Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Nlandas on April 01, 2008, 12:51:59 PM
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I just found out when I contacted Jens for a beta test offer on the Clone-A that he'll be doing the following. Please DO NOT swamp him with emails. He'll be making an official announcement when the board is ready for sale.
I'm saving my money for one.
-Nyle
His full email -
"The test will be small and expensive: Less than 100 boards, and each board with the Clone-A expander will be 350,- EUR. At the current exchange rate, this is about 550,- US Dollars. Given the fact that the board requires lots of ATX-type hardware (case, power supply, keyboard, monitor), this will be a *very* expensive Amiga. Well, actually two Amigas and a C64, as we will also do Minimig and a C64 core for the thing.
I have no problem with you publishing this, but please include the full text of this eMail: I really don't want to answer eMails like "when is it done?" and "can I pre-register?" - If there's no news on my website, the status of that board combo is "not available". Also, this will only represent the status of the Clone-A chipset implementation. It is nothing like the final product we're developing, and there will be no refund when the final Clone-A product is out and the C-One/Clone-A combo is obsolete. Given the fact that lots of my hardware has reached collector's item status, this should be no problem (did you see that insane auction for an external flickerfixer of mine?).
ciao,
--
Jens Schönfeld "
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Will it run Opera that was just released? cant wait!!!!
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Cool
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excellent!
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Considering the absolutley bonkers prices of items on ebay this is a bargain. I imagine this will have a flicker fixer built in? It's already worth it.
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i heard it's going to have circuitry that mimics the bridgeboard, only with a pentium 4.
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Did he send you this email before 12pm today?
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Thats a very good point Alex. :lol:
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alexh wrote:
Did he send you this email before 12pm today?
You're the only April fool here, Alex. :-D Just kidding.
Here's the full message header. I obscured the email addresses.
Delivery-date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:24:15 -0700
So, I guess it's all in how you look at it's deliver time. Technically, 3-31-08 but I pulled it down this morning. He could be joking but it sounds legit. Only Jens knows for sure. ;-)
-Nyle
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...and actually his first message to my request was on 3-30-2008. Then I asked for permission to make it public. I didn't want to step on Jens hard-working toes.
He's an asset to our community.
-Nyle
"At 17:55 30.03.2008 +0000, you wrote:
> If you need any beta testers for Clone-A when it gets closer to being produced let me know. I\'d be happy to beta test for you. I\'d pay shipping for the product here and return when done as well.
We will do betatesting on C-One boards with added components. These boards will be for sale in a few months.
ciao,
--
Jens Schönfeld "
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I wonder if those of us that already own C-One boards will be first in line to be accepted as beta testers?
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I have just published a few pictures of the C-One extender card. More info can be found on the C-One cores mailinglist.
Production of the extender cards will be made this coming week. You can either buy an extender card alone (proof of purchase for the C-One board is required!) for 99,- EUR, or you can buy the combo of "board with extender" for 333,- EUR. Prices do not include shipment.
Needless to say that these prices are heavily subsidised. The C-One project caused huge losses, therefore they are not available from resellers any more. No exceptions - anything C-One related must be shipped directly, with all the inconvenience that ordering from Germany may cause.
Check the website: http://www.c64upgra.de/c-one
and the mailinglist:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cone_cores/
Clone-A testing on C-One will be done internally first. No schedule available - it might take half a year until we release the first Clone-A core for this extender board. As always with the C-One: Don't buy it if it doesn't already do what you expect from it. Buy it for what it is right now, not for what it might become in the future. Our plans are "implement a Z2 memory expansion" and "make one IDE port available to the emulated Amiga". Both has not been done yet.
Another goal is to speed up the CPU. I'm expecting about twice the speed of an A600, plus anything we might gain from 2nd level caches (the FPGA on the extender is HUGE). Since there's no comparison platform, I won't risk any forecast on the actual performance.
Jens
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The C-One project caused huge losses
I hope Jeri didn't have to go back to eating ramen and sleeping in the back of a store because of it. :-(
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I'm thinking about getting a Clone-A... :-)
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Hi Jens,
Personally, I think that 333 EUR + S&H isn't a bad price for an modernised C64 and a Minimig combo. As I haven't kept up with the C-One development (and I'm sure I'm not alone), can you give us a quick summary of what the existing C-One cores offer today and what the existing expanded C-One hardware provides for C64 and Minimig users.
Thanks.
PS. Any more news on that SVGA expander for a real C64?
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/
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Lorraine wrote:
I am glad this thing still exists. I thought that the MiniMig and NatAmi hype may kill it off.
