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Offline cpfuture

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #29 on: May 30, 2010, 06:06:24 PM »
Nice development! Looking forward to seeing it progress.  :cool:

Don't mind the negative reactions. Seems for every endeavour in the Amiga community lately there's enough people ready to tell you why it's a bad idea or why you shouldn't do it....

Offline BuzzfuzzTopic starter

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #30 on: May 30, 2010, 07:01:58 PM »
Quote from: Metalguy66;562097
This is a kewl project.. It was already done for the A1000 (twice- go look up the pheonix board).
 
I have several comments.. First, I think its an awesome Idea.. Theres tons of A500s out there just consuming closet space and collecting dust.. And the A500 is one of the kewlest looking and most memorable AMIGA case styles ever..
 
If I was to do this, I would use an 060 CPU to begin with.. The 030 is too dated and lacks the fire-power to do anything seriously competitive with modern upgraded 68k AMIGAs.
 
I would also include in the design whatever glue-logic is necessary to allow it to use modern dram. Higher desnsity 72pin SIMMs at the very least.. 16megs is nothing by today's standards.
 
I would also shit-can the A500 side-car bus, and put a full-blown Z-III slot out the side.. Noone is seriously gonna cram a Zorro card, laying flat, over the motherboard inside an A500..
 
Last, I would include integrated ethernet. It costs next to nothing to do nowadayze, with easily available embedded solutions..

That would require A4000 chips, the A500 chips aren't usable with 060.
That is the problem with more speed, memory and new technology.
I already suggested SATA and Zorram like memory or use of DDR ram, but it won't work.
It could work if you added A4000 chips like superbuster 11, but then space would become a problem.
Like I said, if he gets this working and our tests go well, then it will be ready for upgrades.
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Offline mongo

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #31 on: May 30, 2010, 07:15:03 PM »
Quote from: Buzzfuzz;562104
That would require A4000 chips, the A500 chips aren't usable with 060.


That's not true at all.
 

Offline countzero

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #32 on: May 30, 2010, 07:18:55 PM »
Quote from: mongo;562107
That's not true at all.

well, yes 060 on ECS is certainly possible as there are 060 boards for the a2000, but it would require too much glue logic. IMHO it's little bit beyond the scope of a hobby project. It's best to keep the goals modest if you're not certain you can do something.
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Offline mongo

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #33 on: May 30, 2010, 07:22:48 PM »
Quote from: B00tDisk;562095

There's a right-angle Z2 adapter shown up the thread you flipper armed mong.


Right angle adaptor or not, you're not going to fit a normal ZII card in there.
 

Offline Lando

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #34 on: May 30, 2010, 07:29:24 PM »
Quote from: Buzzfuzz;562104
That would require A4000 chips, the A500 chips aren't usable with 060.



How did my Blizzard 2060 work then?  My A2000 had the same chips as the A500.
 

Offline BuzzfuzzTopic starter

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #35 on: May 30, 2010, 07:50:47 PM »
Quote from: Lando;562111
How did my Blizzard 2060 work then? My A2000 had the same chips as the A500.

Because that is CPU card, the CPU slot on the A2000 combined with the chips on the card make that 060 work.
If you take a plain 060 on a pin grid holder and just hook it up to all Amiga 500 chips, it won't work.
Yes, once you would basicly form the card into the board with all the chips, then it would work, but again, that would require more space, which isn't availble at the moment.
 
And a prototype (once again) is still the first stage, if this works then maybe he can sort out if a 060 would work.
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Offline mongo

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #36 on: May 30, 2010, 08:00:53 PM »
Quote from: Buzzfuzz;562114
If you take a plain 060 on a pin grid holder and just hook it up to all Amiga 500 chips, it won't work.


Neither will an 030.

Or an 020.
 

Offline countzero

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #37 on: May 30, 2010, 08:07:46 PM »
Quote from: mongo;562116
Neither will an 030.

Or an 020.

I think you talk too much for someone knowing too little. 020/030 bus is nothing like 040/060. That's why Commodore invented the Zorro 3 bus, to talior the 040 bus specifications. It's a major design job to interface a 060 to ECS system which was desinged with 68000 in mind. If you think it's a trivial job, please make a project yourself. We will be anxious to see your achievements. :afro:
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Offline mongo

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #38 on: May 30, 2010, 08:32:35 PM »
Quote from: countzero;562117
I think you talk too much for someone knowing too little.


You would be wrong then.

Quote
020/030 bus is nothing like 040/060.


It's not all that different. The 000 bus isn't the same as the 020/030 bus either.

Quote
That's why Commodore invented the Zorro 3 bus, to talior the 040 bus specifications.


Wrong.

The CPU bus used on all ZIII machines is the 030 bus. The ZIII bus has nothing to do with the 040 bus.

Quote
It's a major design job to interface a 060 to ECS system which was desinged with 68000 in mind. If you think it's a trivial job, please make a project yourself. We will be anxious to see your achievements. :afro:


I never said it was a trivial job, did I?
 

Offline BuzzfuzzTopic starter

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #39 on: May 30, 2010, 08:53:29 PM »
Quote from: mongo;562116
Neither will an 030.
 
Or an 020.

I'm already happy if this baby starts up with a 030, for games it's more than enough, Frontier First Encounters is probably one of the games that will make full usage of it and other 3D games, but other than that, a simple game like IK+ won't even get that thing hot.
 
I remember the A500 being the game machine, not the OS3.X/4.X system, they invented A3000/A4000's for that.
Just because we can, doesn't mean a 060 with even PPC added will make it the uber god system.
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Offline Crumb

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #40 on: May 30, 2010, 09:08:32 PM »
Quote from: Buzzfuzz;562104
That would require A4000 chips, the A500 chips aren't usable with 060.
That is the problem with more speed, memory and new technology.
I already suggested SATA and Zorram like memory or use of DDR ram, but it won't work.
It could work if you added A4000 chips like superbuster 11, but then space would become a problem.
Like I said, if he gets this working and our tests go well, then it will be ready for upgrades.


Interesting project!

I have a pair of comments:
-AFAIK A3000 offers faster chipram access than A500/A2000. Will this design allow 7MB/s writes to chipmem too? The chips should be the same, the motherboard design is not.
-I think that emulating Gayle would be a good idea for HD access. It would allow cheap IDE access and IMHO it won't add much complexity to the board. In addition to that it's supported OOTB. Nothing wrong about scsi but IMHO having cheap IDE would be nice too.
-Any chance of a cpu connector? A1200 if possible :-)
-SDRAM would be nice although SIMM sockets would be ok. Anyway 128MB simms should be accepted.
-Any possibility of installing IndivisionECS?

good luck with the project! ATM I'm more interested in an FPGA running an AGA core with a real 030/040/060 socket and SD/DDR/DDR2 ram but a replacement A500 board sounds cool. An FPGA based cpu accelerator running tobiflex tg68k core would be interesting too (even if it ran slower than 030/50).
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Offline Tension

Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #41 on: May 30, 2010, 09:35:43 PM »
With built-in WiFi and a CF card, this thing would be an absolute beast!!

Good work!!

Offline tone007

Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #42 on: May 30, 2010, 10:13:08 PM »
..and featurecreep attempts to scuttle the ship!
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Offline Tension

Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #43 on: May 30, 2010, 10:34:20 PM »
Quote from: tone007;562129
..and featurecreep attempts to scuttle the ship!


:)

Offline spihunter

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Re: A500 ++ Prototype
« Reply #44 from previous page: May 31, 2010, 12:15:27 AM »
I'm not sure why folks are being so down & negative about this? Seems pretty cool to me!