Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: drHirudo on November 10, 2010, 02:27:03 PM
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Hello,
today while browsing at Vesalia for some goods I found the ACA 1230/28 accelerator.
ACA 1230/28
Budget Accelerator Card for Amiga 1200
The inexpensive ACA 1230 accelerator card comes with a 68EC030 CPU (clocked at 28 MHz, no MMU) and 64 MB of RAM, making it the affordable choice to turn your stock A1200 into a perfect retro gaming machine.
* CPU 68EC030 @ 28 MHz
* 64 MB RAM
* MapRom function
* RTC optional (not included with delivery)
Further information coming soon.
Item Price in EUR
ACA-1230/28 incl. CPU 68EC030 (w/o MMU) and... ACA-1230/28 incl. CPU 68EC030 (w/o MMU) and 64 MB RAM
This product is currently not available (ETA: November 27, 2010).
[Configure item]
(Individual Computers) 99.90
(http://www.vesalia.de/pic/aca1230-28.jpg)
On my Amiga1200 I used Viper 1230/28MHz Turboboard + 68882 FPU. Will this board be faster?
The 64 MB sounds very good, but I remember that on my Viper if I was using 8 MB, the PCMCIA did not work, so I will not be able to use wireless. LAN is not option (too expensive for the A1200 and hard to find).
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This production run of ACA 1230/28 accelerator for Amiga 1200 (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1002) is really good news. AmigaKit.com webstores will be stocking this accelerator shortly with an A600 version also.
I can confirm that both accelerators are PCMCIA friendly, so will work with both EasyNet Wireless card (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=121) for the A1200 / A600 and EasyNet Ethernet Card (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=116) for A1200 / A600.
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What a bargain for the extra speed and RAM! Nice.
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As always, love to see new hardware produced for the classic Amiga! Nice price too. I do wonder what they mean about turning your A1200 into a great retro gaming machine -- *upgrading* for retro games?? Still poor compatibility with many A500/2000 games -- or am I missing something here?
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Good to know that the PCMCIA will work fine. With the LAN and Wireless adaptor I may connect my A1200 to the Internet again. Was time it was online was in 2004, when I still used Modem! I have free ports in the router and wireless antenna.
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As always, love to see new hardware produced for the classic Amiga! Nice price too. I do wonder what they mean about turning your A1200 into a great retro gaming machine -- *upgrading* for retro games?? Still poor compatibility with many A500/2000 games -- or am I missing something here?
Upgraded CPU and RAM for WHDLoad?
Steve
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As always, love to see new hardware produced for the classic Amiga! Nice price too. I do wonder what they mean about turning your A1200 into a great retro gaming machine -- *upgrading* for retro games?? Still poor compatibility with many A500/2000 games -- or am I missing something here?
With the extra CPU and power more retro demanding games will work like Doom, Gloom, Fears and Genetic Species. With the extra RAM you can place all your favorite games to the RAM Disk and turn off the HD drive (I used to have a commodity for this). So the A1200 can turn into nice silent retro machine with cool games inside that can stay switched on for months.
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Nice. I wonder if it would be possible to swap the CPU/crystal, with appropriate 50Mhz parts.
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Nice. I wonder if it would be possible to swap the CPU/crystal, with appropriate 50Mhz parts.
My guess is that one of the reasons for the low cost and multiple of 14 speed is that he's using the motherboard clock everywhere possible.
He seems to have cost/part reduced these to the greatest possible extent.
Great design IMHO, it should be very reliable.
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My x-mas gift to myself will be the A600 card.. :)
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Nice. I wonder if it would be possible to swap the CPU/crystal, with appropriate 50Mhz parts.
I don't think so, going on Jens' comments in this thread at EAB (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=55059) - seems it'd also need at least an upgrade of the programmable logic.
However there's a 56MHz version of the A1200 version on the way as well, though it won't be out as quickly (see the linked thread for more details).
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wish they made this for amiga 500, I'd buy 3...
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As always, love to see new hardware produced for the classic Amiga! Nice price too. I do wonder what they mean about turning your A1200 into a great retro gaming machine -- *upgrading* for retro games?? Still poor compatibility with many A500/2000 games -- or am I missing something here?
