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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Florida on August 19, 2011, 03:31:49 AM
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What is the fastest PC Bridgeboard available for Amiga 4000?
MHz?
Pentium?
How does it work? You just click on a PC icon in Workbench to active it? If you have a seperate hard drive attached will it be visible and accessible in Workbench?
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I was talking to AllocVec here a while back about a 486 board that was upgraded to a low end Pentium. Drop him a line, you never know... he may still have it or know where to get one. Guy is a font for hard to find Amiga goodies :)
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One can upgrade a a2386sx to a 486BL3 @75 mhz with a rev to 486
vortex made a 486slc2 @ 50mhz
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How does it work? You just click on a PC icon in Workbench to active it? If you have a seperate hard drive attached will it be visible and accessible in Workbench?
it works like pctask emulator or pcx emulator...icon on workbench...configure it....the diffrence it needs the bridgeboard
they are nice because you can add a soundblaster or a modem or a gfx card on the A4000' isa slots
you can expect pay about 150u$ or 200 u$ for a 486 amiga-bridgeboard....not really viable on this days lol
with 10u$ or 20u$ you can get a a full pentium 1 computer with cabinet+extra cards +hardisk and cdrom
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Commodore itself made an XT (8088), AT (286) and 386SX boards. I believe Vortex (is that their name) made a board powered by a 486SLC chip (GoldenGate). Also, several upgrades for the different boards were made.
These boards are in fact complete PC's on a single card, without video/keyboard. By running software on your Amiga you emulate a video screen, keyboard, disk and floppy on the Amiga side.
Commodore wrote software for this called JANUS, which is known to cause nauseous reactions with some users. There is alternative software on Aminet for it, such as http://aminet.net/package/misc/emu/ATUtilities.
Nifty stuff can be done. For example, by adding a NE2000 compatible network card on the "PC side" there is software allowing you to use it as a SANA network device on the Amiga side.
The fast bridge boards go for quite high prices these days but the A2088 boards go for first cheap. I've seen them passed for the price of a sandwich.
Depending on what you want to do maybe the A2088 board will do just fine. It runs DOS, you stare at it. Try some TurboPascal or whatever :roflmao:
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What is the fastest PC Bridgeboard available for Amiga 4000?
MHz?
Pentium?
How does it work? You just click on a PC icon in Workbench to active it? If you have a seperate hard drive attached will it be visible and accessible in Workbench?
It doesn't support AGA emulation though so in resolution 640x512 (PAL) you only get black and white graphics if you use the amiga chipset. With a graphicscard it will be the same as on a PC.
I had some ISA gfxcard and a SoundBlaster card and it worked just as on a PC. Ran it with Windows 95 before I sold it and it worked fine. It was a Vortex 486 @ 25MHz.
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it seems the vortex goldengate is the fastest bridgerboard..it cames with a 486/25mhz
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/goldengate
it is a very complete bridgeboard.... however the 486 soldered is the SL version done for the notebooks ...and of course is not socketed ...but maybe using certain soldering techniques and knowledge..maybe can be upgraded to a 586 or 686 or a pentium
I wonder how money are these cards on the market when one appears
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The fastest production card is the Goldengate 486SLC2/50 which is a 386 class processor (486SLC) with a cache and clock doubled to 50MHz.
The fastest card possible is the A2386SX upgraded to 75MHz using an SLC upgrade over the original 80386SX. You can change the clock on this board to make it triple to 100MHz but I don't know of anyone doing this as you'd need a 100MHz capable 486slc! You could use a 486SLC2/66 chip though and clock double a 33MHz bus.
Just to be clear though, these are all fast 386 class chips, not 486 (and you can entirely forget Pentiums!)
Prices are normally £100-£200.
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Look at this thread for informations about how the bridgeboard works, including the A2386 manual: http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=55952
I have the A2386 upgraded to a Cyrix 486SLC2@50 MHz chip and it is almost the fastest board possible. SLC3@75MHz are more difficult to buy than plutonium on this planet.