Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Dr_Righteous on February 22, 2010, 03:46:44 PM
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With all of the work done on the minimig, I was wondering if anyone had considered designing a DIY TG68 accelerator for the classic systems (I'm desperate for something for this A4K). Both the Spartan 3 and the Cyclone II can run at 250+MHz... That's gotta stomp a mudhole in an 040. And by gods we need the memory upgrade.
By DIY I mean those interested may purchase a PCB, buy their own parts and whip out the ol' soldering iron. No need for the designer to fork out a bunch of cash building something that may or may not sell.
Seriously, with all the microcontroller and PLD geniuses we seem to have running around this site, someone out there should be able do this.
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With all of the work done on the minimig, I was wondering if anyone had considered designing a DIY TG68 accelerator for the classic systems (I'm desperate for something for this A4K). Both the Spartan 3 and the Cyclone II can run at 250+MHz... That's gotta stomp a mudhole in an 040. And by gods we need the memory upgrade.
By DIY I mean those interested may purchase a PCB, buy their own parts and whip out the ol' soldering iron. No need for the designer to fork out a bunch of cash building something that may or may not sell.
Seriously, with all the microcontroller and PLD geniuses we seem to have running around this site, someone out there should be able do this.
I'd love to see any kind of new non-68K accelerator for A3000/A4000...but so far no one or no company has brought one to market. Too bad for us :(
People over the years have asked about new PPC accelerators for classics, but nothing has come....so that is why you still see sky-high ebay and used prices for cyberstorm PPC's, for example.
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With all of the work done on the minimig, I was wondering if anyone had considered designing a DIY TG68 accelerator for the classic systems (I'm desperate for something for this A4K). Both the Spartan 3 and the Cyclone II can run at 250+MHz... That's gotta stomp a mudhole in an 040. And by gods we need the memory upgrade.
It doesn't have a 020, 030, 040 or 060 core. Once such core exist, it remains to be seen how well it actually performs against the real thing.
Yet, why an accelerator? Just have the whole system on chip...
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Indeed, replace the old tired mobo with a smaller and more efficient one :)
Replacement mobos for A1200 and A600 would be nice.
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Indeed, replace the old tired mobo with a smaller and more efficient one :)
Replacement mobos for A1200 and A600 would be nice.
Sure...buy a NatAmi (if it's ever done...) or a minimig+030+aga core, which looks like it will be out way sooner than NatAmi :)
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Yet, why an accelerator? Just have the whole system on chip...
Good question, but if you've already got the whole system with a slow CPU and want to accelerate it then it makes sense.
Also the "whole system" doesn't yet exist, although Yaqube might have solved that, so it makes sense to build it in parts.
Make a replica of the OCS/ECS (MiniMig) using a real 68k - - > then along came TG68k.
use the TG68k in a real AGA amiga - - > someone (Yaqube) builds a replica AGA.
Beside even when there is Mikej's, Natami, SuperMiniMig3.0 & TG68 + YaqubeAGA some people will still want to replace dead CPU boards in their A1/2/3/4000s.
Just my opinion.
Andy
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it doesn't have a 020, 030, 040 or 060 core. Once such core exist, it remains to be seen how well it actually performs against the real thing.
Yet, why an accelerator? Just have the whole system on chip...
agree.
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The drawback: the Altera DE2 board costs more than 495 USD alone, imagine if you want to create a market for that product!!! :(
http://www.altera.com/education/univ/materials/boards/unv-de2-board.html
The MiniMig is cheaper, but its features are nothing to keep me interested on it.
The FPGAArcade (i dont know its proper name) seems much more reasonable and something really tempting!
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Beside even when there is Mikej's, Natami, SuperMiniMig3.0 & TG68 + YaqubeAGA some people will still want to replace dead CPU boards in their A1/2/3/4000s.
Andy
Hmmmm, it would be a good idea to be able to fit one of these into a desktop A1200 case,
just for dead board replacement purposes. No? Some Kit could be made after the Superminimig is done.
