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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Effy on February 27, 2006, 03:01:42 AM

Title: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on February 27, 2006, 03:01:42 AM
I´m playing with the idea of having an 68040 on one of my Blizzard 1240´s to be replaced by a fast 68EC060, meaning an 68060/66 or 68060/75 without fpu and mmu. Good idea or not ? What software will it need ? I mean, will it only run 68020 software at high speed ? It will surely crash when I would use 68060 specific software, but on the other hand what about THIS Apollo 1260/LC060@75Mhz (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=111) ???  :-? That card does have an mmu but is lacking the fpu. I recall they told that it would run mpeg movies at very high speed but might have some compatibility issues with 68060 specific software like gfx programs ...
So if I had such a processor on a Blizzard or any other card, how would it feel ???  :-? Would I regret it all the way ???  :-? This is not like tuning an 68060 that fast so that the on board scsi would fail to work, this is about what software will still work !!  :-o

Please help me out !!!  :angel:
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Lemmink on February 27, 2006, 05:24:24 AM
You will indeed be stuck to the 68020 Version of programms (including CGX) as nearly all 68040/68060 optimised programms asume the presence of an FPU.
Some programms dont` have different Versions, they just detect the CPU und use the fitting optimised code on their own. Those programms are likely to crash.
Sure integeroperations will be fast, but thing like Raytraceing will crawl because of the lack of an FPU.
I wouldn`t put such a card in my mainmachine, as there are too many compatibilityissues, though it might be a nice toy some special programms.

Don`t forget to install the nonFPU-Version of the mpega library.
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on February 27, 2006, 06:09:46 AM
Thanks for the positive support. I did check out the price at Vesalia of a normal 68060 and it seems to 95,90 Euro (http://www.vesalia.de/?V02b0f1451534f1270595e5e520e514e01101f06435605551c4a0108515d324c536c352c2c6165693647097c6a2e653b781566616d6c277829207f105e0a702c6245177a46440b7948430c68425c5d4b40543438672375184e112e7c5e5f5b0b4a7c60746262766165792b3e36383) on their site, so I bought me an MC68EC060RC66 for 75 USD or 63 Euro, expensive shipping included :

(http://i15.ebayimg.com/05/i/06/4c/7c/9b_1.JPG)
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: keropi on February 27, 2006, 06:31:07 AM
hey Effy... where have you been?  :lol:
you could try to find a full 060/60 (like mine) why did you get a mmu/fpu-less cpu???
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: whabang on February 27, 2006, 06:34:06 AM
Well, it's going to FLY when calculating integer math!
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on February 27, 2006, 06:41:33 AM
Let´s say that I really don´t intend on doing heavy calculations  :lol: No raytracing for me  :banana:
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: alexh on February 27, 2006, 11:35:01 AM
$63 euro's for an EC, have you got money to burn??

You should have got a FULL MC68060RC50, with the Mask 1E41J.

These overclock to ANY speed you care to throw at them. They are totally cool at 50MHz.

With a heatsink and fan, they overclock to 90/100MHz in other systems which have SDRAM (wont overclock past 70/80MHz on a blizzard due to low speed DRAM).
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on February 28, 2006, 03:55:11 AM
The ones with that mask are not so easy to find. I do regularly a search on Ebay but I have been outbid a few times  :boohoo:
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: PG on February 28, 2006, 10:34:39 AM
This is a cool project!..:-)
But i agree with alexh, try to get an MC68060 with the 1E41J mask instead, a much better cpu.
There is one more thing about the Blizzard 1240.
I know there are some people who has upgraded this card to 1260, but will only changing the cpu really do it?
What about the firmware, this should be upgraded to, for optimizing the cpu?
And another thing, both the Apollo and Blizzard turbo cards have multilayer PCB.
You have to think twice about how to desolder the cpu, if you use an ordinary desoldering station, there is a big risk that you will destroy the PCB.
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: koaftder on February 28, 2006, 10:57:26 AM
Quote

PG wrote:
This is a cool project!..:-)
But i agree with alexh, try to get an MC68060 with the 1E41J mask instead, a much better cpu.
There is one more thing about the Blizzard 1240.
I know there are some people who has upgraded this card to 1260, but will only changing the cpu really do it?
What about the firmware, this should be upgraded to, for optimizing the cpu?
And another thing, both the Apollo and Blizzard turbo cards have multilayer PCB.
You have to think twice about how to desolder the cpu, if you use an ordinary desoldering station, there is a big risk that you will destroy the PCB.


