Just wondering about the ACA accelerator line

[source]

Does anyone know if there would ever be an ACA1240 or ACA1260 that can plug into the ACA500. If there is a possibility I would like to put my name on the waiting list for one.

[fitzsteve]

Doubt it due to the price and availability of 060 CPU's, not only that I'm sure you'd have to invest a lot of time and resources to design such a card.

[source]

Even an 040 would be nice.

[ajk]

040 and 060 accelerators are about the same complexity so there probably wouldn't be much of a price difference (apart from the CPU component itself).

[ShK]

Old ones in the Vesalia:

Motorola 68040/25MHz 24.90€
Motorola 68060/50MHz 79.90€

New ones from the Freescale (Last Order Date 21 Nov 2014 / Last Ship Date 21 Nov 2015):

MC68040RC40A 10000 @ US$282.10 each
MC68060RC60 10000 @ US$458.61 each

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by ShK

Old ones in the Vesalia:

MC68040RC40A 10000 @ US$282.10 each
MC68060RC60 10000 @ US$458.61 each

It's worth noting that Freescale don't actually expect to sell any units (which is why they are so expensive). They have to keep some stock on hand for their military contracts (well that's the rumour).

The only way forward is FPGA

[alenppc]

Freescale is clearly run by Rob Ford who in his crack-smoking stupor moments decides that charging $450 for a 20 year old CPU is a fantastic idea. :P

Meanwhile Bill Mensch is still manufacturing and selling the 14 mhz 6502. If Freescale had the same mentality, at the very least they could be selling 150 Mhz 68060s nowadays.

[ShK]

Yes, Freescale's prices are insane. I think biggest job now is to get the FPGA core 1:1 compatible with 68k. It is more important than speed.

[Unknown_K]

People used to rip out 68040's from old macs but that supply has shrunk quite a bit.

[source]

Do you think there is a way to make a FPU board that would plug into the ACA1232 or ACA500? If there is, is there a plan to make one?

[Doctor Clu]

Originally Posted by Unknown_K

People used to rip out 68040's from old macs but that supply has shrunk quite a bit.

That is what I figure people would do. I remember when I updated a Mac with a 68040 from the '030. Made quite a difference.

But I think it just hit me how old these computers are.

[Megol]

Originally Posted by alenppc

Freescale is clearly run by Rob Ford who in his crack-smoking stupor moments decides that charging $450 for a 20 year old CPU is a fantastic idea. :P

If that cost includes restarting production it isn't very high. Keeping things that doesn't sell much in storage costs a lot too.

Meanwhile Bill Mensch is still manufacturing and selling the 14 mhz 6502. If Freescale had the same mentality, at the very least they could be selling 150 Mhz 68060s nowadays.

That isn't really comparable - the 6502 chip is much smaller, uses an older less expensive process and is several orders of magnitude less complex to port to other processes than the 68060.