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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Cyberus on November 10, 2004, 01:18:21 AM
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I keep reading about a 586 module, etc etc
But has anyone ever seen one, used one, or is it just vapourware?
I'd really like a Zorro solution for emulating low end PCs
No-one's got a Goldengate 486 for sale have they? :-)
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I have. Do you like watching the grass grow or paint dry? Very little compatibility and no speed. All the ads were gross propaganda and they should have been sued for the false promises! Standard fare for the Amiga market however.
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I actually have the program.. I think it was e586 by Jim Drew of Utilities Unlimited. I was pretty basic but worked.
Here is a review on the item.. I can sell it to you if you want..
http://www.lysator.liu.se/amiga/al/guide/al102/e586.HTML
Tim
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Maybe not standard fare for the Amiga market, but standard fare for the future Microcode Solutions. I have an Emplant, but x86 emulation required a new chip, which I don't think my board has.
It's possible to upgrade a Commodore 386 bridgeboard to a 486, so the GoldenGate isn't your only option.
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I have the 586 chip and the wished I had seen that review before I spent big $$$. The emplant was a big waste even for the Mac emulation. It may work but not as advertised. I still have mine in a 2000 with the 586 module.
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Hi
@Matt_H
> It's possible to upgrade a Commodore 386 bridgeboard to a 486, ...
HOW ? Facts, links, please...
Noster
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Highly unlikely as the pin layouts are totally different. You would be better off with a new board!
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pjhutch wrote:
Highly unlikely as the pin layouts are totally different. You would be better off with a new board!
Back in the day, "Overdrive" chips were quite common. They were next generation processors for old generation motherboards. There were definately Pentium 1 overdrive chips for 486 boards, and I seem to vaguely recall something similar where you could put a 486 on a 386 board. Good luck trying to find one now, though ;-)
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I remeber the overdrive chips, he problem is, getting hold of an old 386 or 486 let alone an overdrive version
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The problem for me is, finding a golden gate bridgeboard.
Moreover, finding a Goldengate bridgeboard that some joker doesn't want hundreds of $ for.....
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Hmm..unless you need physical hardware, why not PC Task, or a similar software emulation? That's low end! Great for DOS stuff, but only so-so for Winx ops.
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@JJ
Here in the streets of New York, 386 and 486 and Overdrive chips are as plentifull as dirt!
I find them in the street all the time! I knew there might have been use for it! I may have a few lying around!
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Noster wrote:
Hi
@Matt_H
> It's possible to upgrade a Commodore 386 bridgeboard to a 486, ...
HOW ? Facts, links, please...
Noster
Pretty simple actually. I sold two of these on eBay last year.
All you need to do is track down a Cyrix Cx486SRx² 25/50MHz chip
(http://www.amigadeals.com/ebay/amiga/hardware/bridgeboard/cyrix25-50.jpg)
And shove it in your 386 Briodgeboard like so:
(http://www.amigadeals.com/ebay/amiga/hardware/bridgeboard/486zoom.jpg)
And the end result is you have a 486 SX50 bridgeboard that runs like a champ (32bit internal bus / 16bit external) and looks like this!
(http://www.amigadeals.com/ebay/amiga/hardware/bridgeboard/486card.jpg)
So... don't let anyone tell you it's impossible, because they don't know wth they are talking about. :lol:
(I had one of these inside my A4000 back in the day along with a nice little Warp Engine -- I really wish I'd hung on to one of my 4000's but at the time $ for beer at University seemed more important).
[edit] Ya know... come to think of it, one of these was inside my 3000T, I don't think the Bridgeboard worked with my 4000's due to the limitation it put on the Zorro slots which blocked my Warp Engine's RAM from showing up. From memory the BridgeBoard put a limitation of 6MB to zorro slot expansions. [/edit]
If you REALLY want to find old chips like this, you need to talk to recycling plants such as Kin-Enterprises who could possibly start pulling old 486 and overdrive chips off motherboards before they heat and shred them. I'll ask a local PCB recycler here if they can keep an eye out for me if you guys are seriously interested in finding a few 486 overdrive chips for 386 computers.
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@CatHerder : This is what I refer to as: Cool Computer Stuff :-D :-D :-D amazing... excellent...
