ACA1234 - New 68030 accelerator card for Amiga 1200 and ACA500+

lucadip · 06 November 2021, 12:48

It looks like we live in a great time for our Amigas, so many new accelerators were not available since the 90s!

iComp is delivering since end of October their new accelerator card, based on a 68030 and targeted to the A1200 and A500. On the latter the ACA1234 can be used if attached to an ACA500+.

Main features are:
- 4 different versions clocked respectively at 25, 33, 40 or 50MHz (overclocking is possible on the slower versions and can be made resident buying a further license)
- 128MB of fast RAM
- 8MB of flash RAM
- CF-Adapter on board, which can be used to boot and coexists with the internal ide controller

All details can be found at: https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/...t/ACA1234.html

I've bought one, clocked at 50MHz, and it arrived yesterday. I'm looking forward to testing it on the weekend!

btp · 06 November 2021, 23:15

iComp usually delivers solid products.
Looking forward to your first impressions!

Superman · 06 November 2021, 23:23

Looks like someone did the obligatory Frontier intro test already

[ Show youtube player ]

MrClump · 07 November 2021, 08:24

You won’t be getting one if you live in the UK though. :-(

Lord Aga · 07 November 2021, 09:13

They don't have the loicence for ACA cards in the UK ???

MrClump · 07 November 2021, 09:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

They don't have the loicence for ACA cards in the UK ???

Icomp won’t ship to the UK. I’ve been wanting to get an Indivision MKIII for some time, but can’t.

rabidgerry · 07 November 2021, 12:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrClump

Icomp won’t ship to the UK. I’ve been wanting to get an Indivision MKIII for some time, but can’t.

Makes no sense as well. I had a German guy tell me at the start of the year he wouldn't ship me roms for some audio equipment and kept saying when my lawyer tells me it is ok I will then ship to UK. I then noticed later he changed his ebay to allow for UK shipping. Was something to do with Brexit and some change that happened in the summer for Germany to send to Uk. I dunno the details but I thought Individual Computers also changed their policy to allow for UK shipping as I'm pretty sure I saw that on their news section on website.

In fact here it is. Not sure if this ever affected me anyways as I'm in N.Ireland and we are still in customs union with Europe.

https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/33/it...ble-again.html

For me personally this accelerator is milking it over the last batch of ACA cards. Really not worth it if you already have one like me.

E-Penguin · 07 November 2021, 15:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrClump

Icomp won’t ship to the UK. I’ve been wanting to get an Indivision MKIII for some time, but can’t.

I'm based in Germany, I'm happy to forward on any parcels (at your own risk of being hit with customs etc in the UK). Drop me a PM.

Generally it's a nightmare sending anything between the UK and the EU these days. Parcels disappear for months and either end up with a huge customs fee or get returned to sender. I can see why Jens doesn't want to deal with it.

MrClump · 07 November 2021, 15:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

Generally it's a nightmare sending anything between the UK and the EU these days. Parcels disappear for months and either end up with a huge customs fee or get returned to sender. I can see why Jens doesn't want to deal with it.

Yup, and I can totally understand why he may not want to be getting involved in it. I know a lot of us Brits are moaning about the situation, but is is at the end of the day a situation of our own (collective) creation whether or not individuals may agree with it.

EDIT: I’ve just found that if I attempt to order two Indivisions then I can get shipping to the UK for a sensible amount, so it seems it is something to do with the minimum order limit that is mentioned on their site. Although the cost of just one Indivision is more than the amount they say is the minimum!

EDIT AGAIN: I didn’t read it properly! It’s minimum of £135 not €, so I am talking garbage. But I can now order an Indivision. :-)

JonSick · 22 November 2021, 16:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrClump

You won’t be getting one if you live in the UK though. :-(

I have one sat right here! I've not put it in my A1200 yet, but it arrived no problem!

Vegas · 22 November 2021, 18:12

I got mine a couple of days ago and i'm super happy with it! No compatibility issues or other problems at all so far.
The card comes with a KS 3.1 Rom and Workbench 3.1 within its flash memory. I wasn't even aware of that, when i odered it... Additionally it can mount a pcmcia CF card reader. Apparently it is possible to save any rom file onto the card and use it via map rom function (haven't tried that yet). The new configuration tool now has a little gui. All this comes in super handy when you want to upgrade to 3.2 for example. No need to even touch any screws.
All in all a very nice, well thought out product!

wiz12 · 22 November 2021, 18:56

It looks very similar to it's predecessor the 1233n and it would be interesting to see how it compares in terms of speed though I would think the 1233n-55 would have the edge.

trixster · 22 November 2021, 19:04

You guys have seen this?

https://forum.icomp.de/index.php?thr...0225#post20225

Vegas · 22 November 2021, 22:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by trixster

You guys have seen this?

https://forum.icomp.de/index.php?thr...0225#post20225

No, not yet. Thanks for the heads up!

ljmarent · 24 November 2021, 19:43

The first bug involved the ACA1234 CPLD corrupting memory, for all users in all systems.
We could not complete a RAM test
Tons of software compatibility issues.
The fix does not work for ACA500 customers, so they can get their money back.

