Poll, new accelerator for A500/A600.

[alexh]

The advantage of having only 4M is that the PCMCIA is still usable.

Edit:

Yeah unfortunately the standard A600's address range is limited to 24-bits (16Mbytes)

$000000-$07FFFF    Chip RAM
$080000-$1FFFFF    Reserved
$200000-$5FFFFF    Fast-RAM (4Mbyte)
$600000-$9FFFFF         PCMCIA   (4Mbyte)
$A00000-$BEFFFF    Reserved
$BFD000-$BFDF00    PIA B (even addresses)
$BFE001-$BFEF00    PIA C (odd addresses)
$C00000-$DFEFFF    Reserved for expansion
$DFF000-$DFFFFF    Custom chip registers
$E00000-$E7FFFF    Reserved
$E80000-$EFFFFF    Expansion ports
$F00000-$F7FFFF    Reserved
$F80000-$FFFFFF    System ROM

4Mbytes of FAST RAM (6Mbytes in total) is more than enough for a good WHDLoad system.

[TjLaZer]

Do not solder RAM on it, that is a big mistake, why not install 1 SoDimm slot?

I would be very insterested

A Fast RAM card would be very cool.  Would it only be limited to 4MB or could it be 8MB and still have the PCMCIA usable?

[Doppie1200]

alexh wrote:

The advantage of having only 4M is that the PCMCIA is still usable.

Edit:

Yeah unfortunately the standard A600's address range is limited to 24-bits (16Mbytes)

Yes I know. But 4M would still stay clear of the PCMCIA. 8M will clash. But perhaps the MP3 trick can be done using one of the so calles reserved spaces. I don't know where the A1200 clock space resides. But I thought it was withil 68000 addressable range.

[Cyberus]

Hmm, if it was going to be a CPU upgrade, than I would want an 030 as a minimum - the CPU must have an MMU, this enables the running of Debian 68k, should anyone want to ;-)

[AmiDude]

Skip the Coldfire and RTG, just concentrate on
a 680x0 CPU and some Fast-RAM (soldered onboard
limits to 4MB, because of the PCMCIA problem. But
with a simm socket it can handle quite more RAM.)
Keep in mind that a 68040 CPU runs very hot, so that's
not a good option in a small case like the A500/A600.
It would be cool to put in a 68060 though...I be willing to pay 150 Euro for such a thingy!

 :-)

[spavatch]

Argus wrote:
Also, I wouldn't mess with Colffire.  My suggestion would be to make a 68040/68060 board with jumper selectable processor.  You could ship the board w/o processor and let the user install his/her available chip.  Also, 128MB ram is *highly* recommended as would some kind of ide/scsi port.  RTG would be cool but, that's going to be a busy card.

I agree with you, a socket for user's 040-060 CPU is the best option. I'd also like to see SIMM sockets there as SIMM modules are dirt-cheap these days and provide more than adequate performance.

And yes, please go for the A600 project !!! :-)

[Gavilan]

Would it be possible to include a scsi add-on??
I would buy this accelerator for sure!!!!

Count me in!!

[hppacito]

So guys (and girls ;-)), i got the 330 ec020, i'll put them in a a500 and a600 accelerator with 4MB SRAM (for the price, and speed gain, I think is worth over dram).

[Mindrax]

Sounds like an good idea but i wonder too about the market and its demands etc.

But i would buy one thats for sure.

 :-D

[leirbag28]

@hppacito

Hmmm Im not sure what everyone her is talking about saying the A600 is limited to 4Mb....thats NOT true.........the A600 can have 256Mb and still use the PCMCIA slot for 4Mb, at the very least 32mb.

I had an Apolo 630 with 32mb ram and PCMCIA Ram card.they both worked simultaneously......so if you were to creat a 68030 or better...it would definitely read more than 4MB...if your just gonna make a board that adds 4MB, that is a waste as there are plenty of 4Mb PCMCIA cards availble..people here just dont know where to look for them.


Please dont settle for a measly 4mb.  We need 128Mb in that thing minimum. and at least a 68030 @50mhz, and also dont put RAM on it.....make a slot for up to 1GB of ram, or at least 256........and dont make 2 versions ( like a light version and a high end version)  just make one!   a top of the line version..it will be easier, and save money....its what we need............and we can compete in todays market with a 68060 Amiga with Wireless (Yes they have that) and MP3 decoding and all. Chatting on Yahoo, AIM, MSN, IRC.

I want to take my machine to Starbucks Darn it! :-)

Get together with whoever you must to accomplish this................like Jens Shoenfeld, he is palnning on creating the Apollo 630 line again.he also gave us the A600 clockport for USB upgrades.......I am a proud owner of one :-)

[X-ray]

Well, the 020s are bought, so that settles it. I am glad. Count me in for an 020 with a SIMM socket. If it has IDE or CF I will be REALLY happy. I am willing to wait for it too.

[Argus]

hppacito wrote:
So guys (and girls ;-)), i got the 330 ec020, i'll put them in a a500 and a600 accelerator with 4MB SRAM (for the price, and speed gain, I think is worth over dram).

Well, 68EC020 it is.   But please put a 72-pin simm socket on it instead of soldered SRAM chips.  Everybody and his brother can get a hold of el cheapo 4MB simms so you save money there.  Also, an unpopulated plcc socket for a 68882 floating point unit is an absolute must (still can't understand why this was not soldered onto the A1200 motherboard, especially when Amiga Technologies decided to reproduce them).

@leirbag

Looks like you'll have to wait for Jens for something more powerful, at least for the A600.  You could always keep your eyes peeled for a used Derringer for the A500.

[red_orion]

Sounds great, hope you can do it, I'll be dusting off my 500

[TjLaZer]

The A600 with stock 68000 does not support more than 16MB so 256MB is definately impossible.  It would need a 32-bit CPU for that so for a RAM only upgrade we are probably looking at 4MB or 8MB if the PCMCIA issue is kept in mind.

[Dr_Righteous]

If it works in the A500, chances are it'll also work in the A2000, and that is of far more use to me (tho I own both). In the interest of cost effectiveness, 32MB of SDRAM is plenty. Dual channel IDE would be awesome. No need for CF, since there are plenty of CF2IDE adapters out there. Ethernet is a nice idea, but USB would be better.

Now what would REALLY kick @$$ would be a PCI bus on the accellerator... Then use a cable connected between the accellerator and a "PCI dummy" card to plug into a PCI backplane mounted either internally (on say an A2k) or externally in a PCI expansion tower (A500/600).

Of course you'd have to buffer the connection at both ends, and shield the hell out of the cable... I think this would be WAY faster than any current PCI solution since it'd be connected directly to the local bus of the accellerator.

[Dr_Righteous]

Aww man... Now that I've read the whole thread, and I see we're chickening out on the ColdFire... I'll restate...

EC020... Ok...
Unsoldered RAM, I like the idea of SODIMM connector for the tight space of A500s.
Dual channel IDE preferred, but even one channel would be fine.

** LOCAL BUS CONNECTOR for future expansion. **