New Amiga motherboards from Jens

[Nostromo]

Originally Posted by Jope

With vsync, no less. With an example config we can load that gives a stutter free scandoubled PAL.

So, er, is that a yes or no (I am not very technical!)
All I want is to play games at the intended Hz.

[JonSick]

Surely if Jens added in the scandoubler, usb, networking, etc, that would vastly inflate the cost of the replacement boards? I mean, I don't know what he's going to charge for them, but adding those features on would possibly make them prohibitively expensive.... no?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by sardine

agreed!! crippled and designed to sell more products on top.

cpu should be built in, the same 14mhz 020 will do but with a simm socket for easy addition of fast ram for most users who just want a simple 1200 with good compatibility and whdload (but that would kill aca sales though)

Adding an 020 similar to the original A1200 will add quite a bit to the price of the board, and that would mean extra cost even for the majority who probably want an 030 instead and would never even use the 020, as is the current most popular option for WHDLoad machines.

optional extras
USB, Network, RTG, ACA1260 (if possible) for those who find the 020 with fast ram not enough.

And this is the point. See how you consider USB and networking to be optional? Some people consider them essential and want them included on every motherboard, regardless of who will use them. If including USB added, say, €50 to the cost price of the board, would you be happy to pay €50 extra even if you were never going to use the USB ports? Same for networking. Who's right? Nobody, because everyone wants different things. So going with the common requirements and making everything else modular makes a lot of sense for everyone.

It's pretty cynical to think it's purely a marketing thing. If the new motherboards included all these modules as standard they'll cost a great deal more in order to cover the cost of the extra parts, development and testing, and that extra cost would cover the cost of a lost sale of a separate module so it's hardly that big a deal for Jens - he'd get the sale money either way. The problem would be fewer sales when a motherboard costs €350 or something, especially when so many things are included that not everyone wants.

[dJOS]

If you can build and sell the base model raspberry pi with usb and HDMI etc for $25 then surely Jens could include them on the Amiga reloaded without exploding the cost? Heck he could possibly include a small arm soc to handle the io, tcp etc etc and not burden the CPU with these tasks.

Ps. His decision not to include a CPU is imo a good one, it means we can choose what we want and he's right, dropping in an 020 would increase costs. Better putting that money towards HDMI and usb support.

[trixster]

50hz vsync hdmi..... He can't be arsed to provide such options to existing Indivision AGA customers, what makes you think he'll provide such features with this new motherboard?

[alexh]

There will be a technical reason he hasn't done it. Not for fun to annoy users. Probably a technical reason he can overcome this time with a new design.

[trixster]

We can only hope.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by dJOS

If you can build and sell the base model raspberry pi with usb and HDMI etc for $25 then surely Jens could include them on the Amiga reloaded without exploding the cost?

rPis are produced in very large quantities. That reduces costs a lot.
These here motherboards will be made in very small runs, understandably. This ramps up all the costs.

I would also believe there's more not-that-trivial issues to resolve to include just that, so assuming it's "easy" or "cheap" to include USB and HDMI is a very misled thought. Unless, of course, you have experience building an AMiga motherboard nowadays that includes all these things, for next to nothing

[kolla]

How does one do early diagnostic (screen colour codes) with b/w composite signal? Or will this board have a different type of diagnostic than real (or should I say "other") Amiga systems?

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by demolition

It should also be possible to do passive variable cross mix of the two channels with a stereo potentiometer, however you cannot get a decent headphone output as the output impedance would be too high which would mean a big boost in the low frequencies in the headphones as you reach their resonance frequency. Also, this boost would vary with any passive volume control, so you really need an active solution (opamp) to avoid this.

ok i get what you're saying, this maybe should get a thread of its own because it's going quite off-topic but i'm sorely tempted to have a tinker.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

If including USB added, say, €50 to the cost price of the board, would you be happy to pay €50 extra even if you were never going to use the USB ports?

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...

