New Warp 1260

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by Adrian Browne

So how hard is it to get the chip to put in it? And how much is that chip?
I would think this is the ultimate a1200 board. Solves the problem of having to buy lots of different bits to achieve the same thing.

The "chip", i.e. a Motorola 68060 processor, became harder and harder to get over the course of the last years.
Accordingly, prices went up about 400 procent since 2018. What's more, the "chip" was produced in several revisions (where only the last revision, 6, is really overclocking-friendly) and at least 3 variants (full, without FPU - you can probably get away with that, and w/o FPU and MMU - you definitely don't want that.)

If you now track down a full rev. 6 at ebay or aliexpress for about $400, please be aware that the price makes it extremely attractive to sell fakes. Usually, an older revision or one of the stripped down variants is relabeled as rev. 6.

That's the status quo atm.

If you are really desperate, there's also a company in the UK that sells newly made rev. 6 processors, but then you'll have to pay more than $600...

[Chucky]

a 060 is all from 50eur (LC without fpu) to 300+ eur (rev6 with full 060)

[Adrian Browne]

Originally Posted by torsti76

The "chip", i.e. a Motorola 68060 processor, became harder and harder to get over the course of the last years.
Accordingly, prices went up about 400 procent since 2018. What's more, the "chip" was produced in several revisions (where only the last revision, 6, is really overclocking-friendly) and at least 3 variants (full, without FPU - you can probably get away with that, and w/o FPU and MMU - you definitely don't want that.)

If you now track down a full rev. 6 at ebay or aliexpress for about $400, please be aware that the price makes it extremely attractive to sell fakes. Usually, an older revision or one of the stripped down variants is relabeled as rev. 6.

That's the status quo atm.

If you are really desperate, there's also a company in the UK that sells newly made rev. 6 processors, but then you'll have to pay more than $600...

Thanks for the reply- ouch expensive then. The warp is 500 euros itself...

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Adrian Browne

Thanks for the reply- ouch expensive then. The warp is 500 euros itself...

Thing is, €500 is at least what you'd be expected to pay for a 25 years old Blizzard 1260 or even an Apollo 1260. Most Blizzards have early XC revision 060s, not the price-inflated rev6.
Creating a small series advanced niche product is not easy or cheap. And the Warp gives you plenty more than the old accelerators.. now you get RTG, 16 bit sound, USB, and so on all in one. It is unfortunate that the rev6 prices got crazy, because now new buers could be looking at a €800 "investment".

The prices skyrocketed in the Amiga community when there were suddenly 3 new 060 accelerators in development.. The Warp, the ACA1260 and then the TF1260.
The ACA1260 will probably be a fine product but it will hardly be cheaper than the Warp. (The benefit will probably be that the ACA will likely be some unified design for 050/060 with 3,3v/5v switching to reduce design cost..and at the same time offer a sensible upgrade path from 040 to 060.)
The TF1260 was an idea that was based on the wrong (and in hindsight, "naive") assumption that there are "good samaritans" in the Amiga community who sit on large stocks of rev6 060s and therefore there would not be a shortage. (There are some, but its hard to operate in a market that got poisoned by others less idealistically minded ;-)) If the idea was to provide the Amiga community with a fairly priced accelerator that's better than 030 then you'd think the 040 would have been a better choice, but TF was never going to use the 040 as the designer made clear early on. Unfortunately other events pissed off the dev and now the TF is dead as far as we know.

So basically, Id say that the Warp looks like a very nice product and would be a very nice upgrade with any full 060 revision. I happen to have a rev6 060 but there's no way I'd pay €300 for it. Id probably try to get a regular XC for €100 and enjoy that with all the other benefits of the Warp.

[gdonner]

Just noticed this update regarding the Warp 3060/4060 from Amitopia (thanks to Michal Bergseth!):

CS-LAB in Poland which is behind Warp1260 for Amiga 1200 and Warp560 for Amiga 500 just confirms that they are working on Warp4060 and the Scandoubler still. Covid had a hit on the progress, but Warp development is still going on. Also, they have decided to update the firmware once the Warp4060 and Scandoubler are out.

Warp improvements on the way

The Warp4060 card for Amiga 4000 will be an improved version over the Warp1260 for Amiga 1200 and Warp560 for Amiga 500 as it is possible to fit more on the card. The Warp4060 will also be working in Amiga 3000. The user will be able to overclock the card in the same way as Amiga 1200 and Amiga 500 users can.

All of the information regarding Warp4060 will be put on their site once it is ready. Warp is for sure interesting as it keeps pushing Amiga hardware together with the Vampire accelerator cards.

I was aware that CS-Lab was thinking about going with at least USB v2.0 instead of v1.1 (as used on the Warp 560 and 1260), but it sounds like there might be more than this improvement/feature on the Warp 3060/4060.

Either way, it's great to hear how/what Cizar and Sellen are doing--kudos to two hard-working fellow Amigans!

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by gdonner

Just noticed this update regarding the Warp 3060/4060 from Amitopia (thanks to Michal Bergseth!):



I was aware that CS-Lab was thinking about going with at least USB v2.0 instead of v1.1 (as used on the Warp 560 and 1260), but it sounds like there might be more than this improvement/feature on the Warp 3060/4060.

Either way, it's great to hear how/what Cizar and Sellen are doing--kudos to two hard-working fellow Amigans!

Yes, its cool stuff. Would be interesting to hear more about the scandoubler too. Also, let's hope the new tuff doesn't distract too much Warp1260 still isn't officially out yet AFAIK.

