Poll, new accelerator for A500/A600.

[Homo-AGA]

Well, as far as the designing part is concerned, I would be quite skeptical about the casing/housing of an A600. Would it take it? It would require some extra cooling as well. How mcuh power would it consume?

[Argus]

As long as it's not too power hungry, an A500 supply (45Watt) or an adapted PC supply should cope fine.  An internal fan could be added onto it, but the 68ec020 is pretty cool unless overclocked (like in the Apollo 1220...28MHz...a bit warm to the touch).

[Doobrey]

hppacito wrote:
 If the new eproms are fast enough (could also be flash), that can be a 3 cycle access, or a 4 cycle access. A shift register can be used to generate the delayed signal.

Just another brain fart..

 If you're gonna use faster eproms/flash, then you need to get the /OVR signal to stop Gayle automatically generating DTACK for the old ROM timing. AFAIK, on an A600 that means the old 'upside down PLCC socket' over Gayle.. which kinda blocks Jens' A600 clockport adapter  :-(
 Anyway, if you use the socket method it'll be easy to take /SPARE_CS and /INT_6 and add a clockport header on your board. (Or for the grand cost of another 50p, use a 2-4 decoder and have upto 4 clockports)

Also, ethernet should be pretty easy too. Use one of the clockports from above, (maybe replacing /SPARE_CS with /NET_CS for quicker read/writes) and use a CS8900 or RTL8019.  EDTP sell kits/modules for both for around $35 that only need INT inverted and the small matter of writing a SANA2 driver.

[Jethro_Tull]

A few moons ago, there was a news item on this site;

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=45466

He asked for pre-orders to check out the current demand for such an accelerator. The designs used an 030 rather then the 020, and this was another production run of the A600 version of the Apollo, a tried and tested, proven accelerator.  The price was also very attractive, at EU150, you would pay more for a second hand one on e-bay.

Now, considering the positive response to this thread, and considering that re-inventing the wheel (and killing a few A600s along the way) dosen't make a lot of sense to me, how about lobbying this guy to produce the blessed accelerators?  

Judging from this thread, I think he would gather his pre-orders easily, if all those who pitched their support keep their word. For me, this would be the ideal upgrade, since the A600 realisticaly, couldn't be pushed much further

So, any takers??  Can we contact redromula and ask him nicely to resurrect the project, if possible?

[hppacito]

From what I see in the thread, he didn't get that far. People seem not to like the Apollo 030 that much. The increased memory size is quite sweet though. I'm pushing my proto anyways.

Somebody suggested a TRL8019AS or CS8900 as network controllers, anyone knows where those can be bought ?, seems that the CS chip is 10 bucks a pop, let's hope they are cheaper. (Read: reseller in germany willing to sell small qty), can also be an ebayer

[alenppc]

hppacito wrote:
From what I see in the thread, he didn't get that far. People seem not to like the Apollo 030 that much. The increased memory size is quite sweet though. I'm pushing my proto anyways.

I agree with you on that. I like the extra ram too, but personally I prefer the 020 because it creates less heat so it should be more stable and it should be cheaper than 030.
Keep us posted!! :-D

[alexh]

@jethro_Tull the project you refer to was being done by Jens Schoenfeld of http://www.ami.ga and originally it was going to be a remake of the A630 however it became clear to Jens that they are rubbish, easily break, dont work very well. So he began to make a new 030 based accelerator. Work has been done but not finished.

[xeron]

$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

Whats to stop you using some of the reserved areas for fast RAM? Would it require more than patching the kickstart memory allocation routines to "see" your extra RAM? Its not like the classic Amiga memory map is going to evolve any further...

[hppacito]

The reserved area in 0xA00000 is being used by the Gayle in the A600. (Found through a search in the linux amiga kernel source). May be there are other surprises.

Those reserved areas maybe were used by not so careful programmers if the chipset is also visible there... is something I don't know.

Can be tested.

[Darklight]

Sounds like there's some great work going on here!  It's brilliant to see some more people with the talent and the dedication to bring something like this to fruition.  hppacito, I offer you a pint  :pint:  :-)

I'm definately up for an A600 020 w/ 4mb fast!  Sounds like the ideal non-AGA WHDLoad system to me   :-), so count me in!

[Doobrey]

xeron wrote:

Whats to stop you using some of the reserved areas for fast RAM?

The  $e00000 is for the 1st half of a 1MB ROM (No idea why CBM split it that way) and I think Gayle generates a /ROMEN in that range.
 The $f00000 range is for 'diagnostic' flash rom.. Exec checks this space and boots from it instead of the normal Kickstart if a rom is found here, again Gayle generates the /FLASH chip select. This space is also scanned for residents on startup too, so it could prove to be a simple way to put in drivers for an IDE interface on the A500 version or parts of the 3.9 RomUpdate.

As for the $a00000 my brain's drawn a blank, but I got a sneaky feeling it's another unused rom space on the CD32 (all I can remember is that the CD32's exec scanned another area for residents that none of the other kickstarts did.).. but then again I also remember someone telling me it was another place that Zorro II cards can have there I/O space mapped to.

[hppacito]

Doobrey,

Now I'm a bit confused with what you say. Can you describe with maximum detail the startup process (Since *RESET is asserted ) ? (read: or point to the right document describing it).  :-?

[Doobrey]

Try ExecDis.lha, it's a commented dissassembly of the 1.2 Exec, but the startup hasn't really changed much over the years.
 The only noticable startup differences on 3.x are an added check for a ROM in the PCMCIA slot that can take over instead of the Kickstart (although I've been told that part is broken and it fails to see a ROM), and the A600/A1200 doesn't use the CIA to turn off the ROM overlay as it's controllable by writing to Gayle.

[hppacito]

Okey, guys.

After some days, I estimated to cost of such an accelerator with the following features:

68EC020 Processor, clocked at 16 MHz
6 MB SRAM (5.5 are actually accesible)
IDE port (No DMA capable)
TRL8019AS Ethernet controller
1 MB Flash memory

In around 90 Euro.

Niether the Flash, nor the ethernet are essential for operation, and withouth them the price drops to 70 Euro.

All that counting on getting not that much discount due to small cuantities. If I can buy 25 or more of some components (PCB, SRAMs), the price drops another 10 or so euro.

** All prices do not include shipping ! (mean, if you come where I live, you can get it for that money).

I wanted to estimate the price before going much further, because I already have components to do a prototype. May be better deals can be achieved if there is enough takers.
Currently I'm working on the programmable logic. A PCB (proto) should be ready the third week of Dic or so.

So, I would like to hear how many are (still) seriously interested.

Thanks !

[HyAmi]

For 90 euro's a piece, I might even consider buying two :-D (if it's an A500 version)

[AmiDude]

Count me in! I will gladly pay 90 Euro for it!
(600 version)
 :-)