Who owns the blizzard 1230-1260 design?

[Nikolaj_sofus]

Does anyone actually own the rights for this?
Would it actually be possible to get the specs and make a batch of these cards?

[alexh]

DCE

http://www.dcecom.de/

They have already said that they have no interest in selling Amiga hardware anymore and that they do not have easy (any?) access to the designs.

[Nikolaj_sofus]

Originally Posted by alexh

DCE

http://www.dcecom.de/

They have already said that they have no interest in selling Amiga hardware anymore and that they do not have easy (any?) access to the designs.

So meaning that the old design specs has been lost?

[Zetr0]

I tihnk the hardest thing now for Cards like the Super Class of Accelerators (040@33+ or 060@50) is infact the CPU's themselfs.

Irrespective of PCB and Logic costs, the fact the 040 and 060 CPU's have been retired and depreciated a long time ago, finding a quantitiy of NOS thats compatible with RoHS within a price budget and MOQ - I believe would be next to impossible today financially speaking.

I am not even sure if Freescale still produce the 020/030 - if they do I doubt it would be anything other than TQFP or QFP

[Nikolaj_sofus]

i've also seen that there has been some coldfire initiatives, but i guess that would be really complicated to adapt.

I guess the coldfire cpu's should be rather cheap.

[Zetr0]

@Nikolaj

indeed, very complicated, although it has a root subset of 68000 commands, it also has a few (amiga important ones) missing as such most Amiga Software just wont run.

I remember a while back now where some one proposed an instruction interpreter inbetween the Coldfire and the Amiga, alas it would seem its very VERY difficult to implement.

In the future by far the most likely implementation would be an FPGA running as a very fast 020 (a 100 or so Mhz) - this would need a small CPU to load the Core CPU to the FPGA as then the FPGA take over... this would increase boot times, how noticible I dont know - if everything is in ROM or FlashRom it would take less than a second.

The constuction of the above would also promote CPU tweekers - thats to say those strange programmers that want to expand the capabilities of the 020 FPGA core, this (pending on the FGPA) incuded an LCD driver, More Cach, Another ALU or internal FPU etc etc etc..

The irony once these designs are done tested, ASIC chips could be made from this, but I will leave that to Alexh to ponder.

[alexh]

The most economical solution is emulation. Everything else is a non starter from a cost point of view. If you could source a few trays of CPU's it could turn around but this is highly unlikely.

You are NEVER EVER EVER going to be able to make an Amiga ASIC ever. Get that out of your head now.

FPGA's are not going to be economically viable for about 5-10 years. (Just enough time to perfect the cores)

[Zetr0]

@Alexh

I was on about the possibility of an ASIC based cpu not custom chips, and you know what they say about those who say "NEVER EVER", all though I completely agree with you, the tech is certainly not there yet.

However FPGA Processing has me a little excited, with about 5 years for core perfections,.... I like that.... I really look forward to it... the advancement in FPGA's will be quite extreme by then, they will probably have 2MB or more of "on chip" cache by then as well.

The beauty of the FPGA would be that you could load what ever CPU you wanted... a standard Compatability Based 68k core (Bugs 'n all) or an advanced much faster core with multiple ALU's and FPU's - with the right development you could do this within the amiga in a NO FPGA startup mode (say boot with the motherboard 020 or 68k moto on the card) and then select what core for the FPGA to load from FlashROM - or even just program a core to flash ROM... yeah... thats a little exciting..

Next trick will making blister-fast x86 companion CPU cards (like a PPC but with an x86 compatible chip instead) somthing in the 500-1ghz range, theres plently out there - perhaps even a Transmetta chip, thats x86 like and could bring some unique features to Amigering =)

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

I was on about the possibility of an ASIC based cpu not custom chips, and you know what they say about those who say "NEVER EVER", all though I completely agree with you, the tech is certainly not there yet.

No-one will EVER, EVER, be able to afford to produce an ASIC for anything other than a complete Amiga to be sold in a joystick type application. No-one is ever going to be able to afford to re-make an ASIC of an ultra crap 680x0 CPU. We are talking £millions

Originally Posted by Zetr0

However FPGA Processing has me a little excited, with about 5 years for core perfections,.... I like that.... I really look forward to it... the advancement in FPGA's will be quite extreme by then, they will probably have 2MB or more of "on chip" cache by then as well.

They already have much more than that and have a hard PowerPC (or ARM) CPU integrated but they are like £2k each.

Originally Posted by Zetr0

The beauty of the FPGA would be that you could load what ever CPU you wanted...

The negative of FPGA is even the cheapest which are capable of doing everything needed for an accelerated 680x0 cost a fortune compare to an second hand 680x0 and they don't do 5V I/O!

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Next trick will making blister-fast x86 companion CPU cards (like a PPC but with an x86 compatible chip instead)

As I said there are already integrated PPC or ARM cpu's on FPGA's but why bother??

[Zetr0]

Dreams my friend, Dreams...... you gotta have dreams.... its the root where idea's come from =)

Some of course are all fancy - completely finacially non-viable - but like the A500 PPC prototype, there exists one crazy developer that just says, what the fnck lets have a go.

Personally for the near future of Amiga Classic Machines there will need to be something acceleratory wise... that could come in a cheap FPGA - maybe even a 5volt tollerant one (if they make one) -

I wont sign anything off to the dust-bin of time and I am sure I am not the only one - one of the most wonderfull things I think about the amiga is to be able to develop a setup on the PC and transfer it to the REAL thing... its sad to think that in less than 20 years most of the original hardware could be gone - unrepairable or unworkable.

I think its baby steps as we go forward with huge ideas - realities always there its not going to go away lol - bt theres are little things here and there like the MiniMig and the FPGA Arcade (although complete system replacements) that shows us a glimps of whats really possible.

[Nikolaj_sofus]

What about the natami.... are there any sort of time frame on that yet?
Is it ever gonna make it?

I'm also quite excited about the 020 acc. which is being worked on for the amiga 600.... for me who are mainly having an amiga for nostalgic reasons, the a600 would be great for WHDLoad.

I just need some more ram for it and the faster processor. would probably not be an bad idea for WHDLoad either.

[Jope]

Please keep on topic.

[athiga]

lol i carnt stop dreaming of sloting an amiga accelerater
into my 1200 with a x86 chip on board and works with amiga like the
ppc usin uae code addresing real hardware thats more realistic
than other ideas jus a thought

[Zetr0]

@athiga

me nieither, An Amiga with an x86 companion chip.... Mmmmmm yummy =)

[Nikolaj_sofus]

and then add an MXM type II slot for a graphics card as well