The second bug with ACA500+ & ACA1234 involves the ACA1234 firmware causing 'many' WHDLoad games to crash with memory access and invalid instruction errors.
The temp fix is to place the card in 25MHz safe mode with EEPROM cleared and firmware prevented from loading.
If you do that, WHDLoad stops throwing those errors and all the games I've tested will run...but there is no real fix yet and..

There seems to still be another bug... Agony and Xenophobe run, but in Agony the screen stops scrolling and the monsters stop moving when you press the fire button. In Xenophobe, right after to you select your character and the screen changes to the game...it's just flashes of colour...then you die...then the menus come back and it looks normal again.
I'm sure many other games will be affected...but this is what I've tested.

I'm running 2 separate A500 rev 5, ACE2b Indivision ECS v2, Amigas
Using TF536 everything works great
Using just the ACA500+ everything works great
As soon as I plug in the ACA1234 I loose about 30% of my WHDLoad library to 'weirdness'
Even after the latest firmware, latest CPLD update and even running a 50MHz card at 25MHz and blocking it's firmware from loading.

Just ... be sure you know... this product is not ready and to my eyes appears untested.

JonSick · 17 December 2021, 10:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljmarent

The first bug involved the ACA1234 CPLD corrupting memory, for all users in all systems.
We could not complete a RAM test
Tons of software compatibility issues.
The fix does not work for ACA500 customers, so they can get their money back.

The second bug with ACA500+ & ACA1234 involves the ACA1234 firmware causing 'many' WHDLoad games to crash with memory access and invalid instruction errors.
The temp fix is to place the card in 25MHz safe mode with EEPROM cleared and firmware prevented from loading.
If you do that, WHDLoad stops throwing those errors and all the games I've tested will run...but there is no real fix yet and..

There seems to still be another bug... Agony and Xenophobe run, but in Agony the screen stops scrolling and the monsters stop moving when you press the fire button. In Xenophobe, right after to you select your character and the screen changes to the game...it's just flashes of colour...then you die...then the menus come back and it looks normal again.
I'm sure many other games will be affected...but this is what I've tested.

I'm running 2 separate A500 rev 5, ACE2b Indivision ECS v2, Amigas
Using TF536 everything works great
Using just the ACA500+ everything works great
As soon as I plug in the ACA1234 I loose about 30% of my WHDLoad library to 'weirdness'
Even after the latest firmware, latest CPLD update and even running a 50MHz card at 25MHz and blocking it's firmware from loading.

Just ... be sure you know... this product is not ready and to my eyes appears untested.

This is not great news. I've yet to install mine as waiting on my A1200 motherboard to be repaired and returned. Not sounding great as a WHDLoad set up is what I envisioned.

Vegas · 17 December 2021, 13:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonSick

This is not great news. I've yet to install mine as waiting on my A1200 motherboard to be repaired and returned. Not sounding great as a WHDLoad set up is what I envisioned.

Not neccessarily. I have been using the A1234 with an A1200 for weeks now, mainly running whdload games and playing around with some of the cards features. I have not encountered any problems at all.

As for the memory bug, it can be resolved with a simple firmware update. The downside beeing the loss of 1mb ram. IComp sent a cable to all affected customers, so they would be able to perform a cpld update, regaining that 1 mb.

Anyway, cards that have been shipped after november 15th 2021 don't seem to be affected.

Jope · 17 December 2021, 14:13

One CPLD upgrade has been done already, which seems to mitigate the immediate problem in the link above.

An interesting situation in any case. I have been considering one of these turbos too.

Jpor · 17 December 2021, 15:00

In my opinion, stick to the classic Accelerators like the Phase 5. Never been a fan of the ACA cards for the A1200. Bought one once to replace a Blizzard 1230. Not the best decision I made. I know the nay sayers will tell me the ACA is cheaper and more modern and should run faster and all that… But I’m siding with the classic stuff.
The newer stuff is too experimental these days. Rather have something tried and tested which I don’t have to play around with too much.
Just my 2 pence.

Marce · 17 December 2021, 22:04

I read in the specs that this turboboard can be disabled by software , it seems is like some old blizzards cards pressing the key 2

this is very useful to run old A500 games from floppy

anyone have tested this?
how you can disable this new turboboard?
it is by software or pressing a key during boot?

