid taxes and so on which reduces the cost even further. And third, it's using a SoC design that already includes pretty much all the interfacing electronics that are needed "for free", which is certainly not the case for the Amiga motherboard.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see USB etc. on this new board too, but it doesn't make sense to include all the things that anyone wants when it will increase the price for everyone. I'd much rather pay €350 for a board and modules that does what I want it to do than €450 for an all-in-one board that does a lot of stuff that I don't want.