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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: CU_AMiGA on October 15, 2003, 03:21:03 PM
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Phase 5 included a 604 on their Cyberstorm PPC, but only included a 603 on their Blizzard PPC. Why was this? Couldn't they just include a 604 on their Blizzard PPC? Why couldn't Phase 5 just make both of these accelerators at the same spec instead of just leaving us Amiga 1200 owners constantly lagging behind our Amiga 4000 buddies?!
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Heat and Power Supply issues with the 604... even though the 603 killed my PSU and melted my A1200, the 604 would have been much worse.
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yup as bloodline refers to , but the problem for most would be...you HAD to have a tower and most of all we would be stuck with a 32mbx4 system.
so a1200 aint lagging :D
i have 256mb on my ppc...impossible on an a4k :D
so BLEH!
but then again... 604 is waaaay faster indeed ;(
cheers
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Wouldn't it have been possible for 2 versions. One for the desktop A1200 (603) and the other for tower A1200 (604). Is it possible to add a Cyberstorm card to your A1200 via an adaptor of some sort?
Regards,
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The A1200 laggs behind the A4k by design. I guess it comes down to how much people spend/spent on there miggies. The A1200 was baught by those that couldnt afford the big box of happiness that is the a4k, so it was safe to assume the a1200 users wouldnt/couldnt pay for a full on 604 processor card with it being so expensive, yet those that spent thousands on their a4k would/should be able too. so for a1200 we get the much cut down /cheaper 603 bassed system ;), and even then, still pricies higher then most can afford to spend on an aging a1200.
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Mad-Matt wrote:
The A1200 laggs behind the A4k by design. I guess it comes down to how much people spend/spent on there miggies. The A1200 was baught by those that couldnt afford the big box of happiness that is the a4k, so it was safe to assume the a1200 users wouldnt/couldnt pay for a full on 604 processor card with it being so expensive, yet those that spent thousands on their a4k would/should be able too. so for a1200 we get the much cut down /cheaper 603 bassed system ;), and even then, still pricies higher then most can afford to spend on an aging a1200.
Shame! Oh well! I guess thats what you get for buying a "toy" A1200! ;-)
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Having said that though, before the PPC the Amiga 1200 matched the Amiga 4000, via the Blizzard 1260. So why did it happen when the PPC came out?
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Mad-Matt wrote:
The A1200 was baught by those that couldnt afford the big box of happiness that is the a4k
Dunno about anyone else, but I've never even had to opportunity to get hold of an A4000 - neither love nor money worked :-(.
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You need love, money and a sacrificial goat, I believe.
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CU_AMIGA wrote:
Having said that though, before the PPC the Amiga 1200 matched the Amiga 4000, via the Blizzard 1260. So why did it happen when the PPC came out?
Well, the A1200 is short of Zorro III slots, compared to the A4000. On the other hand, there's no built-in RF modulator on the A4000. :-)
The thing is, when both machines came out, the superiority of A4000 over A1200 was obvious, however, as time went by, 3rd party manufacturers such as Phase 5 really made the A1200 shine by releasing cool expansions. That also goes for the tower makers such as Elbox, etc.
Nowadays when Zorro III is not as important as it used to be, I don't see much difference between A1200 and A4000, other than the PPC chip on CyberstormPPC and BlizzardPPC. Both machines can be towered. Both can be expanded with PCI busboards. Both can use the fastest 68060 accelerators. Both can be expanded with lots and lots of Fast RAM. They are about the same. :-D
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CU_AMiGA wrote:
Is it possible to add a Cyberstorm card to your A1200 via an adaptor of some sort?
I belive this is what you are looking for.
Micronik Z-3i MkII (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/microz3imkiibusb.html)
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@lempkee
Which off-course has nothing to do with 604/603, and all to do with the fact
that the blizz was developed after the PS/2-SIMM-spec was upped with
64 and 128MB modules,while the CS was done before.
Add to that,that a 604 will only work at full speed when it has the simms
in pairs (for 64bit-access).
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>Which off-course has nothing to do with 604/603, >and all to do with the fact
>that the blizz was developed after the PS/2-SIMM->spec was upped with
>64 and 128MB modules,while the CS was done >before.
>
>Add to that,that a 604 will only work at full speed >when it has the simms
>in pairs (for 64bit-access).
I've read something about the reason for the 128mb ram limit is due to the memory address space of the CPU expansion.
I think the biggest benefit of the CyberstormPPC cards vs Blizzard is the SCSI3, I also seem to remember people at the time complaining about the cost of wide scsi cables ;-) After spending 800 ukp on a accelerator card....
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Nickman wrote:
CU_AMiGA wrote:
Is it possible to add a Cyberstorm card to your A1200 via an adaptor of some sort?
I belive this is what you are looking for.