Personally, as a Minimig user I see the Minimig and Clone-A as 2 entirely different products aimed at 2 totally different markets. The Minimig is an attempt to recreate the A500 in a small formfactor that provides an ideal classic gaming machine and it does this perfectly. The Clone-A is a new Amiga for serious users that could replace the big-box classic machines that some of us have leaking battery acid onto our desks. :-)
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If the Natami is real then that will be stellar too.
Good problem to have...what shall I get... Clone A, MiniMig or Natami?
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Crom00 wrote:
If the Natami is real then that will be stellar too.
Good problem to have...what shall I get... Clone A, MiniMig or Natami?
While the MiniMig is interesting, if the Clone-A does AGA, then I'll get it. I don't see any point in the NatAmi, to be really honest.
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i thought AGA support was more or less planned?...
i am SO looking forward to this little beast!
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ok wait... what is this?
i thought the clone-a was going to be a set of replacement chips for existing machines? whats this now? an ATX A4000 compatable mainboard with FPGA based AGA chipset? :-?
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darksun9210 wrote:
ok wait... what is this?
i thought the clone-a was going to be a set of replacement chips for existing machines? whats this now? an ATX A4000 compatable mainboard with FPGA based AGA chipset? :-?
The Clone-A was always going to be a standalone chip... but it was developed as three descrete chips, in circuit to increase compatibility with real Hadware.
Jens did a lovely talk on the subject... the video is somewhere...
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I have to second that. Two years ago at AmiWest, he was very clear that the discrete chips were for development purposes only. He felt that producing them for sale would be a losing proposition, as there just were not enough people with working mainboards but bad chips to make it worthwhile.
At that time he was hoping, not promising, but hoping to get the Clone-A into a joystick. And if the economics of it worked out, perhaps even having an SD slot in it.
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weirdami wrote:
I hope Jeri didn't have to go back to eating ramen and sleeping in the back of a store because of it. :-(
Probably not.
She was originally going to do a super C-64 core for the C-One, but ended up doing the C-64 DTV instead. The DTV was a stong enough resume for her that she got picked up by someone to do fpga stuff for a living.
This is one of those messy stories we have had plenty of in the Amiga/Commodore scene. I don't know all the details nor do I wish to.
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No need to talk about Jeri in this thread, it seems like she has left the C-One project for good. All the fame for turning the C-One into the historic piece of hardware that it is right now (world's first fully re-configurable computer) goes to Tobias Gubener, Peter Wendrich and me.
I have put more pictures of the FPGA extender card online, this time from the final production run (previous pictures were of the hand-built unit that I made last weekend). Check www.c64upgra.de/c-one and click on "pictures"!
The production of the FPGA extender is finished, the units are shipping now. If you already have a C-One (Redrumloa did sell a few through eBay, right?), you can buy the extender board alone for 99,- EUR, or you can get the bundle of C-One board, extender card, SIMM and CPU/Ram card for 333,- EUR (about 420 USD at the moment - the dollar has done well in the past few weeks!).
The boards come with all the latest modifications done (for example the BA mod that makes lots of cartridges work!), and with Newboot installed - that's the nice graphical user interface that replaces the Amstrad-look-alike startup screen that we previously had.
Jens
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I wonder if this needs a case :-)
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@Jens
So how close are we to a fully working (purchasable!) Clone-A?
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Can you quickly summarise please?
A-Clone: what is it and its specs?
C-Clone: is this an improved C64 clone? Specs?
Many thanks :-)
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tonyyeb wrote:
So how close are we to a fully working (purchasable!) Clone-A?
Far, far away. The project is growing and growing, the user interface is taking up lots of resources, and I have just put two more people on the project. It's HUGE and it's worth waiting for.
Jens
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TheDaddy wrote:
Can you quickly summarise please?
It's not that easy to do "quick" if you're talking about a totally different principle of computers.
A-Clone: what is it and its specs?
A-Clone: There is no such thing. However, I have a project called Clone-A. This is the internal summary name for the project "reverse-engineering the Amiga set of chips for inclusion in various products". I do have boards that plug into the real sockets and they work in any combination with the original chips (just as a proof that I do the exact same inter-chip-communication as the original set), but I have no plans of selling chip replacements.
Plans are to make a new machine that is living-room-compatible. Something silent (all-flash based) in a nice case that lets you play games. You can choose between various processor speeds and chipsets - not on a by-unit-basis, but on a by-game-basis, as the same machine will have it all built-in. One game works better with 68000@7MHz and OCS, another game takes advantage of the 030 command set, fastmem and AGA. Clone-A technology will provide all this.
Knowledge gained from reverse-engineering the chips and inter-chip communication has already been used on the Indivision AGA flickerfixer.
C-Clone: is this an improved C64 clone? Specs?
