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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Topic started by: SysAdmin on August 10, 2013, 03:32:21 PM
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News from Djole
http://www.majsta.com/
Ok now is the time to investigate how many people are interested in Vampire 600 so I can determine how much boards to produce. If you are interested send me Mail.
Price: 90Euros + shipping
What you get:
CPU: FPGA emulated MC68000 or MC68010 or partially emulated MC68020(your choice)
Performance: More than 6Mips
Memory: 64MB of FastRam (Zorro III space)
Autoconfig: 32MB( for now)
PCMCIA friendly: Yes
You will be informed that your order is placed by mail and listing your name in the picture attached to this topic. Sending accelerator boards will take place hopefully next month and according to the mentioned list. When your board is ready you will receive Paypal invoice to your mailbox. If you don't want to be listed just say in the mail. About guarantee don't worry I don't intend to leave I'm here to made significant influence on Amiga scene, remember :) Other components like OSD, loading Kickstart from MicroSD card and PS2 mouse support will be provided later with core upgrades so I suggest everyone to buy USB blaster programmer because I don't intend to stop at 6Mips :) Board will not have PS2 and MicroSD sockets because they are unusable inside case so we will find a way later to bring them out with another small PCB. I forget to say that all of those who had some contribution in this project will have another price or no price at all...
UPDATE: August 8, 2013
Now board is 32MB autoconfig. But, haters gotta hate. It is just interesting to me what I read on various forums. There are so much people who would like to see all of this fall down, and never see real success. Why? Just so they can say "I told you that all of this will be failure". I don't know the reason for all of this but those days I realized one thing. That Amiga is not destroyed just because company died. Amiga is destroyed by developers and resellers wanted to earn huge money from Amiga name. Like vultures various people are sending me bunch of mails wanting to increase price of the boards and to resell them. Proposal prices about 200Euros :) Let me say this. If I ever seen that someone sells this card for some incredible high price I will stop him by putting tons of boards for sale at manufacturing cost. No more exploiting Amiga scene from now!!! Here is what I said one of the supporters of this project yesterday. Yes I received lot of mails for some proposals. Resellers, manufacturers all of them wanna make money and increase price and benefit from this. I will fool them all open-sourcing everything. I will survive alone and do everything alone and my work will be free and I will send lot of boards for free to people and PCB also. I m waiting just for another money transfer from my government. I'm in a mission remember. With true Amiga spirit.
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Awesome. I hope I didnt miss out. I sent a mail through the website. Hope you are watching Majsta the Wizard! The new Amiga Hero!
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If there are any plans to make an A1200 version I would put money down for that.
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I am on the list waiting for one, great to finally get something to put inside my old A600 besides SRAM cards :)
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I just registered on your page and send you an e-mail stating that I would MOST CERTAINLY order one!
If I ever get my 600 back from Jersey, I'll have a great alternative for an OctaMed machine. My 1200 is too big to sit amongst all my clutter anyhow! ;)
Thanks, keep up the great work.
Small donation made also.
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That Amiga is not destroyed just because company died. Amiga is destroyed by developers and resellers wanted to earn huge money from Amiga name. Like vultures various people are sending me bunch of mails wanting to increase price of the boards and to resell them.
I congratulate you on your hard work and I am surprised there is so many people trying to make a profit at your expense (idea/creation), that's awful.
I really hope you make lots of accelerator cards, not just for A600 but for all Amiga's.
This will show resellers and the community that if you get it right you will be rewarded by the universe. Karma is a good thing. :)
Don't forget to patent/copyright your design..
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If I ever get my 600 back from Jersey,.
If I may, why is your A600 in Jersey? Are you having work done to it?
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Now board is 32MB autoconfig. But, haters gotta hate.
almost nowhere read anything negative.. whats up..
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wawrzon
I'm sure he's not making it up. Do you read alot of foreign language forums?
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It is great to see FPGA make its way into Amiga's.
I would be cool to see them in a big box Amiga.
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almost nowhere read anything negative.. whats up..
Majsta got a lot of negative feedback when he started the project and also as he progressed but he still made it on his own.
I must say that this is just the beginning, expect a lot more from him. ;)
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Djole
Would you please mention to him to check for my email please? I registered an account on hiis site as well. .Left a comment too. Just want to make sure my email to registger pre order interest was received.
