New Mainboard released ...

[Darrin]

skurk wrote:
Ok, I've got an estimate for $150 per unpopulated board.  I just might order one to see how it turns out.  I have a few semi-broken 500's for parts.

Unfortunately they could not offer volume discounts at this point, so I'll volunteer as the guinea pig.

Now, what we need is someone to clone the A1000 case... any takers?

Ebay has always got some sort of A1000 going cheap including the odd "dead" one.  A case shouldn't be too hard to come by.

With Jens working on the Clone-A project and producing replacement "chips" that fit in the original Amiga motherboard sockets, it might be possible soon to buy one of these new mobos and use Jens' Clone-A chips instead of gutting a real Amiga.

[niklasni1]

this board requires an ECS chipset, so an A1000 will not do it. You need an A500+ or A3000. Also an Amber chip from an A3000 if you want the scandoubler.

Would an A600 work?

[weirdami]

With this much talent in the Amiga community I'm stumped as to why no one has created a new mainboard for some of the other Amiga models out there.

I think antigravity was doing something a while back but they were having trouble with their "talent". Or, some stories say, he was having trouble with them. Pretty much it was one guy commissioned to do some kind of clone Amiga or something. Whatever the jargon that applies, it might have been called "boxer", but I'm not sure. I think it only got as far as them showing the unfinished prototype at a few Amiga shows.

[Darrin]

weirdami wrote:
I think antigravity was doing something a while back but they were having trouble with their "talent". Or, some stories say, he was having trouble with them. Pretty much it was one guy commissioned to do some kind of clone Amiga or something. Whatever the jargon that applies, it might have been called "boxer", but I'm not sure. I think it only got as far as them showing the unfinished prototype at a few Amiga shows.

Yep, the infamous BoXeR by Mike Tinker (or Tinkler or something).  I think most of us here were drooling over the specs when it was announces and had our wallets on standby to buy a board.

I'm not sure what the main problem was.  Development costs, feature creep, bugs in the hardware or a combination of some or all of them.



Here's the bugger:
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/boxer.html

[billt]

This is incredibly cool. Wow!

For the hinted at internal graphics card, might I be so bold as to make a suggestion for consideration? Provide some bridge to PCI, so that a PCI->PCIexpress bridge might be used for one of these...
http://us.kontron.com/products/computeronmodules/universal+graphics+module/ugmm72.html
I've got my hands on one of these eval boards for an idea I've got, as well as a PLX RDK board to fit it all into a PCI slot, the module is small and should be pretty comfortable in this A1000 if it had a place to plug in. Might at least provide some ideas for the graphics, though I'm sure he's already thought out his plans for a while. But I'm hopeful that the UGM will in time provide variety and upgrade path to newer chips without small markets liek us needing some wacko to go bankrupt making 27 custom cards... (though I do appreciate the wackos in Amiga community who do it anyway!)

[billt]

Another question. When's he doing an AGA version with 060 or even better PPC with a PCI or PCI-Express slot?

[billt]

With this much talent in the Amiga community I'm stumped as to why no one has created a new mainboard for some of the other Amiga models out there.

$$$

[Colani1200]

Everblue wrote:
What about the folks who cant solder

Maybe this is something for Acube? Just a thought...

[billt]

What about the folks who cant solder

Find a friend or pay someone who can?

[trekiej]

How many layers is this board?
What are the dimensions? (rough estimate)

 

[trekiej]

I hope this is not too off topic.
Do you think Clone-A will get made into an ASIC for direct chip replacement?
Just dreaming.
smack smack smack wake up

[Nostalgiac]

admirable :-)

I've no need for this, but you have to grant it to the guy.

Congrats for pulling this off ;-)

ta
Tom UK

[orange]

I think there is one ECS chip in some A500, not just A500+. at least the fat Agnus, (but not the Denise). link
in A600 its ECS, but its probably SMD..

it is an awesome achievement, but you have to ask yourself if its A1000 anymore

[amigadave]

trekiej wrote:
I hope this is not too off topic.
Do you think Clone-A will get made into an ASIC for direct chip replacement?
Just dreaming.
smack smack smack wake up

Yes, I think that is the goal of the project.  Whether it happens or not is another story, but it would be nice for nostalgic tinkerers of the future to be able to build their very own cycle exact Amiga clone computers.

With all that is being learned by Clone-A, Minimig and NatAmi projects, I hope it is being documented well so the expertise and knowledge is not lost for a second time.

[trekiej]

@ orange :
That is an interesting subject. I wondered about that sort of thing for a while and did not know that there was a wiki on it or even a discussion of it.
I guess it is if Amiga Inc. says it is.  :-D

[skurk]

trekiej wrote:
How many layers is this board?
What are the dimensions? (rough estimate)

The PCB appears to be 342 mm x 317 mm, 4 layers, 1.6 mm Fr4.

Ok, I was going to pretend that I was the one who figured it out, but I heard it from one of the PCB manufacturers I've been in touch with.

Funny thing.  The more I discover about this board, the more expensive it gets.  For some reason, I assumed it was two layers (after a quick glimpse on the schematics)

Four layers revs the price up to somewhere around £250+S&H.