Relokick makes most games work.
The extra ram is useful for WHDload, and if you use a hard drive, AGA games tend to get annoyed if you only have 2 megs RAM total.
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My x-mas gift to myself will be the A600 card.. :)
The 600 version will cost 159 Euro, with half the RAM (32 MB) and no RTC option:
ACA 630/25
Accelerator Card for Amiga 600
* CPU 68030 @ 25 MHz
* 32 MB RAM
* MapRom function
* Sophisticated mechanical mounting
Further information and pictures of the sales version to follow shortly.
The image shows a prototype card and does not match the sales version.
Item Price in EUR
ACA-630/25 incl. 32 MB RAM ACA-630/25 incl. 32 MB RAM
This product is currently not available (ETA: November 27, 2010).
(Individual Computers) 159.00 Add item to your order
(http://www.vesalia.de/pic/aca630-25.jpg)
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Wow! The 600 version looks awesome, what a great upgrade for that tiny computer!
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The 600 version will cost 159 Euro, with half the RAM (32 MB) and no RTC option:
The lack of RTC is to be expected of course. On an A600, you get an RTC along with most trapdoor ChipRAM expansions. The Individual Computers A603 is your friend here. :-)
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I suddenly feel the urge to purchase classic Amiga hardware.
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I wish they would make a 060 model. :)
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In case no one noticed AmigaKit's announcement earlier, there's also a beefier A600 version on the way, 30MHz instead of 25MHz and 64MB of RAM instead of 32MB. All for only roughly $50USD more.
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Please note: the ACA630/30Mhz version only is sold out now.
However the ACA630/25Mhz (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1003) is still available.
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Woops, guess everybody heard ;)
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Woops, guess everybody heard ;)
Man, that did not take long :lol:
My A600 needs repairing. It's just as dead as a doornail. There's no obvious motherboard malaise, you switch on the power, nada. Not even the LED lights up.
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Man, that did not take long :lol:
My A600 needs repairing. It's just as dead as a doornail. There's no obvious motherboard malaise, you switch on the power, nada. Not even the LED lights up.
Dead psu?
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Dead psu?
Well, that was my first thought, but I've tested it on known good PSUs, to no avail.
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Just put in an order for the ACA 1230/28 on amigakit! So now I just need to get my hands on an Amiga 1200! :lol:
Has anyone got any experience with this card?
I dont really care for the cpu-upgrade, I just wanted to make sure I got enough ram when i get my Amiga 1200 so I can use whdload properly.
I probably should have asked here first about the easiest way to add ram to an Amiga 1200, but 100 euro is not that much money and I'm afraid these things will go out of stock.
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I just brought one this lunch time, probably not the best person to ask though as I don't know that much about it all! I brought a battered old amiga 1200 off ebay a while ago and have been rebuying all the games of my youth. Plus bringing a little shine back to the thing.
Thought I would give whdload a spin and got a hard drive full of games and this expansion card seems the most reasonable in terms of pricing to get that working.
But as I said, apart from some A500 gaming in the my late teens my amiga knowledge is puddle deep!
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Man, that did not take long :lol:
My A600 needs repairing. It's just as dead as a doornail. There's no obvious motherboard malaise, you switch on the power, nada. Not even the LED lights up.
That's one of the best sorts of problem to fix... it might seem terrible but it's not, it probably just means the +5V line is kaput, you need to check the capacitors and all that but it's probably just a resistor that's gone (or even a fuse if there is one). Chances are that as soon as you get a good 5V line the whole machine will be just fine.
Given the choice between repairing a machine with nothing happening and a machine which works 90% of the time but occasionally goes wrong, I know which I'd rather have, any day!
Edit:
@fruitlesseffort
Welcome to A.org - have fun with that 1200!
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Just put in an order for the ACA 1230/28 on amigakit! So now I just need to get my hands on an Amiga 1200! :lol:
Has anyone got any experience with this card?
I dont really care for the cpu-upgrade, I just wanted to make sure I got enough ram when i get my Amiga 1200 so I can use whdload properly.