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Hi :)
For example newest rumors on German forums is that design of accelerator is not mine. Also there are rumors that I don't use SDRAM on the board that I somehow fake everything. I don't know but when I waste my time reading what people are saying about this it is interesting to me that they still don't see that all of this is simple if you think outside of the box. If you try to connect your knowledge with this new approach you may end up talking technical stuff that make no sense anymore. Only few people in the world has the opportunity to see the board. Few days ago I went to Djole's office and talked about this project. He has seen Vampire 500 accelerator. One board left to UK to AMR and he is doing his own core for it. Soon we will have lot of people who are interested in developing their own cores based on my guidance not just using mine core. So what if all of this is fake? What if all of this is not stable or usable in any way? What if all of this does not exist? I think that this is last chance for classics amiga and if this goes down we won't have the time or ideas to think of new way where amiga should go. I think that FPGA has the answers for saving amiga. It is so powerfully.Magic!!!
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@majsta:
calm down, there were only few critical, but not even negative comments on a-news. and this is the only site i could thought of. i know you have caught a lot of fire on a1k before, but it should have made you harder. stay cool no need to get upset, most people are definitely found of you and what you do!
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Keep up the awesome work Majsta, great to have folk like you and Kipper building great HW for the Amiga and not profiteering from it unlike a certain someone that thinks 2mb ram is enuf for an a500 "accelerator" because he wants you to fork out even more money for an a1200 accelerator to make his a500 board actually useful!
I dont even own an a600 but I want to buy a Vampire 600 to support you - I'd luv an a1200 version and and internal a500 version too! :D
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This looks great, I would be interested in buying one, even though I don't have an a600. - I have always wanted one though since its the only amiga besides a4000t and a3000t I never owned yet. Besides that they are small and cool...
Steven
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I'm not interested but if this ever gets to a big and fast FPGA, 060 core with FPU and A1200 version I'd be totally in. Maybe later you can get custom chips done too, alas Natami..
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count me in!
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If I may, why is your A600 in Jersey? Are you having work done to it?
I mailed it to Sloopy from AtariAge a couple years ago to have it recapped due to audio issues...
...he has not returned it since.
In the past he has been fair dealings, but this last time he keeps telling me that he's moved, his daughter has moved in with him, that he hurt his wrist, etc. etc. etc.
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btw, this makes me want to call my former girlfriend whom i gave my first a 600 (it was a lovely machine!) when i got an a1200. maybe she has kept it somewhere in the closet..
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Project website mentions A500 Version of the FPGA Accelerator.
http://www.majsta.com/modules.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&catid=7
Will the A500 version of the FPGA Accelerator get produced ?
I ask since I do not own an A600; however, I do have a couple of A500(s).
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Project website mentions A500 Version of the FPGA Accelerator.
http://www.majsta.com/modules.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&catid=7
Will the A500 version of the FPGA Accelerator get produced ?
I ask since I do not own an A600; however, I do have a couple of A500(s).
I'm with you. I already have ACA630 in my A600, so I'm good, but my A500 could use some more speed and RAM. Also, if he could make an IDE port integrated in his design that would be perfect.
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Hi :) Don't get me wrong all of the negative comments are fine by me and i don't take anything regarding that too serious. People can thing and feel whatever they like :)
Regarding Vampire 500. Project is put on hold due to high interest for Vampire 600. At the moment where last testings were performed Vampire 500 had about 8Mips and 8 autoconfig mem(total 64MB) but I had some problems with IDe controller. Code for IDE controller is finished about 90% but didn't have the time to finish it. And Yes this boards will be produced also but it seems in much much larger quantities because demand is even higher than for Vampire 600.
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Vampire 500 is on hold until first batch of Vampire 600 is shipped.
Vampire 500 is not question, I guess it is month or two until more news or pre orders. So save your money!
I think that next thing is Vampire 1200 :)
Those accelerators (V600 and V500) have no alterlnative - lowest price - best performance.
Forget about the rest - this is the future for classics - especialy A500 and A600.
One more thing V500 is currently faster than V600 :)
Majsta was faster ;)
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... but I had some problems with IDe controller. Code for IDE controller is finished about 90% but didn't have the time to finish it...
So, you are working on V500 with IDE. Thats good, can't wait till it is available.
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Majsta is it possible for the user to update the FPGA code? We do actually have an A600 that we don't use much, if it were possible, I could use it to try developing a faster CPU softcore, which I would like to try.
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@majsta
Count me in on a Vampire 600 please.