[gdonner]

Sellen just posted an update to their website's blog (photos and text)--glad to hear Cizar is OK!:

http://www.amigawarp.eu/1_3_6_status...4.03.2021.html

Hi, a long time has passed since the last news from us. Unfortunately, communication isn't my best side, sorry for that. We have a lot of work currently in our company, and this all situation with covid doesn't help either. Cizar was sick, but finally, he's fine now. We have ~50pcs 68060 CPU currently from people willing to buy a Warp board and 100pcs of Warp1260 PCBs (50 assembled, 50 partially assembled). We'll confirm orders, ask for a payment, and these units will be shipped. I hope that we'll be able to ramp up this production finally. I still didn't have time to finish a new website with an e-shop, but I think that I outsource this to another company to make this work in some reasonable time because it is not looking that in an upcoming couple of months I'll be able to find some time for this. The new website will be at the same address http://amigawarp.eu when it is ready. Stay tuned. I know that this all is going very slow, but the project is definitely not dead. Below are some photos from the current production batch and test rig.

[grelbfarlk]

I'd argue that the 68060s really jumped in price when the 040-060 adapter was released. A lot of people suddenly found out they could upgrade their WarpEngine or A3640 (later Chucky's A3660) to an 060 for a pretty reasonable price.

[brett71]

As much as I want one of these, I'm thinking of waiting until they implement the scandoubler/flickerfixer.

[gdonner]

Originally Posted by brett71

As much as I want one of these, I'm thinking of waiting until they implement the scandoubler/flickerfixer.

FWIW, Cizar of CS-Lab posted just today about the scandoubler on the ppa.pl forums:

We perfectly understand that scandoubler is a complement to the whole, which is why it will probably be created earlier than WARP 4060.

Web translated from the original Polish post: https://www.ppa.pl/forum/elektronika...260/92#m715792

[Signman]

I gotta tell you the pimiga is looking better for me right now. Still I watch with interest at those that go this route.

Where can I get in line for a card? I've got a rev 6 that I want to use on it. I've got a Vampire 1200v2 and the only reason I still use it, is for the RTG.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Syntrax

Where can I get in line for a card? I've got a rev 6 that I want to use on it. I've got a Vampire 1200v2 and the only reason I still use it, is for the RTG.

This blog entry explains the situation
http://www.amigawarp.eu/1_3_blog.html

[hardypadb2007]

I have never seen a rev6 cpu that cannot go 80+ anyway.. in my Warp 1260 I used a freescale from 2008. it however cannot go faster than 95.. so we can smash the myth that freescales clocks better than motorola.. it is simply just depending of the individual unit.

If you want to edit your photos like pro then download gimp here https://gimp.cc/download-gimp-2-8-0/

[Chucky]

my freescale in my warp did not do more than 95 . but yesterday I swapped it to another freescale that can do 105.

but yeah. freescale is no guarantee of betteroverclocking

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by hardypadb2007

I have never seen a rev6 cpu that cannot go 80+ anyway.. in my Warp 1260 I used a freescale from 2008. it however cannot go faster than 95.. so we can smash the myth that freescales clocks better than motorola.. it is simply just depending of the individual unit.

The last mask (71E41J) was on a 320nm process. Its *very* likely Frescale units are done on that same mask and process so it makes sense they would clock like the motorola parts.

[gdonner]

I trust this info will be helpful to other Warp fans. I just received an e-mail message this morning from Cizar regarding two rev. 6 '060s and one rev. 4 LC '060 I sent to him a while ago for testing:

Welcome.

You sent me processors for WARP4060 cards. I did the tests.

One of the processors (rev6) is not working - I checked several times.

One rev 6 is ok and the third one is rev 4 (LC) working.

Due to the lack of parts on the market and the lack of time, WARP 4060 cards will be available in 2022.

But their software will be as advanced as WARP1260.

So the time now dedicated to WARP1260 is also the time to WARP4060.

Szymon Paprocki (cizar)

I'm thankful that at least one of the two rev. 6 CPUs I bought is really a rev. 6--and works!

But the lack of various electronic parts worldwide is very real; my own previous employer was feeling the effects of certain chips being delayed on one of their projects, so I greatly appreciate Cizar and Sellen's ongoing work in spite of some hardware availability delays.

[Krashan]

Originally Posted by gdonner

But the lack of various electronic parts worldwide is very real; my own previous employer was feeling the effects of certain chips being delayed

So true. I've tried to source ubuquitous STM32F1x and F0x microcontrollers, and stock is zero at most of usual places with restock dates unknown.

[gdonner]

New CS-Lab Warp card firmware (v1.10) will be released in the next few weeks (thanks to Amiga Tests and JakubH_ of ppa.pl for this news!).

YT channel Amiga Tests posted a [ Show youtube player ] with a list of new features and some speed comparisons between the Warp microSD, Warp CF, and A1200 IDE.

New features:

• MicroSD can be formatted as FFS, PFS3 and others.
• Amiga can boot from microSD.
• Transfer speeds up to 20 MB/s.
• Very low CPU usage while accessing microSD.
• 224 MB of Fast RAM.
• MicroSD is PCMCIA friendly.
• Combination of microSD and Warp IDE CF ... or microSD and Amiga internal IDE can be used simultaneously.

[BanisterDK]

What to get Warp1260 or Vampire 1200v2 ?
Pros and Cons