Individual Computers Announces Clone-A Project

[Paul]

In an exclusive interview with Total Amiga's Magnus Johnson, to be published in issue 25, Jens Schoenfeld reveals Individual Computers latest project. For the last year Jens and Oliver Achten have been working on a cycle-accurate reproduction of the Amiga chipset in FPGAs under the codename Clone-A.

Jens and Oliver will be demonstrating prototype versions of the Clone-A chips mounted in a real A500 motherboard at the AmiWest show on the 21st of October. To prove the compatibility of the implementation, even in its current form, Jens encourages show visitors to bring along A500 compatible disks to the show to try on the Clone-A.

As Total Amiga 25 won't be out until after the show, we have published an extract from the interview in PDF format. The extract describes the Clone-A in detail, traces its history and explains the current state of development. Jens also looks to the future at the possible uses for this technology once it is complete. Included in the PDF are detailed photos of the FPGA development boards. The extract PDF is a free download from the Total Amiga web site:

http://www.totalamiga.org/issue25.html

Source: Amiga.org

[Oscar Castillo]

It would be nice to have a completely new replacement for all the aging hardware. It's got to be costly and time consuming to see it through to completion. I would certainly be interested in one.

[kriz]

This is very nice news, good seeing several projects around amiga in a fpga..

[_ThEcRoW]

If they can implement it on a pci cad, then it could be the definitive Amiga!

[keropi]

or an amiga4000 mATX mobo...

[_ThEcRoW]

Sure!

[Antiriad]

Originally Posted by _ThEcRoW

If they can implement it on a pci card, then it could be the definitive Amiga!

He he, yes that would rock wouldn't it?

[alexh]

I would be more interested in them sharing their findings with the UAE developers. But they wont.

[kriz]

I think I read the Minimig is going to be open source.... So at least one Fpga project you can look more into.. lets see..

[Methanoid]

Oh two and a half years later and still no Clone-A. OK so they didnt promise a timescale like SOME projects but it would be nice to see it soon. I might have to buy Minimig ITX 2.0 with the ARM board.

[alexh]

The Individual Computers "Indivision ECS" contains the Clone-A denise.

I do not recommend the MiniMig ITX 2.0 as it has a really small FPGA and no RAM.

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by alexh

The Individual Computers "Indivision ECS" contains the Clone-A denise.

I do not recommend the MiniMig ITX 2.0 as it has a really small FPGA and no RAM.

What DO you recommend then?

[alexh]

Wait a bit longer.....

The board needs to have a much bigger FPGA and more than 2MBytes of RAM to be worth getting. That ITX board will never have the capacity to take an AGA Amiga core if one was ever created.

[Predabot]

Has anyone outside of the Clone-A team tried out one of their latest prototypes? Would be interesting to hear if it works at all. Or is the Indivision ECS proof that it does work?

Man... the NatAmi would be ideal if it ever came to be, wouldn't it? It's meant to recreate a pretty god-damn tricked out A1200, now innit'?

Eh, I guess Minimig is the way to go, since the whole thing is Open Source, and people can actually improve on it if they want to. ( apparently not many seem to be interested tho...)

[rkauer]

What I really love would be one of those NatAmi video cards... Drool......

[alexh]

I want a NatAmi TimeTravel device, or perhaps one of their perpetual motion engines, perhaps the Everfull mug of beer they said they were working on.

[TCD]

I want their food generator. Hope the beer & Vodka patch is already available.

[DoogUK]

Hmmm still not convinced that Natami is going to happen

At least with Jens projects we see the end results

[HenryCase]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

What DO you recommend then?

I know you were directing your question at alexh, but I'd say it'd be well worth your while keeping an eye on FPGA Arcade developments:
http://www.fpgaarcade.com/

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by HenryCase

I know you were directing your question at alexh, but I'd say it'd be well worth your while keeping an eye on FPGA Arcade developments:
http://www.fpgaarcade.com/

I did but I respect Alexh's opinions.. unlike some of the NatAmi Sunshine Farting Brigade..