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Count me in when you've got an A1200/A3000 version with an 100MHz 060 FPGA. :)
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Count me in when you've got an A1200/A3000 version with an 100MHz 060 FPGA. :)
How modest of you. ;)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJqQ6Zr5J8
[youtube]WdJqQ6Zr5J8[/youtube]
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count me in when you've got an a1200/a3000 version with an 100mhz 060 fpga. :)
x2
:)
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Nice work on this project! I am tired of the prices for Amiga hardware and would love to see something like this take off!! Dont forget when Minimeg was first talked about people said no way would it ever work and now its as real as anything out there!
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(Originally Posted by nicholas
count me in when you've got an a1200/a3000 version with an 100mhz 060 fpga. :))
x2
:)
x3
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@Mrs Beanbag (http://www.amiga.org/forums/member.php?u=9504)
that is what is all about to many people participate in this and that we build new cores constantly and put them into board. So anyone with VHDL or Verilog knowledge can try and best thing is that you can't damage A600 or accelerator itself because there are lot of protection modules there.
About those accelerators for A1200, we will see...
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I don't have any VHDL or Verilog knowledge, yet...
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@Mrs Beanbag (http://www.amiga.org/forums/member.php?u=9504)
that is what is all about to many people participate in this and that we build new cores constantly and put them into board. So anyone with VHDL or Verilog knowledge can try and best thing is that you can't damage A600 or accelerator itself because there are lot of protection modules there.
About those accelerators for A1200, we will see...
@majsta : I dont have an a600 - I might consider one of the a500 ones but If you do an a1200 version i will be lining up for a pre-order myself. Just out of curiousity how much is the speed limited by the FPGA? and would you need more expensive FPGA to achieve greater speeds?
N
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@Mrs Beanbag (http://www.amiga.org/forums/member.php?u=9504)
that is what is all about to many people participate in this and that we build new cores constantly and put them into board. So anyone with VHDL or Verilog knowledge can try and best thing is that you can't damage A600 or accelerator itself because there are lot of protection modules there.
About those accelerators for A1200, we will see...
Interesting project! What else is on the board other than an FPGA? I assume a boot processor etc?
My thinking is that this could make a fun hacking platform for the A600! :)
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. Just out of curiousity how much is the speed limited by the FPGA? and would you need more expensive FPGA to achieve greater speeds?
The speed is currently limited by the absence of L1 cache right now.
Using a more expensive FPGA would do nothing until after an L1 cache is implemented.
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Yes that's correct but I don't think that in the future adding such cache will be some huge problem. Also current cache can be improved so right now no one can calculate limits of this design.
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Very cool stuff.
I only have an a1200, but will start looking for an a600 soon 'cos of the Vampire cards.
Just curious, but apart from speed increases, what enhancements can potentially be added? Would some sort of basic RTG system be possible? Or even something like Grafitti emulation ?
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I gather there are still plenty of spare LUTs on the FPGA, room for a lot of enhancements.
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I gather there are still plenty of spare LUTs on the FPGA, room for a lot of enhancements.
Akiko in FPGA could be interesting... Or perhaps some other wacko invention like a hardware implemented raycaster. I wonder if we could actually add features to the Amiga that never existed before that would provide hardware assistance to other CPU intensive tasks. A very exciting time indeed!
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How modest of you. ;)
Well I suppose I could always wait for the 1GHz 060 FPGA version he's surely working on. ;)
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Akiko in FPGA could be interesting... Or perhaps some other wacko invention like a hardware implemented raycaster. I wonder if we could actually add features to the Amiga that never existed before that would provide hardware assistance to other CPU intensive tasks. A very exciting time indeed!
Akiko done right might be a nice addition, where instead of writing the chunky pixel to the chip, then reading back the planar pixel and copying that data to the bitmap... Perhaps one could simply set a pointer to the chunky buffer in fast ram, then set it off to automatically copy and covert the buffer to chipram as planar data :)
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Akiko done right might be a nice addition, where instead of writing the chunky pixel to the chip, then reading back the planar pixel and copying that data to the bitmap... Perhaps one could simply set a pointer to the chunky buffer in fast ram, then set it off to automatically copy and covert the buffer to chipram as planar data :)
Kalms released code that does chunky-planar faster than Akiko could do it. lol
http://code.google.com/p/unitedstatesofamiga/downloads/list
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Perhaps one could simply set a pointer to the chunky buffer in fast ram, then set it off to automatically copy and covert the buffer to chipram as planar data :)
Or simply a command to shuffle the bits around in the data registers, so you can read 32 chunky pixels into D0-D7 and write out 32 planar pixels, or vice versa. That would be very easy to do since it could simply be hardwired into the register file bit by bit.
But I would first of all concentrate on making the CPU core as efficient as possible before adding extra features that no current software will use.