You probably mean "C-One". It was meant to be a "C64 on steroids", but never reached that point. Back when the board was designed, it was meant to be an 8-bit only system for running C64, Amstrad/Schneider and VIC-20 software. With the new expander board, the 8-bit limit is broken, as the Minimig port shows. The C-One with the extender card will be used for public beta testing the Clone-A technology sometime next year. The Minimig core will be released next week, maybe already this weekend.
The C64 core for C-One has reached a compatibility level that is better than many emulators already. You can plug real SID chips (up to two of them!) to the board and use both from the C64 side. Both NTSC and PAL are supported, you can switch between the video modes while the machine is running (yes, the whole timing model is being changed while the machine runs!). If you always wanted to see all the nice PAL demos, this is your chance.
C-One is an ATX board with small changes. You need to provide a case, power supply, a CF card, PS/2 mouse and keyboard, monitor and some skill, as the case needs minor modifications.
The monitor must be VGA, and if you want to watch PAL demos, it should support a vertical frequency of 50Hz (for example compatible with old Amiga-scandoublers in PAL modes - Indivision AGA is not a good test here, as it can output PAL in 62.5Hz).
Jens
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Plans are to make a new machine that is living-room-compatible. Something silent (all-flash based) in a nice case that lets you play games. You can choose between various processor speeds and chipsets - not on a by-unit-basis, but on a by-game-basis, as the same machine will have it all built-in. One game works better with 68000@7MHz and OCS, another game takes advantage of the 030 command set, fastmem and AGA. Clone-A technology will provide all this.
no words! respect Jens! :-)
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bloodline wrote:
Jens did a lovely talk on the subject... the video is somewhere...
Maybe this (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7945941150233337270) is the video you are thinking of?
It's a great video anyway, and answers a lot of questions that I were about to ask. I think everyone should watch it. It's almost a full hour of Clone-A talk, both technical and non-technical.
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Go Jens! Go!
Hooray for Clone-A! :banana:
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Schoenfeld wrote:
tonyyeb wrote:
So how close are we to a fully working (purchasable!) Clone-A?
Far, far away. The project is growing and growing, the user interface is taking up lots of resources, and I have just put two more people on the project. It's HUGE and it's worth waiting for.
Jens
Great news! I am glad the project is still alive and even gathering pace! I know you can't answer this with any certainty but when are we likely to see something (like beta tester hardware)? 2009?
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Schoenfeld wrote:
Plans are to make a new machine that is living-room-compatible. Something silent (all-flash based) in a nice case that lets you play games. You can choose between various processor speeds and chipsets - not on a by-unit-basis, but on a by-game-basis, as the same machine will have it all built-in. One game works better with 68000@7MHz and OCS, another game takes advantage of the 030 command set, fastmem and AGA. Clone-A technology will provide all this.
What is a little confusing to me is what I get if I now buy a C-One with a FPGA extender.
Will it be "Clone-A capable" without the nice livingroom compliant case and formfactor, or is it a different product.
My understanding that this is a kind of "beta tester program"?
Will it be able to run the minimig core, or does it do Clone-A? Or is it something completely different?
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From what I can gether, this is just the c-one board and the fpga extender card
minimig core to be released this week or next
clone a beta test in the future
its just the boards ready
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arnljot wrote:
What is a little confusing to me is what I get if I now buy a C-One with a FPGA extender.
Will it be "Clone-A capable" without the nice livingroom compliant case and formfactor, or is it a different product.
My understanding that this is a kind of "beta tester program"?
Will it be able to run the minimig core, or does it do Clone-A? Or is it something completely different?
It runs Minimig "now", and it'll run parts of Clone-A later (that is, the Amiga chipset and a 68k processor, making it a vanilla machine with a scandoubler and a harddisk). However, it will not be capable of being the final product, as the final Clone-A will have 24-bit colour, more fastmem, and an Indivision-AGA-like VGA output (always over 60Hz, no matter what screenmode).
Yes, it's kind of a betatester board, and it will be abandoned at some point in Clone-A development. However, it will still be able to run Minimig then (including enhancements that we're already working on), and you still have the possibility to run all the other cores, including the beta versions of Clone-A, the C64 core, VIC20, Amstrad/Schneider, turbo CPC and maybe more to come.
Jens
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@Jens
How does it compare to the Natami?
Would you be interested in me designing a case for it?
Thank you for all your answers :-)
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Schoenfeld wrote:
Yes, it's kind of a betatester board, and it will be abandoned at some point in Clone-A development. However, it will still be able to run Minimig then (including enhancements that we're already working on), and you still have the possibility to run all the other cores, including the beta versions of Clone-A, the C64 core, VIC20, Amstrad/Schneider, turbo CPC and maybe more to come.
