A project I'd like to see from Jens...

[Lord Aga]

Ho ho ho, the Christmas seems to be coming early this year

[klx300r]

For A500/ A1000/ A2000 / CDTV.

Card specs are:

* very fast 68K CPU
* 128 MB DDR3 Fast-memory
* SD-card usable/bootable as IDE-device
* Network interface
* RTG Graphics Card (chunky/Hicolor/truecolor) with HDMI out

The physial card design is done.
Testing / Driver development needs to be done.

cha ching...magic word for me was finally something for the one and only AMIGA, The Amiga 1000:knuddel: now if you tell me it's goona give us A1000 owners more chipram then i'll really be over the moon:insane:

[matthey]

aha. the card is supposed to go into the cpu socket.  too simple for me to figure out..

The 68000 socket should give a reliable connection. The number of Amiga computers with socketed 68000 processors is quite large too.

cha ching...magic word for me was finally something for the one and only AMIGA, The Amiga 1000:knuddel: now if you tell me it's goona give us A1000 owners more chipram then i'll really be over the moon:insane:

Sorry, no chip memory, but RTG gfx instead. Well, technically, it may be possible to create a whole AGA chipset in fpga with it's own chip memory and outputting to the DVI/HDMI but that would be a lot of work. A chunky buffer with P96 driver output to the DVI/HDMI would be a lot easier and provide more usable 16/32 bit screen modes. We will have to see what can be done with the kickstart loading on the 1000. Some kind of networking interface for the 1000 is interesting also. Making a 30 year old Amiga usable again would be quite the retro time warp B-).

[blanning]

Jens is smart enough to realise you don't need to mess around with attaching a totally unsuitable ARM SBC to an Amiga to get stuff you could get with an SPI master on the Amiga and some of the shelf parts.
I'm surprised that while you guys think up these "OMG you know what would be really cool" ideas you don't think outside of the box enough to realise that an ARM SoC many times more power than the fastest m68k Amiga could just emulate the whole thing.

First off, I'm a software guy, not a hardware guy.  So I really have no idea what it would take to create this sort of thing.  

Having said that, it seems to me that a $40 board attached with some mysterious chips to the CPU slot or something similar mixed with some drivers that talk to software running on the RPi would be cheaper and/or easier than implementing all those things from scratch.

Then again maybe not.  I'm thinking like a software guy and not a hardware guy.  

[blanning]

Honestly the project I'd like to see the most out of a guy like Jens with his considerable talents is a high powered "Amiga on a card" that fits inside a PC.

Yeah, this is clearly the way to go, like a minimig type thing in an ATX form factor...  maybe with a DSP for audio processing, USB, ethernet, memory, indivision, memory cards, etc.   Maybe steal the chipset from a dying machine.

Or maybe make it fit a 500, 600, or 1200 case with a keyrah.

brian

[freqmax]

Since most projects seems to end up with a super computer with an Amiga attached ;-)
Perhaps it's time to have a look at FPGA Replay again?
It's a full Amiga with chips that can actually be bought. And many periphials can be synthesized in FPGA. Way less unreliable connectors and card stacking.

[ElPolloDiabl]

The problems with Amiga on a card: Not many people have a desktop system anymore. Why don't use just use a software emulator?
I imagine it would be a lot harder to have an Amiga bridgeboard in a PC.

I hope someone does do a bridgeboard project though.

[AJCopland]

Perhaps it's time to have a look at FPGA Replay again?
It's a full Amiga with chips that can actually be bought.

It can be bought now? The website doesn't show any way of buying one and I've been on the list to get an FPGA Replay for ...a couple of years now I think.

I know that Replay isn't a Natami mess/situation but it's taking a really long time from our perspective.

Ideally this could be an upgrade board for the Replay instead of the '060 board it might one day have. FPGA chipset and modern board + FPGA CPU card.

Andy

[biggun]

Ideally this could be an upgrade board for the Replay instead of the '060 board it might one day have. FPGA chipset and modern board + FPGA CPU card.
Andy

Yes - in theory.


On the other hand, all you need is make a standalone system out of the CPU card
is to add "Joyport", audio jack,  and a keyboard connector.
This is no rocket science.
This solution would be very cost effective and for the saved money you can get yourself a big ass Flatscreen. :-D

[OlafS3]

It can be bought now? The website doesn't show any way of buying one and I've been on the list to get an FPGA Replay for ...a couple of years now I think.

I know that Replay isn't a Natami mess/situation but it's taking a really long time from our perspective.

Ideally this could be an upgrade board for the Replay instead of the '060 board it might one day have. FPGA chipset and modern board + FPGA CPU card.

Andy

I have the impression that there were more news about FPGA Arcade + Amiga when the Natami project still was a threat. But perhaps I am wrong there...

@thread

I think the new accellerator card will have advantages and disadvantages compared to FPGA Arcade. It is not reimplementing AGA/ECS chipset, not adding more chip memory or similar like FPGA Arcade. It is a accellerator card with more memory at a very affordable price adding RTG and a high-speed 68k. When not using RTG you get a fast Amiga with 128 MB but you can only use the chipset that is on your Amiga. I think it is a good compromise adding a new playground for developers like Novacoder and replaces many aging and expensive extensions, at the same time it is affordable (on eab 150 EUR were mentioned) that really everyone can afford it (in opposite f.e. to Natami what would have been much more expensive). So it is partly if not fully replacing FPGA Arcade if used in a A1200 (which is also promised to be supported in future) and cheaper. So Mike should hurry up a little with his project :-). I know that FPGA Arcade is supporting more than Amiga but I assume that most Amigans here are mostly interested in the Amiga core. And there are not many news in recent years (at least what I have heard about).