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I've been proven wrong. I was only thinking about Intel chips and completely forgot about Overdrive and Citrix chips. Sorry. Good luck with project!
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486 OverDrive (http://www.tradera.com/auction/aid_9057171)
486 OverDrive (http://www.tradera.com/auction/aid_9056590)
Both are currently under 50 SEK (About 3£, 6€, 7$)...
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But I need a bridgeboard first!
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I've long known about the 486 overdrive upgrade path, but that's still too slow for any modern use.
One thing I've considered is adding an computer-on-a-card like this one:
586 upgrade (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4615&item=6720040836&rd=1)
It plugs into an ISA slot (just to anchor - does not need to be an active slot) and it's basicly a full PC motherboard in an 8-bit ISA card form factor. It's primary use is to upgrade a hopelessly outdated PC and using the existing floppy, power supply, and monitor...
My thinking is that if you had a big-box Amiga with a scan doubler, a PS/2 mouse adapter, and a PS/2 keyboard adapter, you could encase the 586 ISA card in the Amiga, and use a K-V-M switchbox to allow sharing of the same keyboard, mouse and monitor.
There would be no "bridging", but you'd have your Amiga and a modern-ish PC in one box.
Has anybody done this?
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I've looked into SBCs before actually...
It wouldn't be a bad idea, but I'd like a bridgeboard ideally
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whabang wrote:
486 OverDrive (http://www.tradera.com/auction/aid_9057171)
486 OverDrive (http://www.tradera.com/auction/aid_9056590)
Both are currently under 50 SEK (About 3£, 6€, 7$)...
That's the wrong king of chip though. Those are Intel Overdrive chips that allowed you to put up to a 200MHz MMX "Pentium" chip in your 486 (AMD made a similar chip that went up to 233MHz MMX but was flakey). What you'd need for a BridgeBoard would be a 386 Overdrive chip.
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And what about these babies ??
- Kingston TurboChip 133 Intel 486 processor overdrive
Ebay (http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3674&item=6721735049&rd=1)
- Intel Pentium Overdrive CPU New in box 83MHz PODP5V83
Ebay (http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3674&item=6720247173&rd=1)
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Effy wrote:
And what about these babies ??
- Kingston TurboChip 133 Intel 486 processor overdrive
Ebay (http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3674&item=6721735049&rd=1)
- Intel Pentium Overdrive CPU New in box 83MHz PODP5V83
Ebay (http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3674&item=6720247173&rd=1)
Nope, those are for 486 motherboards. If you're looking to "upgrade" a 386 bridgeboard, you need a 386 overdrive not a 486.
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CatHerder wrote:
That's the wrong king of chip though. Those are Intel Overdrive chips that allowed you to put up to a 200MHz MMX "Pentium" chip in your 486 (AMD made a similar chip that went up to 233MHz MMX but was flakey). What you'd need for a BridgeBoard would be a 386 Overdrive chip.
No, look at the chips. Those are 486 CPUs designed to fit in 386-sockets.
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whabang wrote:
No, look at the chips. Those are 486 CPUs designed to fit in 386-sockets.
TOUCHE' Whabang!!
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KD7HTH wrote:
whabang wrote:
No, look at the chips. Those are 486 CPUs designed to fit in 386-sockets.
TOUCHE' Whabang!!
Well, the image is all pretty and everything... But, a DPR20DX66 is not a 386 form factor. It's a 486 form factor.
Look at the top (http://cpu-museum.de/?a=i&f=f&s=l&id=0049&n=Intel+Overdrive+DX20DP66+66MHz+front) and then Look at the bottom (http://cpu-museum.de/?a=i&f=b&s=l&id=0049&n=Intel+Overdrive+DX20DP66+66MHz+back)
This is what the form factor looks like for a 386 chip (http://cpu-museum.de/?a=i&f=b&s=l&id=0521&n=Cyrix+Cx486SLC-25MP+back) (bottom view of a Cyrix overdrive chip). It doesn't have pins/legs. It's more of a PLCC type of socket. You can instantly tell if a cpu is a 386 from the top because it has "fuzzy" sides.
And before anyone hollers "but some 386's have pins!" you're right - 386 DX chips have pins, but they don't have 17 across they have 14.
Of course... if you really want to see photos of what cpu is what, I recommend the CPU Museum (http://cpu-museum.de/) for some superb pictures.
