Amiga.org
Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Events => Topic started by: Schoenfeld on April 03, 2007, 03:51:01 AM
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On saturday, march 31st, Clone-A was successfully presented at Schloss Rahe Business center in Aachen, Germany. Project leader Oliver Achten and owner Jens Schönfeld faced up to the visitor's questions and presented an Amiga where the complete custom chipset was replaced by Clone-A development boards. In addition to demo programs that we have prepared, lots of programs were shown that visitors have brought. All these programs were executed without any flaws, just one program made the computer crash, where it wasn't clear if it was caused by a read error from the disk or by an incompatibility of the chipset. The visitor was given a voucher for 100,- EUR. In further tests after the demonstration, we could not reproduce the error, so there's no known incompatibility between Clone-A and a "real" Amiga at this time.
A new version of the Catweasel MK4 driver is available from our support site. Version 2.3.0.0 (http://siliconsonic.de/t/bin/CWMK4020407.zip) is a public beta version that corrects many known issues and adds new features. The most important change is that the joysticks can now be used as input devices for any Windows program (for example emulators), without the need for adapting these programs first. A new configuration program eases the use of the imagetool, and a few files for developers have been added to the archive, so direct access to disks is possible for other programs. Certain computer configurations now allow the "suspend to disk" function. This lets you put the computer into hibernation mode without having to shut it down completely. Since this function does not work properly on all computers yet, we decided to release this driver version as a beta-version with known issues and continue to work on this part of the driver in the coming weeks.
Like every year at easter time, the Breakpoint party (http://breakpoint.untergrund.net/) takes place in Bingen, Germany, where more than 1000 visitors are expected. Of course we are sponsoring the event with cash and hardware prizes. The presentation of Clone-A will be repeated during a seminar. Unfortunately, project leader Oliver Achten does not have the time to take part in the Breakpoint party.
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That is WONDERFUL! Now let's hope that these chips don't just end up in some stupid Amiga in a joystick thing! :)
Were they working on the AAA chipset as well, or am I wrong here?
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Hooray!!! :banana:
Now I just hope the Clone-AGA chips are ready for testing next year! :idea:
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Just call him Jens "McGyver" Schönfeld. :-P
The wizard who can take plastic, metal, and silicon and whip up magic! :bow:
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Heres a link to some photo's of the event.
http://www.a1k.org/ (http://www.a1k.org/forum/index.php?mode=viewthread&forum_id=2&thread=967&goto=9&post_nr=276#276)
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I'm sorry, I'd very, very much like to see a "stupid Amiga in a joystick thing". I'd buy one immediately as long as they had some way to import new games to the device (memory stick?)
Wayne
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some more pics over here (http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?u=4308) as well. (thanks to Ratte)
Great job, Jens :-)
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I'd like to see and Amiga-in-a-joystick too. Not because I'd use it as such....but I'd hack it back to a real, usable Amiga like with the C64DTV.
There's nothing wrong with a joystick type device. It means mass production, mass distribution and cheap prices. It would essentially mean a re-production run of an A500 (like the 64DTV was practically a re-production run of the Commodore 64).
It would also mean the developer (Jens, etc.) could actually make a profit on his/her efforts....profit means the ability to do further development on future products.
Also, an Amiga on a joystick doesn't automatically mean that there would not a be a "larger" mini A500 system released, that would be more computer-like. In fact, the success of a joystick type device would only increase the likelihood of such product being made.
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If they make it I will buy.
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As stated elsewhere, this project is too cool. Most important Amiga development in nearly 20 years.
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For some reason I'm imagining you could bung a PCI-Express link somewhere in there... An A500 driving an R600, anyone?
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I'd very, very much like to see a "stupid Amiga in a joystick thing".
Not sure how many game is usable without a keyboard. But more or less, I agree.
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Let me clarify.
I hope they don't stop at the Amiga in a Joystick thing if it should come to that. Aside of having a cheap portable 040 Amiga type device, I'm sure this could also be used as a PCI card for Amiga and MorphOS machines to somehow enhance backwards compatability so that old software is not mere handled by software emulation.
As for an Amiga in a Joystick giving hope for the future of an Amiga clone...
...well the C64 went pretty much the same route and we didn't see a C64 clone follow up to that unfortunatly. :/
I had also heard a rumour that these chips "might" be opened sourced instead of commercialized, which I think could be the best move for the community as a whole, though I would not blame or hold it against anyone if the chips were instead put into commercial efforts, so long as those efforts did not result in like I said a mere Joystick for your 6 year old, or even a mere 500 clone. I'd like to see a clone with at least a 50Mhz 030 at worst!
I don't see why that would be so expensive, shouldn't the 030 technology have about the worth of a 486 CPU anymore!?!? You'd think a piece of hardware like that would be worth pocket change.
040's are on Ebay for $10 so you'd figure....
http://cgi.ebay.com/Motorola-68040-Processor-XC68LC040RC25B_W0QQitemZ230096390151QQcategoryZ164QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem
Or even imagine this chip set merged into an Efika type board or something...