I probably should have asked here first about the easiest way to add ram to an Amiga 1200, but 100 euro is not that much money and I'm afraid these things will go out of stock.
I have the 56 version and it is a damn good card. 64 megs of RAM is basically unlimited RAM, as far as a 1200 is concerned :)
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I just brought one this lunch time, probably not the best person to ask though as I don't know that much about it all! I brought a battered old amiga 1200 off ebay a while ago and have been rebuying all the games of my youth. Plus bringing a little shine back to the thing.
Thought I would give whdload a spin and got a hard drive full of games and this expansion card seems the most reasonable in terms of pricing to get that working.
But as I said, apart from some A500 gaming in the my late teens my amiga knowledge is puddle deep!
Welcome on board! don't worry any probs or info you need is on here, or just ask.
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I just brought one this lunch time, probably not the best person to ask though as I don't know that much about it all! I brought a battered old amiga 1200 off ebay a while ago and have been rebuying all the games of my youth. Plus bringing a little shine back to the thing.
Thought I would give whdload a spin and got a hard drive full of games and this expansion card seems the most reasonable in terms of pricing to get that working.
But as I said, apart from some A500 gaming in the my late teens my amiga knowledge is puddle deep!
Welcome back!
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Thanks for the welcomes!
Can anyone tell me what the slight modification to the trapdoor consists of? Just a bit of plastic shaving?
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Thanks for the welcomes!
Can anyone tell me what the slight modification to the trapdoor consists of? Just a bit of plastic shaving?
yeah, the card sticks out just a tiny bit too much.
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Thanks for the welcomes!
Can anyone tell me what the slight modification to the trapdoor consists of? Just a bit of plastic shaving?
Just leave the trapdoor off, that's what I'm going to do (it's better for airlow anyway).
The three things that I always ditch with a 1200 are the trapdoor, upper RF shield and RF modulator :)
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I ended up leaving mine off as well. These guys dont get all that hot, but it never hurts to have some more ventilation
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The three things that I always ditch with a 1200 are the trapdoor, upper RF shield and RF modulator :)
Why on earth would one remove the RF modulator on the 1200? It doesn't hurt having it installed, does it? Also, it's soldered if I remember correctly. So, please explain :).
Adrian
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Removing the RF Modulator from an A1200 leaves you with a handy hole to poke a VGA connector out if you have an Indivision and want to use the mini backdoor slot for USB or sound card audio jacks.
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Removing the RF Modulator from an A1200 leaves you with a handy hole to poke a VGA connector out if you have an Indivision and want to use the mini backdoor slot for USB or sound card audio jacks.
Ok, that makes sense. Still, wouldn't dare to do that to my 1200 though :)). I'm planning to get an Indivision though, can't stand the charm of connecting a 20-year-old computer to a modern TFT :).
Adrian
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Could really do with some help!
I recieved the card today, put it in and the only way I can get it to work is to boot with the jumper off and then add the jumper and run the ACATune from the floppy sent with the card. The install option doesnt appear to do anything and every time I reboot I have to repeat the whole process!
If I boot with the jumper on, I get the following error message.
Error:0BAD Task:00C03578
What am i doing wrong?
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ACATune must be the first line of your s:startup-sequence (please read documentation on disk)
If it is not execute at the start, memory will get corrupted and you will have software failures.
1. Boot Workbench from your hard disk.
2. Open an Amiga Shell / CLI in System drawer
3. Type the following:
ED s:startup-sequence
and press Enter key
4. on the very first line of the startup-sequence enter:
C:Acatune
5. Press ESC key then x key then ENTER key
Ensure that ACATune is copied to your C drawer by typing
list c:ACATune
Reboot your Amiga when all disk activity has stopped.
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Thank you! Everything is working fine!
:)
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Welcome and good times with the accelerated 1200 fruitlesseffort
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Mine turned up in the post from amiga kit the other day, I have done on unboxing vid if anyone is interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXQ0K_0W240
I will be doing an install vid later. I bent parts off the upper RF shield up and removed some plastic round the trap door on both sides. Over all for the money this is a SUPER card its like having a totally new machine. Very happy with it, been playing tons off WHD games :)