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This thread on the Natami forums (http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=2¬e=16135&x=0) discussed some of the interest in such a board. The 68050 core is nearly done. It's not a GPL core though, which makes it unsuitable for use with the Minimig core.
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This thread on the Natami forums (http://www.natami.net/knowledge.php?b=2¬e=16135&x=0) discussed some of the interest in such a board. The 68050 core is nearly done. It's not a GPL core though, which makes it unsuitable for use with the Minimig core.
I'm all for the NATAMI project but it just seems to be taking a very long time...and I'm not optimistic they will have any end-user "for sale" product this year.
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Yeah, not the point guys.
I figure since no one wants to actually build and sell accelerators for classic machines anymore, one of our talented PLD guys could at least come up with the design for one. A 250MHz 000 core has to be an improvement over a 25MHz 040. Not to mention a decent RAM upgrade.
The cool part would be being able to upgrade the CPU core just by reprogramming the PLD.
Failing this project, a DIY 060 design would suffice. I see them all over eBay.
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SuperMiniMig3.0 & TG68
??? Not heard of this.
I figure since no one wants to actually build and sell accelerators for classic machines anymore, one of our talented PLD guys could at least come up with the design for one.
Someone is/was designing an A600 accelerator. Jens Schoenfeld was one. Some guys over at EAB were others.
A 250MHz 000 core has to be an improvement over a 25MHz 040.
You cannot get an FPGA today (at an affordable price) which could run TG68 that fast. And even if you could I doubt it would be as fast as a 66MHz 060.
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By DIY I mean those interested may purchase a PCB, buy their own parts and whip out the ol' soldering iron.
Cyclone 2 comes in either BGA or TQFP package. While TQFP is possible, soldering a BGA component to a board is beyond most home users skills, and requires a professional hot air working station.
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The drawback: the Altera DE2 board costs more than 495 USD alone, imagine if you want to create a market for that product!!! :(
http://www.altera.com/education/univ/materials/boards/unv-de2-board.html
I believe the OP was not talking about using a development board, but a custom designed one to fit in a miggy. The price of a Cyclone 2 chip alone (http://www.buyaltera.com/scripts/partsearch.dll?PV-5=3) is not that much (definitely cheaper than a second hand 68060 these days).
The only drawback here is that Cyclone 2 is a 3.3v chip, and it may require some work to interface it to the Amiga bus. I wonder if the DE2 Tobias used is 5v tolerant ?
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Cyclone 2 comes in either BGA or TQFP package. While TQFP is possible, soldering a BGA component to a board is beyond most home users skills, and requires a professional hot air working station.
Naa, just a good hot air gun. As much as my hands shake the BGA would be easier than the rest of the soldering. LOL!
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I assume you are talking about something like this, right?
http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?t=20223
A FPGA board based on TG68 of TobiFlex running in a A500 seems to be on pair with a 030 at 25 Mhz.
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Smell the rubber? LOL! Well not quite the punch I was hoping for my A4K, but a hefty improvement over any other stock machine. The ability to add RAM would be most helpful, and again it could be updated with a better core down the road.
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@countzero
Ah, okay then, those chips do have a nice price! :)
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Hmm, there's a little more hope in the Cyclone III's. Twice the clock speed.
[edit] OMG how about a Virtex-5 FXT? Built in 440 PPC! [/edit]
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Hi Countzero,
I wonder if the DE2 Tobias used is 5v tolerant ?
DE2 (and the DE2/70) boards have clamp diodes on the GPIO connectors which give some measure of protection against 5V.
The more inputs you have which are driving over 3.3V however, will tend to raise the core voltage on the FPGA.
Not normally a problem for Address/data lines which are actively driven by buffer chips.
Not so for Active low signals on the AMIGA bus, which will typically have pull-up resitors to 5V. More of these you have, FPGA core voltage will drift higher.
Over about 4V tends to permanently damage the the FPGA.