[sardine]

Originally Posted by alexh

There will be a technical reason he hasn't done it. Not for fun to annoy users. Probably a technical reason he can overcome this time with a new design.

he said the aca500 had 2mb ram because of a "technical reason", and after all the complaints low and behold,, wait we now can do aca500 8mb ram


I say put an 020 on ....why?? because a LOT of users only use 030 etc because they HAVE to, and price of an 8mb ram board vs cheap 030 isnt that far apart most go 030,,

If I had a choice on my 1200 just to add 8mb simm over 030 card I would go 8mb as I only want to use WHDLOAD. why have 50mhz 030 to play turrican ?

if you think i'm cynical then ask why the ACA500 was purposely crippled (proven with his "NEW" larger ram version) an expansion slot (that convenient) to add aca12xx cards.

also note this new reloaded amiga will fully support ACA12xx cards, it might support some blizzards but not his own apollo cards thats not 100% compatible when 99% of 1200 out there just work out of the box.

oh and seriously how much would it cost to add RGB ouput as standard ?? more salesman spiel to sell indiavision pfft!!

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by sardine

I say put an 020 on ....why?? because a LOT of users only use 030 etc because they HAVE to, and price of an 8mb ram board vs cheap 030 isnt that far apart most go 030,,

If I had a choice on my 1200 just to add 8mb simm over 030 card I would go 8mb as I only want to use WHDLOAD. why have 50mhz 030 to play turrican ?

exactly... although i kind of see the logic of not including one if it's not needed, as i see it there are two options:

1. leave a space for an optional 020 to be soldered to the board, on request, or,
2. produce a very basic 020 card

[dJOS]

Personally I'd have loved to see an 030 CPU and FPU socket with selectable clock speeds and SIMM slots for fast ram but I can understand Jens logic, he makes more money from selling extra aca12xx boards this way.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by dJOS

Personally I'd have loved to see an 030 CPU and FPU socket with selectable clock speeds and SIMM slots for fast ram but I can understand Jens logic, he makes more money from selling extra aca12xx boards this way.

i find this quite a cynical analysis. PC motherboards don't come with a CPU already installed so you can choose which one you want. The Amiga's arrangement of simply adding another CPU that overrides the onboard one is quite strange, really. Nevertheless, not everyone needs anything more than the standard stock 020, which is most people who just want to play old games. So there should be some way to do that.

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

i find this quite a cynical analysis. PC motherboards don't come with a CPU already installed so you can choose which one you want. The Amiga's arrangement of simply adding another CPU that overrides the onboard one is quite strange, really. Nevertheless, not everyone needs anything more than the standard stock 020, which is most people who just want to play old games. So there should be some way to do that.

I did specify 030 socket, i didn't say supply the chip's.

Btw I wasn't being cynical, it was a cold hard observation, the economics for Jens work better his way and he does need to make a profit, he's not a charity.

[Mrs Beanbag]

as for whether he could make more profit by selling ACA boards separately or by having an on-board 030 socket and charging a little more for that i am not able to say, i don't know what his margins are on anything he sells, but i imagine there are more factors in his decisions than just the economics.

[dJOS]

I'd like to see 030 and FPU sockets plus Simms just because I reckon that's what the vast bulk of Amigan's would want.

I'd keep the normal a1200 expansion slot for those that want 040 or 060 CPU's.

Ps, my rationale is that Jens should aim to provide us something Commodore couldn't, along The lines of The Phoenix a1000 motherboard. What he's said so far doesn't give us anything we can't already get for a reasonable price with existing options.

[Mrs Beanbag]

doing so would require a load of extra supporting circuitry, asynchronous bus interface, memory controller &c, all of which would have to be bypassed if you put an accelerator in.. it would increase the cost by about as much as an equivalent accelerator card, and would take up valuable space that could be used for something else. so i totally understand him not doing this purely from an engineering/design point of view. 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.

there is already space for an FPU on a standard A1200 board, but nobody uses it because accelerator cards can't disable it if they provide their own. i don't know if this is fixable or not.

[Darth_X]

Originally Posted by mjnurney

New Amiga mainboards
Announcement from Jens.

he announced yesterday that he has bought all of the remaining stocks of csg and mos Amiga chipsets from chip suppliers.

he will build new Amiga motherboards for the Amiga 500 & 1200.
he hopes to have something to show in 6 months. I have videoed his announcement and I'll upload it when I get home.

also a new aca500 with 8mb ram which I think he said runs at 40+ MHz asynchronously

and a budget a1200 accelerator in two versions with speed upgrades available to purchase after sale.

mike


My Amiga 30 film , quickly done ...hey I'm tired but here are the bits i caught, jens is on here

its still uploading so it could be a while....

[ Show youtube player ]

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