[HenryCase]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

I did but I respect Alexh's opinions.. unlike some of the NatAmi Sunshine Farting Brigade..

Eh? FPGA Arcade is nothing to do with the Natami (other than some promises to help each other out with 68k softcores). FPGA Arcade will be powerful enough to do a A1200/A4000 recreation, what more could you possibly want (as you're clearly not interested in Natami)?

[alexh]

Originally Posted by HenryCase

FPGA Arcade will be powerful enough to do a A1200/A4000 recreation, what more could you possibly want?

£20 on a second hand A1200 or £200+ on an FPGA board that MAY get an AGA core at sometime in the future... know which one my money will be spent.

The Replay FPGA board will be fun, but you really should be a developer / potential developer to want to get one.

It's never going to be as good as an 060 A1200/A4000!

[HenryCase]

Originally Posted by alexh

£20 on a second hand A1200 or £200+ on an FPGA board that MAY get an AGA core at sometime in the future... know which one my money will be spent.

Oh sure, but we're not talking about just price here are we, otherwise everyone would stick to UAE.

The Replay FPGA board will be fun, but you really should be a developer / potential developer to want to get one.

I'd say there's a market for the Replay as an ultimate Minimig board, which means it's customer base is extended beyond developers only. Of course when the Clone-A is released that's the easy mass market choice.

It's never going to be as good as an 060 A1200/A4000!

Maybe not straight away, but it's not out of the question. From the FPGA Arcade website:

"Here is the layout of one of the sub boards - in this case the 68K processor.

It was important to do this before the main card is completely finalised as a few pin swaps were necessary to get this to route on a two layer card. As you can see, it has gone in nicely and has an almost complete ground plane on the bottom side (component). This means we should get good signal integrity to the processor and be able to run faster devices - perhaps upto 66MHz. (68060 anybody?)"

[NovaCoder]

I think the Replay FPGA board *could* be better than a classic Amiga board as it could remove some of the major bottlenecks in the old hw (eg chipram speed). Once you have a reimplimentation of AGA in an FPGA then it shouldn't be too hard to improve on it and keep compatibility.

And by using modern memory etc, even an 030 CPU would be faster than an 060 in WB use.

This is basically the same aim as Natami and to some extent CloneA.

[Oliver_A]

Originally Posted by Predabot

Has anyone outside of the Clone-A team tried out one of their latest prototypes? Would be interesting to hear if it works at all. Or is the Indivision ECS proof that it does work?

We had done a full public demonstration as early as March 2007, where we showed our Clone-A prototype running on an Amiga 500 with ALL custom chips being replaced by our own designs. The demonstration was NOT in any way moderated by us, instead, our guests brought their own disks with them to try out on Clone-A.

Our design is very cycle accurate (you HAVE to accomplish this if your reimplemented chips need to work in an original machine) and implements even the most obscure glitches and bugs found in the chipset, which took A LOT OF testing. You can replace ANY part of an Amiga with the Clone-A FPGA chips, it works in ANY combination of original chips and the replacements. The goal of Clone-A is not only running all games and applications, but to be as truthful to the original as possible.

And yes, Indivision ECS contains the Clone-A Denise. That's all I can say for now.

[extralife]

what the ...... I thought this cool project had silently faded away, thank god that isn't the case

[Charlie]

Pleased to see the Clone-A hasn't gone away.

What is the Clone-A project for..?
The reason I ask is that quite some time ago we saw an A500 running rather well with a non-original chip-set - so it works!
The general assumption has been that some form of new 'Amiga' would turn up: New system; replacement mobo; upgraded chipset; whatever...
...but 'all' we've seen (all development is good so I'm not intending to be unkind) is the Indivision ECS.