If one is very very slow and methodical, an easy way to do this is to take an exacto sawblade, and saw off the pins on the original chip. You will need to remove the spot welded header on the blade, so it will be flat. It would take a lot of time to cut off the pins, and make sure the pcb underneath the chip doesnt get scratched. Then you end up with a pile of pins that you can hold onto with some hemostats and bump the undersides with the iron, then clean up the holes with some ribbon, pop in the new chip and tack on all the new pins.

Not too hard, just requires much patience and carefullness.
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: motorollin on February 28, 2006, 11:10:09 AM
Sound scary...

--
moto
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on February 28, 2006, 02:08:59 PM
PG : About the upgrade from a Blizzard 1240 to 1260, I have a good friend that can do those things and has done it before so I have confidence he won´t screw up the board  :lol:

As for the reason for this particular processor, most other 68060´s are too expensive or at least more expensive than I can afford. I would have paid this one a lot cheaper if it wasn´t for the 45 USD shipping cost from Canada to Belgium  :boohoo:

But don´t worry, I shall keep on searching for a 1E41J masked 060 coz I happen to have two 1240´s  :lol:
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: CLS2086 on February 28, 2006, 09:50:57 PM
Putting a 060 EC would crash and hung often due to the lack of specials functions called by the blizzard.
Some french guys tried, it doesn't work.
The 060EC costed around 10 Euros on ebay last year !!
Why does it grow up so much ? it's due to Falcon - CT60 user  :rtfm:
I got a 060RC 1 years on ebay belgium for 49.90 euros.
I asked AmigaCenter to put it on my BPPC1240/240/SCSI, he told me that is around 150e.

PS : for $45 Can, it's in a big box. Ask the seller to put in it a small box in an enveloppe like a book, it will just cost 18 Euros  ;-)
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on February 28, 2006, 09:54:39 PM
That doesn´t give much hope then to put it on a Blizzard  :boohoo:
This evening I got an offer to buy an 68060 with 1E41J mask for 80 Euro inclusive shipping. Is that much ???
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: PulsatingQuasar on February 28, 2006, 09:59:10 PM
A guy on Ebay from Germany had 5 of those 68060RC50 for sale with the mask 71E41J.

I bought 2 of them. Don't know if the sold the other 3.
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on February 28, 2006, 10:01:17 PM
Some people appear to be a little bit more lucky than I am  :bigcry:
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: amigagr on February 28, 2006, 10:09:13 PM
Quote

alexh wrote:
You should have got a FULL MC68060RC50, with the Mask 1E41J.
These overclock to ANY speed you care to throw at them. They are totally cool at 50MHz.With a heatsink and fan, they overclock to 90/100MHz in other systems which have SDRAM (wont overclock past 70/80MHz on a blizzard due to low speed DRAM).



i'm thinking to overclock my bliz1260/50 for a long time, i even bought an oscilator/crystal @66mhz. i have 2x 32mb/50ns simms on and now that i see your post i wonder how can someone check the cpu if it is of that type. more than this, is it safe general speaking to overclock a 060 cpu no matter if the Mask isn't the 1E41J?

-edit-
i bought the bliz around may or june 1996
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: PulsatingQuasar on February 28, 2006, 10:27:56 PM
Check your E-mail Effy.
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: jopower on February 28, 2006, 10:44:41 PM
look:
http://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?mode=viewthread&forum_id=9&thread=239
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: alexh on February 28, 2006, 11:47:49 PM
I could do with another 1E41J mask 060 but I cannot read german  :boohoo:
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: alexh on February 28, 2006, 11:50:11 PM
Quote

amije wrote:
i wonder how can someone check the cpu if it is of that type.