06 November 2021, 12:48	#1
lucadip Where is my mind? Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Nürnberg, Germany Age: 49 Posts: 129	ACA1234 - New 68030 accelerator card for Amiga 1200 and ACA500+ It looks like we live in a great time for our Amigas, so many new accelerators were not available since the 90s! iComp is delivering since end of October their new accelerator card, based on a 68030 and targeted to the A1200 and A500. On the latter the ACA1234 can be used if attached to an ACA500+. Main features are: - 4 different versions clocked respectively at 25, 33, 40 or 50MHz (overclocking is possible on the slower versions and can be made resident buying a further license) - 128MB of fast RAM - 8MB of flash RAM - CF-Adapter on board, which can be used to boot and coexists with the internal ide controller All details can be found at: https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/...t/ACA1234.html I've bought one, clocked at 50MHz, and it arrived yesterday. I'm looking forward to testing it on the weekend!

24 November 2021, 19:43	#15
ljmarent Registered User Join Date: Oct 2019 Location: Ontario / Canada Posts: 18	The first bug involved the ACA1234 CPLD corrupting memory, for all users in all systems. We could not complete a RAM test Tons of software compatibility issues. The fix does not work for ACA500 customers, so they can get their money back. The second bug with ACA500+ & ACA1234 involves the ACA1234 firmware causing 'many' WHDLoad games to crash with memory access and invalid instruction errors. The temp fix is to place the card in 25MHz safe mode with EEPROM cleared and firmware prevented from loading. If you do that, WHDLoad stops throwing those errors and all the games I've tested will run...but there is no real fix yet and.. There seems to still be another bug... Agony and Xenophobe run, but in Agony the screen stops scrolling and the monsters stop moving when you press the fire button. In Xenophobe, right after to you select your character and the screen changes to the game...it's just flashes of colour...then you die...then the menus come back and it looks normal again. I'm sure many other games will be affected...but this is what I've tested. I'm running 2 separate A500 rev 5, ACE2b Indivision ECS v2, Amigas Using TF536 everything works great Using just the ACA500+ everything works great As soon as I plug in the ACA1234 I loose about 30% of my WHDLoad library to 'weirdness' Even after the latest firmware, latest CPLD update and even running a 50MHz card at 25MHz and blocking it's firmware from loading. Just ... be sure you know... this product is not ready and to my eyes appears untested. Last edited by ljmarent; 24 November 2021 at 19:50.

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06 November 2021, 23:15	#2
btp Registered User Join Date: Aug 2017 Location: Greece Posts: 134	iComp usually delivers solid products. Looking forward to your first impressions!

06 November 2021, 23:23	#3
Superman Super Member Join Date: Sep 2014 Location: Wakefield Age: 48 Posts: 1,333	Looks like someone did the obligatory Frontier intro test already [ Show youtube player ]

07 November 2021, 08:24	#4
MrClump Registered User Join Date: Aug 2020 Location: Torquay Posts: 166	You won’t be getting one if you live in the UK though. :-(

07 November 2021, 09:13	#5
Lord Aga MI clan prevails Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Belgrade, Serbia Posts: 1,443	They don't have the loicence for ACA cards in the UK ???

22 November 2021, 18:12	#11
Vegas Registered User Join Date: May 2010 Location: Ulm / GER Posts: 82	I got mine a couple of days ago and i'm super happy with it! No compatibility issues or other problems at all so far. The card comes with a KS 3.1 Rom and Workbench 3.1 within its flash memory. I wasn't even aware of that, when i odered it... Additionally it can mount a pcmcia CF card reader. Apparently it is possible to save any rom file onto the card and use it via map rom function (haven't tried that yet). The new configuration tool now has a little gui. All this comes in super handy when you want to upgrade to 3.2 for example. No need to even touch any screws. All in all a very nice, well thought out product!

22 November 2021, 18:56	#12
wiz12 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2017 Location: Ireland Posts: 752	It looks very similar to it's predecessor the 1233n and it would be interesting to see how it compares in terms of speed though I would think the 1233n-55 would have the edge.

22 November 2021, 19:04	#13
trixster Guru Meditating Join Date: Jun 2014 Location: England Posts: 2,337	You guys have seen this? https://forum.icomp.de/index.php?thr...0225#post20225

17 December 2021, 14:13	#18
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,861	One CPLD upgrade has been done already, which seems to mitigate the immediate problem in the link above. An interesting situation in any case. I have been considering one of these turbos too.

17 December 2021, 15:00	#19
Jpor Banned Join Date: Feb 2019 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 404	In my opinion, stick to the classic Accelerators like the Phase 5. Never been a fan of the ACA cards for the A1200. Bought one once to replace a Blizzard 1230. Not the best decision I made. I know the nay sayers will tell me the ACA is cheaper and more modern and should run faster and all that… But I’m siding with the classic stuff. The newer stuff is too experimental these days. Rather have something tried and tested which I don’t have to play around with too much. Just my 2 pence.

17 December 2021, 22:04	#20
Marce Banned Join Date: Oct 2021 Location: SA Posts: 283	I read in the specs that this turboboard can be disabled by software , it seems is like some old blizzards cards pressing the key 2 this is very useful to run old A500 games from floppy anyone have tested this? how you can disable this new turboboard? it is by software or pressing a key during boot?

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