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Author Topic: A project I'd like to see from Jens...  (Read 12728 times)

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Offline biggun

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Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #29 on: June 23, 2014, 10:18:35 AM »
Quote from: wawrzon;767387
so is it designed or is the prototype already fabricated?


The boards are in production/shipment.
We expect to receive them this week.

Offline wawrzon

Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #30 on: June 23, 2014, 10:33:05 AM »
good luck and keep us posted.
 

Offline cunnpole

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Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #31 on: June 23, 2014, 01:10:28 PM »
Quote from: biggun;767385
CDTV.

For a second I thought that said CD32 and I almost died. The A500 will be happy and I will certainly appreciate your effort.

 I know better than to ask for CD32 support to be added :)
 

Offline TeamBlackFox

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Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #32 on: June 23, 2014, 01:43:32 PM »
Is the Amiga chipset so complex that it can't be replicated directly rather than via an FPGA? I have limited knowledge of hardware engineering - but I imagine with modern manufacturing methods it would easily be possible to build the AGA chipset into a single chip. However, this would likely require extensive knowledge of transistors and to have it manufactured it'd probably need to be ordered in bulk to be cost-effective. I imagine this is why FPGAs are used rather than actually doing it like this.

The 68k CPUs however should not be difficult to get at all - cannibalizing old 68k macs would be quite cost-effective as there are probably millions in old US educational warehouses - I was able at one point to get over 500 computers used in a school system in Petersburg, Virginia for the cost of hauling it away - sold it to a computer recycler for scrap metal and made a decent killing on it. Lots of 68k and PowerPC macs I had in that stock.
After many years in the Amiga community I have decided to leave the Amiga community permanently. If you have a question about SGI or Sun computers please PM me and I will return your contact as soon as I can.
 

Offline Honkybear

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Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #33 on: June 23, 2014, 01:48:02 PM »
Well Said Paul 1981. I too would like to see the replication of some blizzard PPC. Those that do exist are way over priced (if you can get one) and then the integrity of the boards because of there age is another issue. I have bought three or four products of Jens and have been very impressed. This is someone who has done some fantastic projects for the Amiga community. Thanks Jens wherever you maybe.
A600 ,ECS, ACA620EC ,A604
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Offline OlafS3

Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #34 on: June 23, 2014, 01:48:32 PM »
Quote from: TeamBlackFox;767395
Is the Amiga chipset so complex that it can't be replicated directly rather than via an FPGA? I have limited knowledge of hardware engineering - but I imagine with modern manufacturing methods it would easily be possible to build the AGA chipset into a single chip. However, this would likely require extensive knowledge of transistors and to have it manufactured it'd probably need to be ordered in bulk to be cost-effective. I imagine this is why FPGAs are used rather than actually doing it like this.

The 68k CPUs however should not be difficult to get at all - cannibalizing old 68k macs would be quite cost-effective as there are probably millions in old US educational warehouses - I was able at one point to get over 500 computers used in a school system in Petersburg, Virginia for the cost of hauling it away - sold it to a computer recycler for scrap metal and made a decent killing on it. Lots of 68k and PowerPC macs I had in that stock.

I am no hardware engineer either but...

AGA is not easy to emulate. Doing it in transistors is possible but also costly if you do not produce millions of devices. FPGA is more flexible and you can add features (difficult in transistors I imagine). And you cannot use used processors (still in old computers) for new devices. And even if they would still be 68060 at 60 MHz. If the processor is in the FPGA it will become automatic faster with every FPGA generation.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #35 on: June 23, 2014, 01:53:45 PM »
Quote from: cunnpole;767393
For a second I thought that said CD32 and I almost died. The A500 will be happy and I will certainly appreciate your effort.

 I know better than to ask for CD32 support to be added :)


i think the range of devices gunnar mentioned is a sensible choice, if its really possible to support them all with a single board. these are pre-aga models but contrary to a600 rather popular which should secure a good crowd for testing and debugging. after that the aga models could be supported with a a more extended model, like double ram amount or whatever occurs reasonable while testing the previous one.
 

Offline TeamBlackFox

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Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #36 on: June 23, 2014, 02:59:34 PM »
Quote from: OlafS3;767397
And you cannot use used processors (still in old computers) for new devices. And even if they would still be 68060 at 60 MHz.