I think a Touche retraction is in order thanks. :lol:
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The Evergreen one that works with the Bridgeboard is a Model 300 "Rev to 486". I bought mine on a closeout for about $30.00. It tripled the clockspeed as I remember. Sadly I sold all of my BB stuff years ago, it was still too slow.
Look Here for links to pictures; http://homepage3.nifty.com/sandy55/Interposer/386_upgrade.html
The Cyrix one I still have somewhere, I think it was a Cx486SRX2 25/50. Both of these just stick on top of the 386 chip. They didn't really seem like they would stay but I never had any problems except heat.
Now you guys are making me wish I still had my Bridgeboard :-).
Jeff
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CatHerder wrote:
KD7HTH wrote:
whabang wrote:
No, look at the chips. Those are 486 CPUs designed to fit in 386-sockets.
TOUCHE' Whabang!!
Well, the image is all pretty and everything... But, a DPR20DX66 is not a 386 form factor. It's a 486 form factor.
Look at the top (http://cpu-museum.de/?a=i&f=f&s=l&id=0049&n=Intel+Overdrive+DX20DP66+66MHz+front) and then Look at the bottom (http://cpu-museum.de/?a=i&f=b&s=l&id=0049&n=Intel+Overdrive+DX20DP66+66MHz+back)
This is what the form factor looks like for a 386 chip (http://cpu-museum.de/?a=i&f=b&s=l&id=0521&n=Cyrix+Cx486SLC-25MP+back) (bottom view of a Cyrix overdrive chip). It doesn't have pins/legs. It's more of a PLCC type of socket. You can instantly tell if a cpu is a 386 from the top because it has "fuzzy" sides.
And before anyone hollers "but some 386's have pins!" you're right - 386 DX chips have pins, but they don't have 17 across they have 14.
Of course... if you really want to see photos of what cpu is what, I recommend the CPU Museum (http://cpu-museum.de/) for some superb pictures.
I think a Touche retraction is in order thanks. :lol:
Bloody hell! :-x
That's what one gets for not counting pins! :lol:
Anyway. I know about CPU-museum it's a great site. THIS (http://cpu-museum.de/?a=i&f=f&s=t&id=0222&n=Intel+KU80486SX-33+33MHz+front) is the CPU it thought it was BTW. I haven't seen one of those for years. :-D
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@ CatHerder
But there are 486 bridgeboards available as well...
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Funny fact: Cyrix's 486s were identical to their 386s, except for the larger cache.
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Yeah I had the Cyrix one as well - it really did need a heatsink because it did run a lot hotter. I recall going step by step through every single cpu upgrade possible for bridgeboards. While it was a long time ago, and I do need to go look on the web to see if my info/opinions are correct in the matter, I do have the advantage of actually having tried everything that was available at the time to fall back on.
The Cyrix 25/50 was the fastest solution I found, and it was also slightly cheaper (if you can call $425 cheap for a 50 MHz 486SX "overdrive" chip lol). As far as I remember that was where the upgrades ended for 386 cpus. And besides, by that time 486 computers were actually way way faster than any emulation you could pull off in an Amiga.
Btw, didn't your Cyrix come with that large plastic clamp thing? Once you stuck it on the 386 it was scary trying to remove it. :)
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Cyberus wrote:
@ CatHerder
But there are 486 bridgeboards available as well...
Not "Bridgeboards", but some other aftermarket Amiga PC emulator card right? I never heard of a 486 Bridgeboard (I used to work at a C= retailer back in the late 80's / early 90's). I say C= retailer and not Amiga retailer because we also sold thousands of CBM PC's as well as thousands of Amigas... Commodore Canada actually used to be able to boast that they were the largest clone manufacturer in Canada all through the 80's -- they sold more PC's than the other top 3 PC companies [IBM and Tandy and some 3rd company] combined.
Unless maybe C= had a prototype that I never heard of? Who made the 486 boards, any idea? I am curious now!
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Apologies for resurrecting an old(ish) thread, but here are some facts that may be useful. :)
CBM made 3 bridgeboards: the A2088 4.77MHz(too slow for anything other than Jumpman, and that would be pushing it), the A2286 10MHz (common - can run simple DOS stuff, and comes with a 1.2MB HD 5.25" disk drive), the A2386 16/20/25MHz (now we're talking. 386 power! Hard to get hold of...)