It's not. :cry: All amiga accelerators were made after this CPU was made.

Quote
is it safe general speaking to overclock a 060 cpu no matter if the Mask isn't the 1E41J?

Dunno about safe, but it will get hot, not recommended in a desktop situation.
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on March 01, 2006, 08:26:11 AM
PulsatingQuasar : thanks for your mail with the useful info  :-)

Amije : not all 68060´s can be overclocked to the same speed. I had my 68060 on a BPPC 240/060 overclocked by a friend and he couldn´t get it faster than 60 Mhz but that may be caused by the scsi controller on the card who doesn´t like overclocking  :lol:
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: alexh on March 01, 2006, 08:52:17 AM
Quote

Effy wrote:
PulsatingQuasar : thanks for your mail with the useful info  :-)


Useful info?
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on March 01, 2006, 08:57:00 AM
He mailed me that the Ebay seller banshee121 often sells 68060´s  :lol: I mailed him back to thank him for the useful info and added the seller to my favorite sellers list  :-)
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: PulsatingQuasar on March 01, 2006, 09:10:46 AM
He sold those 68060 a couple of weeks ago. It was a "Buy now" product which you can't search for on EBay so if you search via his name you only see some other stuff.

But if I check via my history, the counter got stuck on 3 of 5 remaining. So they might not have been sold.

Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on March 01, 2006, 09:53:40 AM
If I do a search on Ebay I also get to see the auctions with Buy Now option that are listed for sometimes even more than 30 days. Just click on THIS Ebay worldwide search for an 68060 (http://search.benl.ebay.be/68060_W0QQamp;sspagenameZhQ3ahQ3aadvsearchQ3aBENLQQcatrefZC5QQfbdZ1QQfclZ3QQfposZ3740QQfromZR6QQfrppZ50QQfsclZ1QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQfssZ0QQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQnojsprZyQQpfidZ0QQsacatZQ2d1QQsacqyopZgeQQsacurZ0QQsadisZ200QQsalicZQ2d15QQsaslopZ1QQsasltZ2QQsofocusZbs)  :-o
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: PulsatingQuasar on March 01, 2006, 10:21:20 AM
You mean the high prices of the 68060EC from America?

 :-)

That guy is an absolute morron. I have seen a lot of idiotic and morronic prices on second hand computer hardware as of late. Especially since this euro thing.

There is actually a guy in the Netherlands which asks 140 euro for a plain C64 with 1541 diskdrive. Nuts.
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on March 01, 2006, 10:58:43 AM
You mean THIS C64 (http://www.marktplaats.nl/index.php?url=http%3A//koopjes.marktplaats.nl/computer_hardware/commodore/23539946.html%3Freturn%3DeJwly9EKwiAYBeB3GWyXM5VYOMZYLxKWwkTdL%252FqHq%252Bjd03ZzzseBIwUVHyNOYxL0fBHNPUJOelwRgyDEQtBb72W0GJyUmPrNkQf48EQdb6uMKsuo6%252BJBQRVnQ7%252Bid%252FPuJtqpNNnc8qXlV4TStMCVWDhjlezPoRIL3yZU7sfDvY6GZApYFybejN8fc8c3KQ%253D%253D%26df%3D1)  :-? Indeed a bit out of my league  :lol:

The 68EC060 that I bought was THIS Canadian auction (http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7592527416&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1) which didn´t seem so expensive, until I asked for cheap not too fast shipping cost and got a bill of 45 USD for shipping :boohoo:
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Boot_WB on March 01, 2006, 11:55:05 PM
Yikes!!  $45 for shipping a cpu is a bit pricey, I'd expect him to wrap it pretty damn well for that.
I bought a full MC68060RC50 from amigakit around 2 months back - cost £50, but mask was 71E41J.  It was advertised on the website as an XC68060RC50, but when it came it was the cooler running MC version - Amigakit wins another loyal customer!

Runs very nicely at 66MHz just with a fan - gets warm without the fan, but has never crashed on me even uncooled.  Haven't yet got any thermal glue to put a heatsink on it.  Runs very nicely on my BPPC since I replaced the 040.

