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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Marketplace => Topic started by: czarek on August 31, 2008, 10:44:03 AM

Title: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: czarek on August 31, 2008, 10:44:03 AM
I know they're extremely rare these days but that's the last thing I need for my A500 so if you have some 020 or 030 accelerator board you'd like to sell please let me know.
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: CaptChaos on August 31, 2008, 11:35:28 AM
VXL30 (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=79)

I have one of these with the 8meg expansion module.

Make me an offer I can't refuse and its yours.
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: Effy on August 31, 2008, 11:53:15 AM
A Mtec68020i is not too difficult to find, it has got an 68020/14 Mhz and maximum 4 Mb Simm memory. Those VXL30 are 68030/25 Mhz and 8 Mb Dip's ... with such a card it should be easy to run OS 3.9  :-D
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: czarek on September 01, 2008, 10:55:49 AM
Yeah even M-Tec would be good as it would allow me to use Scalos and more WHDLoad games (some of them require 020 to run).
Also can you please let me know how much is card like that worth?

PS. I don't need (but is also welcome) memory expansion as I already have GVP A500-HD8+ and that's enough for my needs.
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: Crumb on September 01, 2008, 12:26:54 PM
@czarek

AFAIK M-Tec 020 is incompatible with GVP scsi controller's ram so please be careful. I mean: your computer won't boot if you fit memory in your GVP scsi controller, you'll have to take out the memory from your gvp scsi controller.
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: czarek on September 01, 2008, 02:00:17 PM
Thanks for that info Crumb!
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: Jiffy on September 01, 2008, 02:24:29 PM
Quote

czarek wrote:
PS. I don't need (but is also welcome) memory expansion as I already have GVP A500-HD8+ and that's enough for my needs.

Yes you will. Any 68020 (or higher) is almost useless without access to 32 bit ram as it will hardly provide any speedboost. The 16 bit ram of your A500 and your GVP card will not be fast enough to keep up with your 68020 (or higher) turbocard.
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: redrumloa on September 01, 2008, 03:13:42 PM
Quote

Crumb wrote:
@czarek

AFAIK M-Tec 020 is incompatible with GVP scsi controller's ram so please be careful. I mean: your computer won't boot if you fit memory in your GVP scsi controller, you'll have to take out the memory from your gvp scsi controller.


Good advise, GVP controllers for the A500 cause a lot of incompatibilities.
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: czarek on October 05, 2008, 07:52:01 PM
No longer wanted - I just have bought this beast:
http://cgi.ebay.pl/GVP-A530-Turbo-68030-with-8MB-for-Commodore-Amiga-500_W0QQitemZ320305518161QQihZ011QQcategoryZ4598QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em122
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: Plaz on October 06, 2008, 12:56:11 AM
Glad you found one. Was that local or did you have to go international? Suprisingly these accelerators have held their value well over the years. Makes me wonder about a sale of my own.  :inquisitive:

Plaz
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: czarek on October 06, 2008, 09:48:40 AM
International - I'm based in Europe. Yeah they're bloody expensive these days...
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: alexh on October 06, 2008, 09:51:58 AM
Quote

czarek wrote:
No longer wanted - I just have bought this beast: GVP A530

Wow £230 for an 030 accelerator which has a maximum of 8Mbytes RAM, which you cannot use if the turbo card is disabled.

Not a good accelerator IMHO.
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: czarek on October 17, 2008, 12:41:28 PM
Yeah price was a rip off but I don't mind. My Amiga is now working 10 times faster than before and I'm really happy. The issue with RAM being disabled with processor is pretty obvious as it's real 32 bit Fast and 68000 can't address it. That gives an opportunity for FBlit to speed up intuition and graphics stuff even more as it makes system functions use 32 bit Fast instead of 16 bit Chip RAM...
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: Argus on October 17, 2008, 01:10:07 PM
It's too bad the A530 apparently maps its 32-bit Fastram in the 24-bit address space; otherwise you could install two of the GVP 16Mb SIMMs and have 32Mb.  At the time it was made, however, 8Mb was a huge amount of memory especially for an A500.  I wonder if there is some way to change it so that it maps the memory into 32-bit address space.

All in all, it's a nice accelerator and has a nice DMA SCSI controller built-in, which other boards like the Derringer don't have.  When you try to use a C=A590 with the Derringer or VXL030, you're probably going to run into the dreaded 24-bit DMA problem (i.e. the 590 can't dma into the 32-bit RAM on the accelerator and so harddisk transfers crawl; same thing happens with an A2091 and a 32-bit cpu controller......e.g. 32-bit memory with a DKB2632 piggybacked on the C= A2630 or in an A4000).  So you're left with using some kind of software patch to make i/o transfers remotely bearable or use a non-dma scsi controller a la Dataflyer, Trumpcard or the like.

So you see GVP knew what they were doing.
Title: Re: Wanted: A500 Accelerator
Post by: whiteb on October 17, 2008, 02:40:28 PM
Quote

czarek wrote:
No longer wanted - I just have bought this beast:


Holy frag, they still keep their price those A530's.

Nice bits of kit though.