Elite Microsystems adapted this (386) bridgeboard and stuck a nice Cyrix 486SLC chip (33MHz) on it. This is not a true 486! The 486SLC is a lower power chip as used in laptops at the time, it has 1KB of cache instead of 8KB and is really an pumped up 386. I suspect you may have to sell your soul these days to get one of these cards, I haven't seen one for a while (but I've not been looking!).
Vortex made 3 bridgeboards, the 386SX 25MHz (baseline model!), the 486SLC 25MHz (as above - NOT a true 486, but a 486SLC!) and the 486SLC2 50MHz (clock doubled SLC - not seen one of these).
Myself I have the 2286, the ECS 486 upgraded 2386 (which doesn't work - the dual port RAM doesn't work, so I need to take a soldering iron to it), and the GoldenGate 486SLC.
The Goldengate is a very good card but I don't know how fast it is compared to a real 386. It does have oodles of features, though, and is currently sitting in my A1500 MS-DOS 6.22 and Win 3.11 for Workgroups, with a Soundblaster II, Cirrus Logic based ISA 1MB SVGA card, 3COM 3C509 NIC. It plays Jumpman very well. :) Also plays Powermonger, etc. etc. Note that the CPU is rated at 33MHz, it's the chipset that's rated at 25MHz, which is what the card runs at - proving the 486 version is just the 386 with a different chip.
The Elite 486 is like the 286 - it relies on Janus, which provides much less in the way of features (no serial port, hard disk partition emulation etc. etc.) but I think may be a little faster. Until I can get my bridgeboard working I can't comment more.
Apparently the ECS 486 (and A2386 I think) can run Win95, and the GoldenGate can also but only the floppy disk version; I can state now that the CD version of Win95 balks completely on the GG, but it would be slooow anyway.
As a further point, in my experience, the 486 Make-It upgrades which clip a 486SLC2 on a 386 do not work on the GG 486. They may work on the 386 version or the Elite but I can't be sure.
My advice - get a GoldenGate 486. Very good card, expandable to 16MB RAM (though I pumped my A2286 to 16MB too - it did require you to go get a cup of tea while waiting for the memory check to complete though), using SIMMS, unlike the Commodores which use ZIPs up to 8MB (unless you can find an adaptor, apparently). Also the CBM cards don't have as good video emulation, and the GG comes with a Monitor Master (automatic switchbox) and stuff too.
All this from memory and a little help from the Amiga Hardware Book. :)
(P.S. No, none of my bridgeboards are for sale. :) )
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Cyberus wrote:
@ CatHerder
But there are 486 bridgeboards available as well...
If you got one of these 486 bridgeboards, then you would probably be able to use onr of the Cyrix/IBM 5x86 100MHz CPU's that gave Pentium class performance on a 486 board.
I ran one of these chips in a Commodore 486 for years, with 16MB RAM and a Gravis Ultrasound. It was a very good machine.
If I remember correctly the IBM branded version came with a Blue heatsink attatched and the Cyrix had a Gren Heatsink.
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Cyrix 5x86 100MHz (http://cpu-museum.de/?m=Cyrix&f=5x86)
IBM 5x86 100MHz (http://cpu-museum.de/?m=IBM&f=5x86)
I used the IBM branded version, but they are identical to the Cyrix ones. IBM just manufactured them on behalf of Cyrix as they didn't have their own fab plant.
If this worked on a 486 Bridgeboard, then Windows 95 would run on it with no speed problems at all.
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Unfortunately not....
The 486s used on Bridgeboards were not really 486s, they were souped up 386s - totally different pin layout to a 486, and not socketed.
The only 486 I know of to be used on a 'Bridgeboard' were the mythical(?) Shuttle boards from around 1996 which claimed to use Pentiums as well - but they weren't true bridgeboards anyway as they didn't interface with the host machine.
All '486' bridgeboards I've ever heard of used the 486SLC, which is a 386 on steroids. IIRC the highest you can get a bridgeboard to is using the IBM Blue Lightning 386->486SLC4/75 upgrade, but good luck finding one. That would also probably not work on a 486SLC chip, only a 386SX.