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Were they working on the AAA chipset as well, or am I wrong here?
Nope they are not working on AAA (and it wouldn't be AGA compatible). But AGA is a target. Maybe targets will improve with time... :-D (<-only my 2 cents)
I'd buy one immediately as long as they had some way to import new games to the device.
According to a report from someone who attended the show something like SD- or FlashCard's should be incorporated.
I'm sorry, I'd very, very much like to see a "stupid Amiga in a joystick thing". I'd buy one immediately as long as they had some way to import new games to the device (memory stick?)
individual computers will try to produce "developer style" boards with an FPGA on it so you can see Clone-A growing. This Board could be in itx formfactor, and should be open enough to hack the hell out of it. Unfortunately 68k Accellerators will not fit on a standard Clone-A. (Maybe someone can "hack" it on...)
The "stupid Amiga-Joystick thingie" could follow if an investor is interested to help developing the FPGA version to an ASIC. So if you know someone with deep pockets let Jens know...
Please take my information with a grain of salt as targets are moving, and i only wrote up information from a german forum....
Bye
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Just add two USB ports somewhere so we can
- attach a keyboard
- access a USB stick as harddrive
:-D
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Ok, ya a Joystick type deal (it better be a CD32 or better type joystick, not one of those 2600 POS') with a memory card reader and USB ports...
...that would be awsome, even if it did only have a crappy 68000 in it.
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I agree. I don't see much of a market for Amiga custom chip replacements. To use them, you still need an old working Amiga motherboard. My money would be better spent on a total Amiga replacement such as the Minimig. It doesn't make much sense to purchase custom chips for motherboards that are no longer produced. And what happens when the supply of motherboards runs dry or your current aged and decrepit motherboard dies?
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Well I know at least in the case of the 1200, you can use standard PC power packs with little hacking involved. Granted that still does not solve the problem of a dead or dying Mobo.
Another thought I was having is that with custom hardware is that we should not have need for these over priced accelerator boards anymore right?
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...I don't see much of a market for Amiga custom chip replacements...
And that possibly is the reason individual computers will not make/sell "Custom Chip Replacements".
They only re- engineered one chip after another, replacing the Original Chips of Olivers AMIGA 500 with FPGA Clones, so they know everything- even bus communication is 100%. -> They won't sell these as they are only engineering samples.
It's like Commodore did not sell "Lorraine" to end customers.
My money would be better spent on a total Amiga replacement such as the Minimig.
All chips should/will be merged into one FPGA and put on an itx Board that works on it's own (like MiniMig).
Another thought I was having is that with custom hardware is that we should not have need for these over priced accelerator boards anymore right?
Erm, which Accelerator Boards will you use instead? Someone had to develop a new one so we get access to new maybe not so expensive accelerator Boards. They are expensive because they are rare... and maybe new ones will be expensive too because of low quantities.
Bye
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I don't see the "amiga on a stick" and "replacement chips" as being an either-or situation. Make 'em both, if possible. A lot of folks might like to keep their old hardware running as long as possible for nostalgia if nothing else. Too bad the FPGAs used in the cloneA are too expensive, according to a post over on AW.
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What about a brand new Amiga with a 400MHz Coldfire cpu? Can this Clone-A chip be any faster than the originals?
Turn up the juice!
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Yes, if that was not Vapor, I'd be thinking about those possabilities too! That coldfire had me excited for so long... :/
As for expensive accellerator boards. I was thinking, since they are designing the chips, and hopefully some day motherboards to put them on, I would figure they could design the new boards so that you can just drop a chip on it, as opposed to having to buy some expensive expansion board you know?
But I don't know how all that stuff works, I don't understand why a 68xxx board could not work like a standard PC board where you just change jumpers or something in the bios to adapt for the new CPU.
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lou_dias: Please keep the Coldfire out of this discussion. Coldfire is not a desktop CPU, therefore it is not suited for the Amiga. The 68K compatibility is advertised, but not working to a degree where it can run un-patched classic Amiga applications. What you need is a true 68K CPU or a clone that behaves exactly like a 68K - anything else will have to run emulation, which kills the MHz and de-grades the CPU to something slower than an un-accelerated A500.
*Please* end the discussion about the Coldfire. I have been sceptical from the day it was announced, I have found it "too slow and not suitable" in 2001, and I have been attacked for sharing my opinion about the "ColdFusion" board and my prediction that it will not see the light of day - at least not in working condition. Now that my preditions came true and two announced projects are still not available, please start making up your own mind and don't believe what someone is trying to tell you in order to sell his stock of other hardware - be it from England or from Poland.
Jens Schönfeld
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Someone needs a hug :-D
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Me gives Schoenfeld a BIG smooshy HUGG!
We are talking possabilities here my friend. What's up with the Amiga community turning into a bunch of flamers anyhow?
Oh well, another BIG HUGG for you sir!
