Poll, new accelerator for A500/A600.

[Argus]

@hppacito

Count me in for at least one!  And Jens, if you're reading, please, please do the A600 project....bitte

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.

[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.

[Argus]

Also it is possible to add an additional 1 MBytes (or even 1.5 Mb) of ram by mapping it into the $C00000 space without disabling the PCMCIA. It is the old "Ranger" memory used by many A500 expansions. Obviously the RAM would be just as slow as chip RAM, but hey, it's better than nothing! This technique was also used by one A1200 accelerator, can't remember which one though - I could look it up if anyone's interested.
So in theory one could have an A600 with 2Mb chip, 4Mb fast, 1.5 mb Ranger = 7.5 Mb ram and still a functioning PCMCIA, not bad, eh? :-)

This was the DKB 1202 Board iirc that could remap the memory to ranger space.

Regarding the plcc fpu socket, what's the big deal with including it?  Put it on unpopulated, the expense is trivial and it's there if you need it.  There are lot's of optimised versions of software for the fpu.  Regarding ethernet and setting up 'webservers' for the A600, there's no need for it because the design won't interfere with the pcmcia slot so just plug a 3Com card in and away you go.

Regarding vaporware talk, I'll bet this project is finished faster that the Troika/Dragon, etc.

[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).

[Argus]

Count me in if you can get it to actually work.  The ide port makes me think you're intending this for A500 only?  Either way, okay.:-)

[Argus]

How's the accelerator coming?  It's been a week already and now your project is competing with the PowerVixxen LT, Dragon, Troika for my dollar ....just kidding.  No, but seriously, any news?