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Well I suppose I could always wait for the 1GHz 060 FPGA version he's surely working on. ;)
Keep hoping :) This is the best thing happened to amiga since amiga :)
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Akiko in FPGA could be interesting... Or perhaps some other wacko invention like a hardware implemented raycaster. I wonder if we could actually add features to the Amiga that never existed before that would provide hardware assistance to other CPU intensive tasks. A very exciting time indeed!
I don't see a point to support hw which never was supported by mainstream sw. This card adds a lot of stuff original Amiga didn't have, stuff that didn't exist when the Amiga was made. There is no limit what this design can do. This makes this card a revolution in classic Amiga hw.
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Yep I also think FPGA solutions and Classic hardware could go very well together.
What I'd really like to see is some FGPA projects that have an (open source) active developer community behind them to continually improve the performance.
Other possible projects:
Clock-port/Zorro 16bit mp3 decoder AHI sound cards
Clock-port/Zorro USB cards
Lisa replacement/enhancement board to provide chunky modes and RTG support (like the Indivision ECS but community supported)
Alice replacement/enhancement board to provide improved IDE speed (with a SATA or CF interface built in)
All dreams but you never know what will happen :)
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@NovaCoder
Don't forget Paula replacement/enhancement to provide 16 bit 64 channel audio. The Paula chip is long overdue for a replacement, she missed out on being improved in the AGA chipset.
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@NovaCoder
Don't forget Paula replacement/enhancement to provide 16 bit 64 channel audio. The Paula chip is long overdue for a replacement, she missed out on being improved in the AGA chipset.
I don't think there's much point in updating Paula if no software is going to use it's new features, AHI is probably the way to go with an enhanced Paula :)
It's the same kind of deal with an enhanced FPGA Lisa, apart from adding a scan-doubler and fixer there's probably not much you can do with chunky modes and higher screen depths with existing software (including Work Bench). Probably the way to go would be add CyberGFX or P96 support and treat it like an RTG card.
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So Nova, with this kind of speed (and more) for OCS/ECS machines, are you thinking about some OCS/ECS ports?? ;-)
desiv
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So Nova, with this kind of speed (and more) for OCS/ECS machines, are you thinking about some OCS/ECS ports?? ;-)
desiv
Glad you asked :)
If Majsta can get it up to around 12 MIPS then you'll finally be able to play some cool point-and-click games like Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max on a 600 with nice speed. Hopefully you'll also be able to play my new AmiWolf port if I can get it working properly in 64 colors.
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Yep I also think FPGA solutions and Classic hardware could go very well together.
I think it's more likely that the old hardware will end up getting replaced altogether. What if this hardware existed for about 300 euros (~$400 AUD or U.S.)?
Cyclone 5 with 68k+@150MHz + 512k L2 cache
1 GB DDR3 memory
HDMI (includes sound)
2xPCIe
2xSATA
Gigabit Ethernet
USB2
1xCF
PS2 keyboard and mouse
2x9 pin joystick ports
Ok, your 68060 can compete with this but what if we can double the CPU speed for say 3x the cost and in about a year a 500MHz+ enhanced 68k CPU could be possible with the hardware specs above still at 3x the cost. It probably wouldn't fit in your 1200 but it should fit in a mini-tower of some kind. Would you be persuaded to give up your old 1200?
What I'd really like to see is some FGPA projects that have an (open source) active developer community behind them to continually improve the performance.
An upgrade path and an active developer community are key to all the fpga projects. The more open projects will attract more developers.
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Hiya,
This retro hobby is a funny old thing really.
I guess on one end of the spectrum you have a bog-standard machine and on the other you have WinUAE/X1000/AROS. Everyone has their own idea of where they want to be on this scale.
Personally, I get a good retro feeling from using the real thing with modern expansions. I wouldn't get exactly the same feeling from a drop in replacement motherboard or a brand-new FPGA based computer in a new case.
I'm not sure what I'll do when my old A1200 finally kicks the bucket ;)
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Hiya,
This retro hobby is a funny old thing really.
I guess on one end of the spectrum you have a bog-standard machine and on the other you have WinUAE/X1000/AROS. Everyone has their own idea of where they want to be on this scale.
Personally, I get a good retro feeling from using the real thing with modern expansions. I wouldn't get exactly the same feeling from a drop in replacement motherboard or a brand-new FPGA based computer in a new case.