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Great news :)
I am dying for a new amiga mobo... :)
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But I don't know how all that stuff works, I don't understand why a 68xxx board could not work like a standard PC board where you just change jumpers or something in the bios to adapt for the new CPU.
We speak here of different generations of 68k CPU, like in PC world the different generations are not pin compatible. You can not stick a Core2Duo in a 486 motherboard.
...Coldfire is not a desktop CPU, therefore it is not suited for the Amiga...
Oh, not again ;-)
Clone-A is not a desktop chip set/motherboard, therefore it is not suited for the Amiga.
It works the other way around also. :-D
What you need is a true 68K CPU or a clone that behaves exactly like a 68K.
The true "powerfull" 68k CPU's are very expensive, and i have heard that FPGA's are not big enough (or too expensive) to clone one of the last generation 68k's.
...anything else will have to run emulation, which kills the MHz and de-grades the CPU to something slower than an un-accelerated A500...
Do you really think that a chip that is (MIPS wise) 4 times faster than a 68060 will be slower than a 68000 at 7 MHz, even if it's running Emulation? I have seen screenshots from ATARI Coldfire project running TOS on a Coldfire Evaluation board that look otherwise.
If somebody would hack a PPC 970 on Clone A you had an bicycle with turbine...
I have been attacked for sharing my opinion about the "ColdFusion" board and my prediction that it will not see the light of day - at least not in working condition.
Sorry but i sometimes have the impression that people criticise you for the way how you give your statements, and not because you just say: "It can not work because of xyz".
ok
coldfire mode = off
topic CLONE-A = on
:-)
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Aghhh, I understand the CPU situtation a little better now. Bummer.
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We speak here of different generations of 68k CPU, like in PC world the different generations are not pin compatible. You can not stick a Core2Duo in a 486 motherboard.
That's not exactly a fair comparison. A Core2Duo won't work in a 486 motherboard, but it will run pretty much all code written for a 486. A ColdFire CPU won't execute all code written for the 680X0 line. Even the trap-based compatibility library doesn't make it 100% compatible, though it's hard to say what percentage of Amiga software would have problems. A relatively simple dynarec (well simple by dynarec standards anyway), could take care of the rest of the incompatibilities, but it's unclear whether the parties involved in these ColdFire projects have the skill, time and resources to make it happen. And of course, once you start talking about emulation you have to ask yourself if you would be better served with a more powerful processor of a different architecture, but if you're asking those kind of questions you probably shouldn't be troubling yourself with accelerators for obsolete computer hardware anyway.
I personally would like to see a ColdFire accelerator and/or ColdFire + FPGA chipset implementation even if all it could run was AROS and recompiled apps (assuming a full 68K port of AROS ever gets off the ground anyway).
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Maybe you missed the initial question to my reply?
Question:
As for expensive accellerator boards. I was thinking, ... they could design the new boards so that you can just drop a chip on it, as opposed to having to buy some expensive expansion board you know?
Answer:
We speak here of different generations of 68k CPU, like in PC world the different generations are not pin compatible. You can not stick a Core2Duo in a 486 motherboard.
So to speak: If there is a 68020 on the board, you can not make a drop in replacement with an 68060.
:-D
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It's kind of fun, but what happened, did WinUAE stop working?
I don't see the need. GRANTED...I don't need a need, if its really super cool fun, and maybe its getting close to that, but I would want to see something better than the original amiga....some kind of advance forward.
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Actually... while I recall OS4 finally grew some UAE-type support [or just UAE?] to allow the use of particularly chipset-banging apps...
...hasn't there been some demand for the proverbial "chipset on a card" to support legacy apps with the software and [when the final MAI AmigaOnes were in production] hardware that exists right now?
If, say, this type of functionality was built into a Catweasel, you'd get your legacy floppy support, analog graphics and sound, and/or you could just plop a full Minimig (or equivalent) on a card with a readable framebuffer* and use that for your legacy compatibility on whatever platform you like.
It's easy to forget that the lack of the oft-promised Amiga-on-a-card (or classic chipset availability in general) was what complicated and held up all the previous NG hardware projects. Of course, these days it's hard enough to find anyone who can even get a plain reference board into production, but this could finally make what we were supposed to see about 7 years ago possible.
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My beef with UAE is that the only advanced and useful port (beyond classic gaming) is for Winblows ONLY, and as we all know, when you run ANYTHING on Winblows, you loose that Fluid experience that you get with WorkBench and BeOS.
It reminds me of what life would bave been like had Amiga used Celeron's as CPU's! :)
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Too bad Amithlon couldn't run on this board. Seriously. a 2 Gig P4 or Athlon would scream on that board. Sure there's no chipset emulation, but it wouldn't need it, would it? Just slap an X86 chip on there, with a flash rom that holds the kernel for boot up?
Then again, I'm probably blowing smoke out of my @$$! :-D
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Too bad Amithlon isn't supported anymore. :/
Another great idea, ripped from the hands of the community by Amiga's new owners. Again this shows how much Love they have for us.
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