New products for C64 and Amiga from Individual Computers

[Retroplay]

Hmm that ACA1232 looks extremely tempting.

I think I'll treat myself to one of those one of these days when they become available.
Having to constantly power on/off and flick the 4/8 mb switch on my MBX1200 whenever I need PCMCIA access is getting tiresome.

[Schoenfeld]

Delivery of the ACA620 has started. Those of you who want to start coding can take a peek here.

AmigaKit should have the goods in time for the show in Manchester. Vesalia should have the goods tomorrow, but it will take a few days until the website will say "available". GGS-Data should have the parcel before the end of the week, same goes for Alinea.

Relec will provide us with a French manual (as always). Give us a few days here.

Jens

[Calabazam]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Delivery of the ACA620 has started. Those of you who want to start coding can take a peek here.

AmigaKit should have the goods in time for the show in Manchester. Vesalia should have the goods tomorrow, but it will take a few days until the website will say "available". GGS-Data should have the parcel before the end of the week, same goes for Alinea.

Relec will provide us with a French manual (as always). Give us a few days here.

Jens

Great.
What about the ACA520?

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by Calabazam

Great.
What about the ACA520?

There is no ACA520. Plans have changed (as seen in the first post), and there will be an ACA500. Delivery just hasn't started yet ;-)

Jens

[Calabazam]

Yeah i meant ACA500 of course

[Retroplay]

I couldn't find any info regarding timing fix and ACA1232, I take it that it will be needed to do, right?

I have pre-ordered one at Amigakit and I just found out that my spare A1200 is a rev 1D4 Budgie Rev 0 (391425-01)

My main A1200 still needs to be opened and checked.
As a quick test I followed clauddios advice and tested Arabian Nights and Mad Professor Moriarti from floppy disks.

Arabian Nights v1.00 - Intro works but crashes right before language selection (maybe fast ram issues ?).
Arabian Nights v1.01 - Works with no problems at all
Mad Professor Moriarti - Also works with no problems at all

[edit]
Arabian Nights v1.00 works using WHDLoad, so defo just a fast ram issue.

[Schoenfeld]

You should be able to find info about the timing fixes in the "new accelerator cards" thread.

Delivery of RTC modules to all resellers has started today. Red/white should suit everyone with a passion for the only computer with a soul, right?

Jens

[paulo_becas]

Hi Jens,

If you don't mind i would like to ask you one thing, and i know it's off topic but i was wondering if you ever thought in doing a clockport expander for the 1200?

the clockport is very important if we want to install a few of your things but it's very limited to have only one clockport.

Once again sorry guys if this is off topic but i just had to ask.

[Calabazam]

Originally Posted by paulo_becas

Hi Jens,

If you don't mind i would like to ask you one thing, and i know it's off topic but i was wondering if you ever thought in doing a clockport expander for the 1200?

the clockport is very important if we want to install a few of your things but it's very limited to have only one clockport.

Once again sorry guys if this is off topic but i just had to ask.

DJBase already sell a perfect multiple clockport expansion.

[Mr B]

I'm just thinking out loud, but with hardware this old, it makes sense to try and keep new hardware coming from one manufacturer, if you want to have a easy fix, and little to no hardware compatibility issues.
Just saying there may very well be a good reason behind yet another clockport expander, if it can be made for a cost competitive price.

[Toni Wilen]

My plans for ACA620, it has interesting features that really needs to be used (Possibly future boards too if they have similar nice feature sets):

Reset proof, bootable, rad-like disk that uses ACA620 "hidden" ~2.5M of RAM. 0xF0 "ROM" feature allows it to survive and automount/boot even if system is hard reset/execbase is cleared.

HRTMon that uses NMI remap feature. Reset proof and works even if program takes over the system and modifies exception vectors/VBR.

No ETA. Borderlands 2 wastes too much time.

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Delivery of the ACA620 has started. Those of you who want to start coding can take a peek here.

AmigaKit should have the goods in time for the show in Manchester. Vesalia should have the goods tomorrow, but it will take a few days until the website will say "available". GGS-Data should have the parcel before the end of the week, same goes for Alinea.

Relec will provide us with a French manual (as always). Give us a few days here.

Jens

Jens,

I get that overclocking voids warranty but for those people who want to (your price is fair so if I kill one I can buy another!), can you provide info.. eg how to change divider to put 020 at 25mhz? Am I right that the heatsink would need to fit on the top of the card, so what size hole is there for the heatsink to fit on?

[mfilos]

Checking from the picture of ACA620, the oscillator is 50MHz so being 16.67MHz cloackage, the divider should be 3.
So you'd need 60MHz oscillator for 20MHz.

[Schoenfeld]

that won't work. Simulation of the logic shows a max. frequency of 50.7MHz. The CPLD is really full with all those memory-tricks and the freezer logic. I had to route some things through several macrocells, and I had to use extender product terms of the chip, which also make things slower. However, it's running perfect in real-life at the frequency it is supplied with.

Changing the CLK divider is possible, but won't be publicly documented. It's a 16MHz CPU and the databook clearly says that 16,67MHz is the maximum allowed frequency. If you decide to hack the card, I'm officially out of the game. If I make a public documentation, this might be mistaken for a "recommended way to do it", but the only recommendation I can give is to leave it as supplied. It's quite fast for a 16MHz card.

Jens

[Calabazam]

Any previsional date for the ACA500? Soon? Christmas? I'm starting to rub my A500 Plus for it.

[fitzsteve]

\o/

Just arrived!

[mfilos]

Sanding the GALS is so oldskool :P

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by mfilos

Sanding the GALS is so oldskool :P

Yah,

Send it to Mr Smith in China and he will send you the source for $500 lol

[Schoenfeld]

That sanded-down CPLD was my mistake: I ordered these parts from the same source as I did for the ACA1231, and I forgot to change the order to "don't sand down any more". They were sanded down on the ACA1231 in order to fit under a large cooler, which wasn't necessary in the end. I think it's obvious that there is no height problem on the ACA620, and to anyone with a little understanding of how an accelerator works, it's obvious that the CPLD in the data path is no secret (just a bidirectional driver with latch - you can type that faster than you can disassemble a jedec file).

Jens

[clauddio]

Originally Posted by Retroplay

Hmm that ACA1232 looks extremely tempting.

I think I'll treat myself to one of those one of these days when they become available.
Having to constantly power on/off and flick the 4/8 mb switch on my MBX1200 whenever I need PCMCIA access is getting tiresome.

the PCMCIA bug is related to roms 3.1
if you have on your A1200 roms 3.0 you can access to pcmcia using 8mb
if you haven't the roms 3.0 chips to replace on your A1200 mobo you can use skick to softkick to Kickstart 3.0...then and you can use PCMCIA normally