I start to believe the 'Clone-A' is a technology project to make products like the I-ECS possible, not an end in itself. Therefore a Clone-A Amiga is not on the cards...
...would I be correct? (I hope not)

[Oliver_A]

Originally Posted by Charlie

I start to believe the 'Clone-A' is a technology project to make products like the I-ECS possible, not an end in itself. Therefore a Clone-A Amiga is not on the cards...
...would I be correct? (I hope not)

I hope you understand that my main motivation posting in this thread was to clarify 2 points which some people might not have been aware of:

1. The Clone-A design was presented in a FULLY functioning form to an audience who could touch and abuse it.

2. Indivision ECS, a soon to be released product, does contain Clone-A technology.

My intention was not to discuss any internal development plans, though I can understand that a lot of people are awaiting our next steps concerning Clone-A. Believe me, from all people in the world, Jens and me will be the most happy ones when the day has finally arrived so that we can present Clone-A in its FINISHED form to you. We both have invested a significant amount of time and other resources into this project.

Please understand that, although some people might have a different perception, we are a relatively small company, which tries to survive in a relatively small market in rough economic times. We need to take care of ourselves and we want to ensure that Clone-A will be a success and not a failure.

As you can see with Indivision ECS, Clone-A has given us a lot of interesting design options for future projects and it surely won't be the last time something interesting will come out of our efforts.

Thanks for your understanding.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Oliver_A

We need to take care of ourselves and we want to ensure that Clone-A will be a success and not a failure.

i.e. not another C-One

[Charlie]

@Oliver_A:
Thanks very much for your reply, most appreciated. All the best for the future.

[Methanoid]

m u s t r e s i s t a s k i n g w h e n i t i s r e a d y...

There I did it.. I didn't ask... but someone will

Seriously though this is the project that excites me most - more than Natami and more than Minimig. This could give us "new" faster Amigas than Minimig and actually arrive (which I don't believe will happen with Natami or not in any commercial form).

I also belive this will be a commercial success.

bring it on!

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

m u s t r e s i s t a s k i n g w h e n i t i s r e a d y...

Seriously though this is the project that excites me most - more than Natami and more than Minimig. This could give us "new" faster Amigas than Minimig and actually arrive (which I don't believe will happen with Natami or not in any commercial form).

I also belive this will be a commercial success.

bring it on!

X2

The Clone-A is still going on, that's good news !

Will it be like the A500, a computer in a keyboard, or a desktop/tower design ?
(please make a it like the original A500, in a keyboard form ! )

[Akiko]

Could the Clone-A technology potentially allow ECS machines to be upgraded with AGA?

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Akiko

Could the Clone-A technology potentially allow ECS machines to be upgraded with AGA?

I would think that would be quite trivial as only a couple of the chips changed.

AGA+ is more interesting to me personally though

[jabsy]

Originally Posted by Egg Shen

Will it be like the A500, a computer in a keyboard, or a desktop/tower design ?
(please make a it like the original A500, in a keyboard form ! )

ATX (or mini-itx) makes more sense, so costs can be kept down.

[Paul_s]

...or possibly in a Kit form so it would just drop into a 1200/500 case?

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Akiko

Could the Clone-A technology potentially allow ECS machines to be upgraded with AGA?

Probably not. The fact there was no AGA upgrade for A3000 points to this.

Depends if AGA chips rely on 32-bit data I/O.

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by jabsy

ATX (or mini-itx) makes more sense, so costs can be kept down.

Why would anyone want to put a new mobo in an old case for which supplies will be limited and dwindling.

Mini ITX FTW....

Add in the faster HDD elements of the Power Flyer IDE interface, update the serial ports and a few other bits, pop on PS2 keyboard/mouse, some USB ports, LAN port, a PCI slot or two... stop me now...

Actually go for mini DTX or whatever the format is that has two PCI slots instead of one. Classic Amiga WITH RTG in a weeny case...

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

m u s t r e s i s t a s k i n g w h e n i t i s r e a d y...

There I did it.. I didn't ask... but someone will

Seriously though this is the project that excites me most - more than Natami and more than Minimig. This could give us "new" faster Amigas than Minimig and actually arrive (which I don't believe will happen with Natami or not in any commercial form).

I also belive this will be a commercial success.

bring it on!

#@Part of my subscription review,prune and revival process@#

3 years later and not a lot happened. I know Jens has brought us stuff like Indvision but what about Clone-A - thats what we wanted? Has he spoken about it in recent months (years) at all? I haven't seen anything....