As for the EC version I tried - ran most things perfectly well, but anything compiled for 060 was an instant crash - including Ibrowse060 and (iirc) PPaint.
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: amigakit on March 02, 2006, 12:10:57 AM
Still got some 71E41J MC versions left plus some 66Mhz and 75Mhz 68060s (EC).
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Boot_WB on March 10, 2006, 10:09:02 AM
Quote

Effy wrote:
I´m playing with the idea of having an 68040 on one of my Blizzard 1240´s to be replaced by a fast 68EC060, meaning an 68060/66 or 68060/75 without fpu and mmu. Good idea or not ?


Hmmm... I guess not (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/68060-Motorola-PGA-processor-MC68EC060RC66_W0QQitemZ6858197377QQcategoryZ164QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem).
Dude - photo editor - cut down those pics :-).  I'm on broadband at the mo, but I wouldn'e have bothered waiting for the pics to load if I was on dial-up.
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on March 10, 2006, 11:21:16 AM
Boot_WB : I used the original pictures of my camera as I don´t really expect Amiga users to buy it as I am strongly advised to sell it again. But to make you feel happier, I just removed one close up picture from the auction. I used to upload my pictures to the Canon website but using the pictures on that site too often results in no pictures at all so I dropped that option. Using Ebay´s option to add pictures costs too much as they charge extra for every picture I use, so I use the pictures I store on my own webspace instead ...
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Lemmink on March 10, 2006, 01:12:33 PM
Whoa, good luck selling it for that price. I have seen full 68060 going for less (actually bought my for 39 EUR "buy now" from some guy that was selling some of them quite often on ebay germany)
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: MrZammler on March 10, 2006, 01:14:20 PM
Quote

Boot_WB wrote:
As for the EC version I tried - ran most things perfectly well, but anything compiled for 060 was an instant crash - including Ibrowse060 and (iirc) PPaint.


Ibrowse060 ??
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: utri007 on March 10, 2006, 01:35:01 PM
bad idea you should look at 68070 cpus

they were used in philips cdi's

 :lol:
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: adonay on March 10, 2006, 03:33:20 PM
@Effy dont forget to change the voltage when you change cpu.. or boom :-o  a :madashell: burnt card\cpu
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Boot_WB on March 10, 2006, 06:04:23 PM
Quote

MrZammler wrote:
Quote

Boot_WB wrote:
As for the EC version I tried - ran most things perfectly well, but anything compiled for 060 was an instant crash - including Ibrowse060 and (iirc) PPaint.


Ibrowse060 ??

ie when installing Ibrowse 2.3 selecting the cpu option for 68060 - it requires the presence of the FPU otherwise freezes on - well pretty much anything really.

@Effy - No offence intended: it seemes rather a large picture for such a small cpu - easier for all just to load it into (assuming you use a windoze pc) photoeditor (or some such program) and reduce it in size - quicker to upload, quicker to download, quicker to see it's a late EC variant with no chance of being a full version  mis-labelled as an EC and move on to some further ebaying.
I think I have the exact same mask CPU somewhere...
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: Effy on March 10, 2006, 10:21:06 PM
utri007 : about that obscure 68070, this is what I just found : "The 68070 was a Philips-branded 68000-based Microcontroller with built in DMA controller, minimal MMU, i2c bus controller and other enhancements. It was used in the CD-i. Despite the name, this chip was not part of the Motorola 680x0 series - Motorola never produced a 68070."

BOOT_WB : okay then, just removed the big picture and added a close up. To me it looks to small as I always prefer big pictures with as much detail as possible. THIS  (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6858197377&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1)is the auction now but if it gets sold then I expect it to be an Atari user  :lol:

adonay : don´t worry, I know about the voltage issue but I shall have somebody else do the job, somebody qualified  :-)
Title: Re: 68EC060 to be placed on a Blizzard ? Good idea or not ???
Post by: amigagr on March 10, 2006, 10:33:12 PM
Quote

Effy wrote:
don´t worry, I know about the voltage issue but I shall have somebody else do the job, somebody qualified  :-)



let's hope that HE knows too :-)