I'm not sure what I'll do when my old A1200 finally kicks the bucket ;)
The UAE experience didn't do it for me either. Something about Windoze being in control doing stupid stuff in the background and pausing for a few seconds now and then kind of ruins the feeling. A real 68060 Amiga doesn't do that. I like the old stuff and it's pretty amazing how usable it is when upgraded even with a <100MHz processor and '90s technology. It will be interesting to see what the feel of an all fpga board is though. If done right, it should be like a regular Amiga on super steroids. If I can plug in the old joysticks and keyboard and play a little Deluxe Galaga or Pinball Dreams with no gliches then it might be quite alright ;).
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Probably the way to go would be add CyberGFX or P96 support and treat it like an RTG card.
Isn't the Indivision doing exactly that? It's a FPGA chip programmed to emulate the one on the motherboard, and also adding some nice things like RTG for Workbench. Along with a Vampire you'd actually be running two FPGA systems and emulating both the CPU and the Graphics system. Correct me if I am mistaken...
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Isn't the Indivision doing exactly that? It's a FPGA chip programmed to emulate the one on the motherboard, and also adding some nice things like RTG for Workbench. Along with a Vampire you'd actually be running two FPGA systems and emulating both the CPU and the Graphics system. Correct me if I am mistaken...
Only the ECS model supports RTG and a direct chunky mode, it actually uses the direct chunky mode to create the P96 support.
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Only the ECS model supports RTG and a direct chunky mode, it actually uses the direct chunky mode to create the P96 support.
Really? I could have sworn that the AGA MK2 supported an RTG mode.
/me goes off to google hoping that dementia isn't setting in early!
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Kalms released code that does chunky-planar faster than Akiko could do it. lol
http://code.google.com/p/unitedstatesofamiga/downloads/list
Akiko was actually quite good little thing ...
AB3D on Amiga CD32 ran playable with poor 020 14Mhz and no fast ram
involved ...
It's probably beaten by 030 with some fast ram though ...
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@NovaCoder (http://www.amiga.org/forums/member.php?u=5682) I was able to run it at 14.34Mips as I recall but it was not so stable. I left that code to wait until I get everything stable so I will back to that in matter of days to see what was wrong. I think that most of the problems was related to metastability and chip ram accesses and since i have solved that it shouldn't be such problem to get it working at higher Mips.
I have no idea how you create such wonderful ports but I would like to try something on my configuration, maybe then we could see real testings from this accelerator.
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News from Djole
http://www.majsta.com/
Ok now is the time to investigate how many people are interested in Vampire 600 so I can determine how much boards to produce. If you are interested send me Mail.
Price: 90Euros + shipping
What you get:
CPU: FPGA emulated MC68000 or MC68010 or partially emulated MC68020(your choice)
Performance: More than 6Mips
Memory: 64MB of FastRam (Zorro III space)
Autoconfig: 32MB( for now)
PCMCIA friendly: Yes
UPDATE: August 8, 2013
Now board is 32MB autoconfig. But, haters gotta hate. It is just interesting to me what I read on various forums. There are so much people who would like to see all of this fall down, and never see real success. Why? Just so they can say "I told you that all of this will be failure". I don't know the reason for all of this but those days I realized one thing. That Amiga is not destroyed just because company died. Amiga is destroyed by developers and resellers wanted to earn huge money from Amiga name. Like vultures various people are sending me bunch of mails wanting to increase price of the boards and to resell them. Proposal prices about 200Euros :) Let me say this. If I ever seen that someone sells this card for some incredible high price I will stop him by putting tons of boards for sale at manufacturing cost. No more exploiting Amiga scene from now!!! Here is what I said one of the supporters of this project yesterday. Yes I received lot of mails for some proposals. Resellers, manufacturers all of them wanna make money and increase price and benefit from this. I will fool them all open-sourcing everything. I will survive alone and do everything alone and my work will be free and I will send lot of boards for free to people and PCB also. I m waiting just for another money transfer from my government. I'm in a mission remember. With true Amiga spirit.
Well, why not offering resellers, once you meet basic supply. AmigaKit and few survivors are not vultures of Commodore era (remember Amiga Center - fat man from Zemun charging Amigas +100%).
My compliments Djole, fastest A600 accel, made in Serbia :-)
Great accomplishment, however looking at surving classic users, A1200 accel. would be real big boom!
Now, keep chanting "Djole, Djole, Majsta, Majsta" (Majsta is kind of jargon for master craftsmen)
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@Vox
I am not part of the project I just posted the news and I have the privilege to know the author.
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(remember Amiga Center - fat man from Zemun charging Amigas +100%).
Dzebeli is a legend of Serbian Amiga scene :)
Yes, all Amiga hardware was overpriced here, but such is life...