Amiga.org
Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Announcements and Press Releases => Topic started by: redrumloa on May 23, 2004, 06:22:25 PM
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Accelerators for the Amiga 600 are hard to come by. Right now there is an opportunity for a new production of the Apollo 630 if interest exists.
Product Information:
Apollo 630 (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/apollo630.html)
A small batch of the accellerator board (68030@40 MHz, SIMM socket for up to 32MB RAM, socket for 68882 FPU) will get produced if at least 50 people order a board. A single board would cost 130 EUR (incl. VAT).
If you're interested, please contact Matthias Bertram (http://mailto:matthias.bertram@cm-factory.de) through e-mail. Until now, Matthias has collected three orders.
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Email address link doesn't seem to work.
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matthias.bertram@cm-factory.de
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WIsh I had that kind of money, I'd do it in a heart beat!
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I doubt 50 people would waste that kind of money on the unloved a600 as there not worth anything.
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@amigamad,
Thats not true. what about the in car A600 mp3 player project?. :-D
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I doubt 50 people would waste that kind of money on the unloved a600 as there not worth anything.
Some people (like me) liked the compactness of them.
I think they look cool. I've got an ethernet card for it and its connected to my ADSL running an IRC client I made.. it would be great if I could do more with it, like play music mods at the same time, or run ALynx. If I wasnt a poor student, I'd definately buy one.
I have $150 left on my overdraft... I'm $110 short! (new zealand dollars) It would be a crazy way to spend $260 bucks, but when am I going to get this opportunity again.. ahh well I cant afford it, I should stop dreaming.
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Hmm... i think it's a bit to expensive :(
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Hmm - that's only £87... very tempting...
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Yes, at £87 it is tempting. I wish free cash and this opportunity had come at the same time!
I really do want to build this (like someone else mentioned:
http://amimpc.world3.net/
I know, as stated on the website, that the A600 plus a stick on accelerator isn't ideal, but then again every mm saved is essential in a project like that.
It's really frustrating when something like this comes along and all you can do is offer moral support :(
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£87!!!! and thats not including P&P is it? It'd be cool if that was free.
I'm seriously considering it though....
Kev
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Why not an 040 instead? :-)
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Hmm... think I'll wait for the 1GhZ version to come out.
And a software port of Fruityloops.
;) then the universe will at last be balanced.
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Thats not true. what about the in car A600 mp3 player project?.
Can get a proper hard disk mp3 player for less money.
I know, as stated on the website, that the A600 plus a stick on accelerator isn't ideal, but then again every mm saved is essential in a project like that.
But he used an amiga 1200 in the end.
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@amigamad:
Do you have an Amiga/Pegasos/A1? If so, why? A PC can do anything an Amiga can and miles faster/better/cheaper at that.
.
People do stuff like Amiga based car-mp3 players for one simple reason. Because they can.
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Can get a proper hard disk mp3 player for less money.
hard disk MP3 players have their place, but a homebrewed Amiga based solution doesn't have to be prohibitively expensive and would be capable of doing things the stand alone MP3 player couldn't.
Also many people love their Amiga and would rather it not go to waste and hit a landfill. Nothing wrong with that:-)
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@amigamad
Don't know what you people are talking about.the Amiga 600 is an A3000 in a smaller case, but actually better if upgraded.
My a600 is hooked up! and I am doing more to it soon.
I have an Apollo 630 32Mb 40Gigabyte HD and a 2Gigabyte PCMCIA card full of music. Plus I just added a clockport so that I can have USB 1.0 and 2.0 on it! thats coming soon!
so basically my A600 is more powerfull than any A3000 that I have had
Also plan on adding an internal DVD -RW drive.yes! internal without removing anything!
There is definitley a demand for these accelerators...people just dont know thyey are available and or they know they are just impossible to find.
I prefer they mad an 060 for it though and forget 030 and 040. It just makes more sence.and they are likely to sell more for the right price...........at least selling them without the CPU and you will have to find your own 060 or 040 to plug in..........and hopefully it would support 128Mb of RAM instead of 32 like my SX32 Pro.
Oh yeah forgort to mention I willbe attching 2 LCD screens to it as well as a portable editing system. I have 3LCD's in my possession and have already added them to my CD32/SX32. Its freekin awesome
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Can get a proper hard disk mp3 player for less money.
Yes, £150 from Maplin (or was it RS? One of those two). Or £90 for CD based. The problem with those would be the lack of AmigaOS. There are more things I would want an in-car computer to do than just play MP3 :)
But he used an amiga 1200 in the end.
But you repeat me.
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@leirbag
There is a huge difference in getting an old design back into production, and starting from scratch.
Just imagine what development-cost a 060-card would have, and how-much it would add to each card when you can only sell 100 (or less).
Such a card could easily break 500 Euro ....
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@Kronos
I guess so.
But then you know what would be a great idea? If someone invented a way to make an adaptor for an 68060 to plug into the 030 and FPU slot, then you can upgrade any 030 into an 060.
I truly believe this is possible and would not cost much at all. And of course you have to change the crystal as well
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Adapting an 030 to an 060 would probably be electrically possible, but would the development cost justify it? It would be more money on top of the plans to get the Apollo back into production. And would it fit in the A600's case? Doubtful...