Why can't you cannibalize old processors for new devices - They did it for the Treamcast ( Cloned version of the Dreamcast, but portable ) they cannibalized the hardware and reengineered it. Not saying its cost effective, but I doubt 68040s and 68060s are still produced, unless I'm wrong...
After many years in the Amiga community I have decided to leave the Amiga community permanently. If you have a question about SGI or Sun computers please PM me and I will return your contact as soon as I can.
 

Offline OlafS3

Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #37 on: June 23, 2014, 03:13:34 PM »
Quote from: TeamBlackFox;767400
Why can't you cannibalize old processors for new devices - They did it for the Treamcast ( Cloned version of the Dreamcast, but portable ) they cannibalized the hardware and reengineered it. Not saying its cost effective, but I doubt 68040s and 68060s are still produced, unless I'm wrong...


they are rather exotic. I think for FPGA Arcade they sourced some in china (but not cheap, kind of spare parts of oldtimer). I do not know how much it would cost to get old devices and get the processors from there but I guess it would be not cheap either. The only realistic option is to have the processor in the FPGA from my point of view.
 

Offline biggun

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Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #38 on: June 23, 2014, 03:26:51 PM »
Quote from: TeamBlackFox;767400
Why can't you cannibalize old processors for new devices .


We use a new processor for several reasons:

a) The new processor is a faster than existing 68K processors.
b) The FPGA solution allows a lower price than a 68060 CPU solution would have
c) The new processor in the FPGA needs less power.
    Therefore the card can run in a normal A500.

Offline billt

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Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #39 on: June 23, 2014, 04:04:50 PM »
Quote from: TeamBlackFox;767395
Is the Amiga chipset so complex that it can't be replicated directly rather than via an FPGA? I have limited knowledge of hardware engineering - but I imagine with modern manufacturing methods it would easily be possible to build the AGA chipset into a single chip. However, this would likely require extensive knowledge of transistors and to have it manufactured it'd probably need to be ordered in bulk to be cost-effective. I imagine this is why FPGAs are used rather than actually doing it like this.


On the scale of the customer base/market for such things, it's far less expensive to do this in FPGA. To convert the Minimig, aoOCS or Clone_A chipsets from FPGA into a custom ASIC (the holy grail "custom chip" for some people", isn't terribly difficult. It IS terribly expensive. Jeri was able to do the 64DTV as an ASIC due to large volume. As the FPGA implementations work very well so far, I'm not sure why it would be worth such an expense for the available market to go custom ASIC. Especially as FPGA allows updates to improve things, go from OCS or ECS to AGA, etc. I'd rather be in a reconfigurable FPGA than in a fixed ASIC at this point. Show us a flawless AGA with Apollo and maybe at that point it would be more interesting to go ASIC for even faster CPU. Even then, I yself would do ASIC for Apollo and leave AGA in separate FPGA or separate ASIC, unless the full SoC thing could still adapt into an existing 680x0 socket.
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Offline freqmax

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Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #40 on: June 23, 2014, 04:35:43 PM »
The only interesting chip to reproduce is likely the 68060 because it's hard to replicate in FPGA right now.
 

Offline Duce

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Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #41 on: June 23, 2014, 07:08:11 PM »
Honestly the project I'd like to see the most out of a guy like Jens with his considerable talents is a high powered "Amiga on a card" that fits inside a PC.
 

Offline matthey

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Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #42 on: June 23, 2014, 08:10:16 PM »
Quote from: biggun;767385
For A500/ A1000/ A2000 / CDTV.

Card specs are:

* very fast 68K CPU
* 128 MB DDR3 Fast-memory
* SD-card usable/bootable as IDE-device
* Network interface
* RTG Graphics Card (chunky/Hicolor/truecolor) with HDMI out

The physical card design is done.
Testing / Driver development needs to be done.

The boards are in production/shipment.
We expect to receive them this week.


Sounds good. That would be nice if we could get it to work in all Amigas with a socketed 68000 chip. I don't have a CDTV for testing but I do have a 500, 1000 and 2000 :).
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #43 on: June 23, 2014, 08:35:19 PM »
aha. the card is supposed to go into the cpu socket.  too simple for me to figure out..
 

Offline Lord Aga

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Re: A project I'd like to see from Jens...
« Reply #44 from previous page: June 23, 2014, 10:56:36 PM »
Ho ho ho, the Christmas seems to be coming early this year :)
Glory to the loud-mouthed Scotsman !