Plenty of references on Altera site/Cyclone datasheets to absolute maximum ratings.
DE1 board has no clamp diodes. If you were to try hooking the DE1 GPIO connectors straight to the Amiga bus
like:
http://www.a1k.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=22915&d=1264849250
I supect you would fry it very quickly....
Red
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Could we not simply buffer the connections to the legacy bus with 5v tolerant buffers? Keep the accelerator 3.3v.
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I believe the OP was not talking about using a development board, but a custom designed one to fit in a miggy. The price of a Cyclone 2 chip alone (http://www.buyaltera.com/scripts/partsearch.dll?PV-5=3) is not that much (definitely cheaper than a second hand 68060 these days).
The only drawback here is that Cyclone 2 is a 3.3v chip, and it may require some work to interface it to the Amiga bus. I wonder if the DE2 Tobias used is 5v tolerant ?
Voltage level shifters wouldn't be a big problem to get 5V working.
Put an FPGA with a DIMM slot, mayeb an IDE or SCSI connetor, and you're ready to go. There's something I'd like to do that would be an FPGA on an accelerator card anyway, it would be interesting to allow it to do what I want as well as to act as a standalone TG68 or Natami CPU accelerator as well. Don't think that would add much more to things. Just a couple connectors and some peripheral IPs from OpenCores inside the FPGA. I liek the idea of fitting TG68 into their Wishbone bus, maybe the Coldfire/68K to Wishbone bridge would already allow that. Then it's plug and play with many of the other things there, just need OS drivers. And a different connector for what I'd like to do beyond this. I'd just add a particular connector and have everythign arranged so as not to interfere, a PCI connector treating the entire Amiga computer as a PCI device.
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OMG how about a http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=332738? Built in 440 PPC!
Very cool technically. But OMG those are over US$8000 each chip!
http://avnetexpress.avnet.com/store/em/EMController/Programmable-Logic/FPGA/_/N-100235?action=products&cat=1&catalogId=500201&cutTape=&hrf=www.avnet.com&inStock=&langId=-1&proto=&rohs=&storeId=500201&term=VIRTEX%2B5%2BFXT&topSellers=
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There's something I'd like to do that would be an FPGA on an accelerator card anyway, it would be interesting to allow it to do what I want as well as to act as a standalone TG68 or Natami CPU accelerator as well.
Doooooo iiiiiiiit! You know the the hypno-toad would want you too ;)
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Very cool technically. But OMG those are over US$8000 each chip!
http://avnetexpress.avnet.com/store/em/EMController/Programmable-Logic/FPGA/_/N-100235?action=products&cat=1&catalogId=500201&cutTape=&hrf=www.avnet.com&inStock=&langId=-1&proto=&rohs=&storeId=500201&term=VIRTEX%2B5%2BFXT&topSellers=
Well I wasn't thinking dual core. LOL! Still $1,500 tho. Maybe the price will come down with time :P
The Virtex-6 is pretty bad too. Owie. Spartan-6 it is!
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No one has thought, that is possible to use faster PENTIUM processors running a simple cpu emulator, with plenty of memory and properly attached to the Amiga with some bus logic? It could be simple and cheaper than all those stuff, and changing the CPU Emulator in a ROM, we could "have" processors from 020 to 060 or PPC at high speed.
I know....intel outside, but it could be a chance. Imagine an amiga running a 060 at more than 2Ghz! Simply stunning!
680x0 emulators, can be found for FREE in the net and the rest, with some documentation ...
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How do you expect the CPU fan of that pentium to fit inside the amiga?
Again, easier to just use UAE.
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someone was trying this and there are pics of it in the gallery somewhere.... he had a PC motherboard hooked up to an amiga.
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Why hasn't someone updated the design of a combination 68060 and PPC accelerator board. 68060's are still available at a relatively low price and PPC chips that run several times what the original accelerator board's processor ran at are available.
It seems this would be a lot cheaper than an FPGA.