Wicher 500i - classic turbo card for A500

[Spidi]

Wicher family of products will soon expand with the launch of a brand new model: Wicher 500i.
This new turbo card has been designed specifically for Amiga A500/A500+ computers.
It is intended to be installed inside your Amiga and significantly increase its potential.

Specifications:
CPU: MC68000/68010
Max. clock: 50MHz
RAM: 1-8 MB SIMM 72 (FPM,EDO)
IDE controller
SPI controller

Performance for MC68000 and CPU clock 50MHz (SysInfo 4.0, AIBB 6.5).
Mips: 4.40
Dhrystones: 4222
IDE transfer: ~3.1MB/s
RAM transfer: ~6.94MB/s

View details http://retro.7-bit.pl




Video,       Frontier running on the Wicher500i 000@50MHz

[paul1981]

Wow... this is fantastic! I had no idea about this or your other products.

[David Wright]

How much?
I see it is mentioned as useful in amiga 1000, I wonder how kickstart would be handled.

[Pat the Cat]

How much?
I see it is mentioned as useful in amiga 1000, I wonder how kickstart would be handled.

Usual way. Hold between fingers and insert disk carefully.

Joke, sorry if you didn't laugh.

On topic - I am seeing a lot of bare A500 mothrboards on eBay lately. I guess the keyboards are getting hard to get fixed now. So it is nice to see someone still giving support.

[David Wright]

Actually that is how I have been doing it, a lot of my disks have issues. Took a while to find a good disk to write a kickstart disk.
I really need an ide solution not wanting to use gotek.

[TheMagicM]

oh wow.. NICE!  More expansions for an A500.   Very interesting!

[Iggy]

How do you get a 68000 to clock at 50 MHz?
I've never seen even the HC versions pushed that high.

The depressing part is an '020 or '030 at half that speed would still dust a 50 MHz 68000's fanny.
And...there are 50 MHz '030 components.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

The depressing part is an '020 or '030 at half that speed would still dust a 50 MHz 68000's fanny.
And...there are 50 MHz '030 components.

I think this is another one of those "homebrew" type projects, along the lines of the TerribleFire, etc.  The designers are starting with an '000 and hopefully moving up from there as they learn.  

[Iggy]

I think this is another one of those "homebrew" type projects, along the lines of the TerribleFire, etc.  The designers are starting with an '000 and hopefully moving up from there as they learn.  

Still, where the heck do you find 50MHz 000s?
I've seen 66MHz CPU32 derivatives, but nothing this overclockable with an 000 or 010 designation.

And yeah, working with '020 and '030 cpus is SO much more complicated, but there are some operations that are up to 6 times faster.

[Spidi]

Overclocking HC version.

[Iggy]

Overclocking HC version.

I didn't know they could be pushed that far.
But its always been known that Motorola greatly under rated them, so...

[zipper]

The original 68HC000 in Supra Turbo 28 clocked happily to 28MHz - I did see some mentions that somebody did clock it to 42 MHz. Those CMOS chips were very tolerant.

[amyren]

What is a spi controller and what is the practical usage of it on an A500?

[Rob]

On topic - I am seeing a lot of bare A500 mothrboards on eBay lately. I guess the keyboards are getting hard to get fixed now. So it is nice to see someone still giving support.

You can get new membranes for £23.50 including delivery.

http://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/%2Abrand-new%2A-commodore-amiga-a500-~~-a500%2B-keyboard-membranes-2871

[Pat the Cat]

What is a spi controller and what is the practical usage of it on an A500?

General purpose serial port for devices is my understanding.

Only high speed though - used a fair bit for ad hoc networking. Wireless and wired (wireless is probably more common). Bluetooth too.

VERY handy if you do crazy things with Arduino's etc.

Hooking up SD card reader/writers also becomes easier (and cheaper). Sometimes they come built into an LCD display with a touch screen. But only a few bucks for a simple SD card adaptor.

You can get new membranes for £23.50 including delivery.

http://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/%2Abrand-new%2A-commodore-amiga-a500-~~-a500%2B-keyboard-membranes-2871

OOh... I checked a few days ago when they mentioned new A1200 membranes! Couldn't find, thank you!

OK, got an A1000 keyboard I can hook up - but it's not ideal (even if they do seem to last forever).