Jens
Is sounds great. How easy is it to swap between the different cores? Do you just change an SD card or does anything need manual "reflashing"? On the C64 side, can you connect a real floppy drive such as a 1571?
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TheDaddy wrote:
@Jens
How does it compare to the Natami?
It exists and you can buy it. I haven't seen Natami running, and neither has anyone I personally know. Also, it's a different concept: Natami wants to create a new platform, with all the problems that brings. Who is making new software for that new platform?
Would you be interested in me designing a case for it?
Sure - that case would also fit other ATX boards (C-One is "almost" ATX), so your market is huge :-)
Jens
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Darrin wrote:
Is sounds great. How easy is it to swap between the different cores? Do you just change an SD card or does anything need manual "reflashing"? On the C64 side, can you connect a real floppy drive such as a 1571?
All cores can be kept on the same CF card. You have a graphical menu when you switch on the machine, and you choose the kind of machine that you want the thing to be "now". It's not re-flashing, but more like loading, as FPGAs are SRam-based chips.
Instead of one reset button, you have two kinds of reset-buttons on the C-One: The reset as you know it resets the machine that you have started. The "re-config" button brings you back into the menu where you choose which machine you want it to be.
The C64, but also the VIC20 can connect IEC devices like printers, the 1541 or the 1571 floppies. The accuracy of the C64 emulation is so good that it works with floppy speeders and track-loading demos.
However, it might be more desirable to load software from the CF card, because you have it in there anyway. Amiga stuff in ADF format can be loaded, and the C64 can be launched "with the program already loaded", so you don't have these slow loading times. The C-one combines the comfort of an emulator with the accuracy of real hardware.
Jens
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@Jens
>>Would you be interested in me designing a case for it?
>>>Sure - that case would also fit other ATX boards (C-One is "almost" ATX), so your market is huge
I have designed this for the Minimig:
www.loriano.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
so I would be delighted to make something custom for the Clone-A :-)
Thanks again.
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@Jens
So timelines are:
Consumer Clone-A.........next 6 months?
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@ Jens,
Thanks for that explaination. It sounds great. I was thinking about getting that VGA adapter for the C64 you announced, but the C-One might be a better choice.
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TheDaddy wrote:
so I would be delighted to make something custom for the Clone-A :-)
Oh - sorry, misunderstanding, I thought you wanted to design something for the C-One. The C-One ia "almost ATX", but Clone-A will have a custom form factor, NOT ATX.
The exact form factor is not known yet, as the project evolves.
Jens
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TheDaddy wrote:
@Jens
So timelines are:
Consumer Clone-A.........next 6 months?
I have said nothing about a timeline in this thread. Please don't try to push me into a direction where I'm not going. I already made the mistake of giving an outlook on a production date/time for the Clone-A machine that I was thinking of back in 2007, and I missed that. Now that ideas evolved even more, and the concept of the "living-room-compatible computer" is continued to a degree where I wouldn't have imagined it only a few months ago, I'm sure that I'd miss any other timeline as well.
It's done when it's done, and technical specs that I have mentioned here may change (mostly improve). Like I said, Clone-A is a HUGE project, and I have only mentioned a subset of the possibilities here. That's why the C-One hardware will at some point not be able to be Clone-A any more - the hardware is just not powerful enough to do all that. However, it's already powerful enough to outperform Minimig.
It's worth waiting for. However, I can't, and therefore will not give an outlook on how long the wait will be. It would be just another thing that we've seen too often in the Amiga market: Big announcements and nothing ever comes. I'd like to be a little bit better than that (although I do have my share of not-yet-delivered products...).
Jens
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@Jens
>>I thought you wanted to design something for the C-One. The C-One ia "almost ATX",
I am going to design one for the C-One too. How many C-One are around?
>>but Clone-A will have a custom form factor, NOT ATX.
Excellent! I thrive on custom boards :-) I have spent 6 months on the Minimig case, and another challenging board is welcome.
Could you please keep me informed on dimensions etc...eventually I would need a final board to test the case.
I am very excited about this project.
This is my email:
amigarulez@hotmail.com
Loriano
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@Jens
>>I have said nothing about a timeline in this thread.
Sorry, it wasn't my intention, just a question...but it's ok like that, I had the same problem with my enclosure and I was running around like a mad man! :-)
>>I'm sure that I'd miss any other timeline as well.
I think that is more than understandable, after all you are hte only person who really knows how long and how hard you have got to work on this, I am fine with that. :-)
>>It's worth waiting for. However, I can't, and therefore will not give an outlook on how long the wait will be. It would be just another thing that we've seen too often in the Amiga market: Big announcements and nothing ever comes. I'd like to be a little bit better than that (although I do have my share of not-yet-delivered products...).
True, so many projects, not enough time...I really wanted that A600 accelerator by the way ;-)