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@Matt_H
Of course it would fit inside the A600. It's just an adaptor that would hardly be bigger than the 060 itslef except for the 2 extending cables with sockets at the ends to plug into the 030 socket and the FPU socket.............and demand would be very high because its not only for the A600...but also for the A2000, A3000, A4000, A500, A1000, and any amiga that has an 030 accelerator.
It should not cost more than $35 USA dollars
its kinda like making the clock[ort thingy for the A600. It's just an adaptor. may require a few chips on the board though.
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hard disk MP3 players have their place, but a homebrewed Amiga based solution doesn't have to be prohibitively expensive and would be capable of doing things the stand alone MP3 player couldn't.
True i got my a600 from the boot of a car in the scrapyard and got part way through makeing an mp3 player using my masplayer then i gave up so i still have a good motherboard and keyboard .
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Don`t suppose they could mod a couple of them to fit a std 68k socket so it`ll fit in an A500 ?
If so, stick my name on one.
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@leirbag28
"I have 3LCD's in my possession and have already added them to my CD32/SX32. Its freekin awesome"
Cool have you any pictures ?
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@Akiko
Yes I have a picture, but of the incomplete version..........although now it is complete, I have not taken pictures in its complete state. I will take some soon and put them here. problem is Amiga org seems to only allow them in 320 x 240. I posted a pic of my original CD32 keyboard (grey A4000 keyboard with the CD32 logo on it) and I had to shrink it.yet I see other peoples pics are way larger........I may be doing something wrong
anyway, I will take a picture.
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this is suberb!
an accelerator for my 600's would be lovely
I think the A600 is the coolest computer/console the world has ever seen cause its small and even if its old it is not even ugly compared to the ps2(I take this oppertunity to say that the x-box is the most horrible machine ever built aaarrgg,haha hate m$)
and I would defintly buy 1 or 2 cause money is no problem for me(Aaarg my room is going to be filled with ps2's, mini-itx's, widescreen tv's and amigas)
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If this new batch will address all issues that the original design suffered from (overheating and overall poor quality) then I'll definitely order one. I've sent an e-mail with questions and we'll see what the reply on these issues will be.
This is a great idea, btw. :-)
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I'd rather have it that they produce the BlizzardPPC again and all that belonged to it.
There is still a huge demand for it. I can't believe they ever stopped producing this piece of technology.
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Heh, well of course. I'd prefer a new batch of BPPC cards too, but I'd assume that making them is nowhere near as cheap as it is making A630.
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Wouldn't it be cool if they managed to licence the a1200 G3 designs from DCE or whoever else is currently the legal owner? They could also put a cool VGA chip, an IDE or SCSI controler! This way someone could end up with a monster of an A1200!
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BPPC is expensive and will remain so. I'd also expect that DCE would want lots of money for the licence if they hold it.
Returning to the Apollo 630 I hope the PCB is redesigned as it was notorious for faults such as popping off the 68k socket (needs some clips) and not having any heatsink (bad move). Also I'd rather they ditched the 68882 socket totally and made it smaller instead. The Viper 630 with onboard ram was a tidier design and as long as this had 32Mb of Ram I'd be happier with onboard ram.
BUT
If Individual Computers can build this sort of kit then why not build more interesting kit.
Mick Tinker still has the designs for the Inside Out (Amiga on a PCI card) - just needs s/w developed.
What about getting the Boxer PCI design from AntiGravity?
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I just got a reply from Matthias regarding the quality of the board, and he replied with a simple answer that the board will be "the same" as the original production. Nevertheless, I still signed up and am interested, but too bad they didn't try and work out the overheating issues, etc. Maybe if they use some better 68k sockets, we will get an accelerator that sits on the 68k cpu with a tight grip. We'll see. For now, I would be happy with just this project kicking off the ground. :-)
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Hi,
Offtopic: This is actually my first post @ amiga.org!
The winner 630 is the same right?
I wonder how many this company has left;
http://www.amigasuperbit.com/indexcataloge/34.htm
Anyway I would have participated wasn't it for the new home I just bought.
Good luck with the project.
Regards,
E
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why did he pick to re-make one of the worst (from what is heard) pieces of HW for the amiga? Is it the easiest one to make? He could have picked the Blizzard 060 as these are quite rare nowadays.
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apollo 630 got a good review in CU Amiga 1998 IIRC
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The question would be.... "What DIDN'T get a good review by CU in the late 90's?" I think if it was for the Amiga, that was an instant +90%.
I never owned an A600, but it seems that the apollo cards were pretty dreadful for all machines. :-(
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neil bothwick reviewed it IIRC...
£87 is cheap as chips for an accelerator anyway
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I owned two of these type of accelerators (one was M-tec 630 and the other Apollo 630) and neither of them worked. They were both DOA. The M-tec I even bought new from SoftHut. :-( I got a refund, of course, after I sent it back.
Anyway, it would REALLY be nice if they would at least make this card more reliable than the previous production. I don't really care for improvements, like faster speed, etc, just make it work reliably! :-)
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yeah there is nothing worse than investing all that money into an accelerator then discovering its an unreliable, unsturdy, unstable heap of junk you will just rip out anyway to make the system more stable!
believe me i know!