Micronik Z-3i MkII (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/microz3imkiibusb.html)
Thats brilliant! I may buy it! Would this mean, if i get this, i would be able to use a Cyberstorm PPC and Cybervision instead of the Blizzard PPC and Blizzardvision? How come no-one else has tried this?
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@Eddie
....and the RAM-limit for the A1200-trapdoor is ?
8 MB !!! :-P
More RAM is possuble, it is just invisible for the mobo and Z3-slots, which is
only a prob with DMA-cards (like Fastlane/4091).
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>@Eddie
>....and the RAM-limit for the A1200-trapdoor is ?
>
>
>8 MB !!!
>
>More RAM is possuble, it is just invisible for the >mobo and Z3-slots, which is
>only a prob with DMA-cards (like Fastlane/4091).
Yep, theres always ways of getting around standard limitations, but I can't believe that Phase 5 built the Cyberstorm boards with the belief that 64mb+ simms would be too expensive/wouldn't come out and then allowed the BlizzardPPC to use 128mb simms a few months later....
Sounds like they just thought "128mb is more than enough, no point defining any more address space", hence we lag behind the A1200's.
Personally I rarely use more than a few megs anyway, so its not a big limitation especially with the SCSI3 transfer speeds as anything bigger than 128 megs tends to be really big - 1-2Gbs, it would be handy for running Linux though.
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@Eddie
Seems you misunderstoodmy 1st post.
64/128mb weren't just not delievered, their pin-out hadn't been defined yet.
They probraly share the pin-out with very small modules not in use by that
time (like 1 or 2mb),but there was just no way for P5 to know that at the time they
desingned the CS-PPC-PCB.
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>Seems you misunderstoodmy 1st post.
>64/128mb weren't just not delievered, their pin-out >hadn't been defined yet.
That was not true though, as the ppc cards came out after the Blizzard 1260 and 1230 cards which already supported at least the 64mb simms, so they must have been defined by then.
I reckon the 128mb limit was just left because there was no big requirement for more... Why put extra effort in supporting more memory when you already have enough.
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the 128Mb limit wasn't phase5's fault.
the A4k was designed when 4Mb simms were expensive, and the cost of 32Mb simms was positivly discouraging.... i think at the time a 32Mb simm cost 250UKP+
so the address space of the A4000 was designed so that only 128Mb of ram was available to the CPU slot. mainly due to address space having to be allocated to Zorro3 addressing. as having 128Mb of ram at that time was nie on inconcievable. (yeah i can't spell). this wan't seen as too much of a problem.
however, you can add up to 512Mb per zorro3 slot. just you won't be able to run any OS that can't handle split memory areas (i.e. linux Apus) to take advantage of the extra ram.
anyway, the A1200 didn't have this Zorro3 'burden' and has all its addressing free for other use.
thinking about it, the A1200 roms don't carry the code to initialize the Z3 address space, so if you put the 1200 roms into an A4000, will you loose Z3 functionality but gain shed loads of CPU ram address space? ;)
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Would it be possible to reflash the CyberstormPPC to make it map the rest of memory (not the first 128MB) in other memory area?
I think that dropping the 680x0 and using only a 604 with SDRAM, cache L2 and an emulator would have been a better idea... even with an interpreted emu...
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probably, but if you want to use a mediator, or prommy PCI bus, then you'd somehow have to force the zorro devices to map into the upper bounderies of the zorro space, other wise they would *conflict* (gasp! a PC word for hardware installation used in reference with an amiga) with any extra ram you have above 128Mb on the cyberstorm.
i'm not sure how funky the autoconfig is in relation to sorting this little mess out :)
maybe if the cybertorm could be "reflashed" (dont ask me how ;) to show itself as two "zorro3" devices maybe... one CPU device and one memory device.. each taking a 512Mb address range, then this would leave the lower 1Gb of zorro space free, and autoconfig would map the true zorro devices above it. as far as i can figure out. and the cyberstorm (memory interface permitting) could then as part of the "reflash" (if you can modify that in the code) you could say allow 512Mb ram (4x 128Mb simms - and have it suck even more current from your PSU ;)
most of what i am saying is an educated guess given expirience and going over the memory layouts, hardware topologies, etc etc. and should not be taken as gospel. if i'm wrong anywhere please correct me.
i don't even know if it is possible to reflash the cyberstorm to change its memory addressing. or the way it presents itself to the amiga on initialization. it may be that you can change the flashrom addressing, but can't change the way it appears to the amiga due to the cpu hardwired glue logic on the card. so you are stuck with it being a 128Kb zorro3 card. i can't help but think that there would be some serious hardware reprogramming involved with regard to the logic chips. but i may be wrong... :)
(don't you just hate thinking of the answers for questions you're typing as you are typing the questions?)