I hope that Aros 68k (+Roms) will run on it and that developers use the new capabilities (expecially regarding true color modes in RTG).

[biggun]

Hi Olaf,

Lets be totally open and very honest about the project.
Who we are, where we are and where we are heading.

Today there is the Vampire600.
The Vampire600 has 64 MB fastmem and an FPGA which you can load a new fast 68K CPU into it.


The next card, the new Cyclone5 card is in production right now.
The Cyclone 5 card offers
* Faster FPGA  = about twice as fast CPU compared to the Vampire600
* 128 MB Ram
* Video out HDMI
* SDcard / IDE
* Network

As soon as the Cyclone 5 card is fully tested and we see that all works without yellow wire
and as soon as the sales/distribution is set up - it will be sold and
we will offer the CPU upgrade file for the Vampire600 owners to speed up their CPU as free download.

Then Vampire600 owners will then get a CPU comparable to 68060 in speed for free.

If the A500 card runs fine we will make card for A1200,A4000 all other models etc.
We as team have recently bought several A1200 and have already stocked up mostly every made AMIGA here for testing the cards: E.g  A500,A1000,A2000,A3000,A4000,A1200,CD32

Lets be honest:
The APOLLO CPU is an envolvement of the 68050 CPU done for the Natami project.
The RTG Chunky/truecolor display is basically a steal from the SAGA/Super-AGA chunky stuff we prepared for the NATAMI.


You don't need to be an Einstein to see that you can also take the CPU card out of your A500, and if you add a Joyport to it - and you basically have a new NATAMI - for little money.

To be clear: I'm not promising anything here.
This is not a market announcement.

The post was started as question whether we need help to design a new CPU card - and the answer to it is "No" we have designed it already and the above is our current status....

[OlafS3]

Hi Olaf,

Lets be totally open and very honest about the project.
Who we are, where we are and where we are heading.

Today there is the Vampire600.
The Vampire600 has 64 MB fastmem and an FPGA which you can load a new fast 68K CPU into it.


The next card, the new Cyclone5 card is in production right now.
The Cyclone 5 card offers
* Faster FPGA  = about twice as fast CPU compared to the Vampire600
* 128 MB Ram
* Video out HDMI
* SDcard / IDE
* Network

As soon as the Cyclone 5 card is fully tested and we see that all works without yellow wire
and as soon as the sales/distribution is set up - it will be sold and
we will offer the CPU upgrade file for the Vampire600 owners to speed up their CPU as free download.

Then Vampire600 owners will then get a CPU comparable to 68060 in speed for free.

If the A500 card runs fine we will make card for A1200,A4000 all other models etc.
We as team have recently bought several A1200 and have already stocked up mostly every made AMIGA here for testing the cards: E.g  A500,A1000,A2000,A3000,A4000,A1200,CD32

Lets be honest:
The APOLLO CPU is an envolvement of the 68050 CPU done for the Natami project.
The RTG Chunky/truecolor display is basically a steal from the SAGA/Super-AGA chunky stuff we prepared for the NATAMI.


You don't need to be an Einstein to see that you can also take the CPU card out of your A500, and if you add a Joyport to it - and you basically have a new NATAMI - for little money.

To be clear: I'm not promising anything here.
This is not a market announcement.

The post was started as question whether we need help to design a new CPU card - and the answer to it is "No" we have designed it already and the above is our current status....

As I said when used in a AGA machine like A1200 I do not see many advantages for the FPGA Arcade anymore (as someone mostly interested in Amiga). I also hope that people will use the added RTG/Truecolor capabilities that will work on any supported system. It is the first time in recent years I see a realistic way to go and not just dreaming or overambitious projects that are doomed to fail.

[wawrzon]

the big showstopper i see for fpgaarcade as well as natami was exactly adapting amiga chipset softcore to the particular hardware. such task can take years, there is always more quirks to take care of and this is effectively delaying release forever. in another five years we will still be waiting for such projects to complete.

a turboboard for existing hardware removes at least half of the problems if not the most, and therefore i always hammered on that as the furst thing to do, also as i still visited natami forums. gunnar and others may remember..

[OlafS3]

the big showstopper i see for fpgaarcade as well as natami was exactly adapting amiga chipset softcore to the particular hardware. such task can take years, there is always more quirks to take care of and this is effectively delaying release forever. in another five years we will still be waiting for such projects to complete.

a turboboard for existing hardware removes at least half of the problems if not the most, and therefore i always hammered on that as the furst thing to do, also as i still visited natami forums. gunnar and others may remember..

*bow to you*

We see on the failed or delayed projects that it is too complex to emulate the amiga chipsets. Better make a clean start and adding new features and motivate developers to use them.

[wawrzon]

and one other thing i wanted to mention due to it is a popular mistake around here. this project as well as any similar will be (if they continuues) work in progress for years to come. same as aros is. same as os4, fpga arcade or whatever else is. it will not be fully completed any soon at least not to the point of total satisfaction for the whole audience. therefore the audience needs to be involved. also thats where the fun is. testing, submitting reports, reading what commits have been submitted day by day. discussing issues.

to succeed the project needs to be as open as it gets.

[wawrzon]

*bow to you*

didnt intended to lecture anyone. just feel pity, because the project taking another course could be much further by now and sustain itself the motivation of the developers and the interest of te audience.