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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Digiman on October 04, 2011, 08:01:48 PM
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Yes/No?
Also if no then why?
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my understanding was that the processors are hard to get.
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Not necessarily hard to get but vastly overpriced, by a big margin what I've read.
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yeah, you're undoubtedly correct :)
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A new 060 card would be better and im sure it would sell a few... hard to get NOS cpus? use used ones! they have been used in everything from computers to dish washers.
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I think they should sell blank ACA1230/56 boards without CPU then really. 28 is not enough of a boost but good value sure.
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I think they should sell blank ACA1230/56 boards without CPU then really. 28 is not enough of a boost but good value sure.
I think it's a good idea IMHO, but I don't know if Jens would approve...
BY!
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Problem with having the customer supply the CPU is the user error factor.
No company wants to have to field support calls when some guy buys their bare card and is trying to cram a supposedly "working" second hand pull '0x0 onto it. No matter how many times you can put in bold text on the warranty sheet "Installation of a working CPU chip is up to the user, and we do not support anything but the basic, bare board" there will always be some support issues.
Selling the full card allows for QC and avoids the above, but I'd certainly welcome bare cards if it got accels into more peoples hands.
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A new 060 card would be better and im sure it would sell a few... hard to get NOS cpus? use used ones! they have been used in everything from computers to dish washers.
I like the 060 idea. I also like the idea of a large FPGA that could run an emulated CPU core.
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Problem with having the customer supply the CPU is the user error factor.
No company wants to have to field support calls when some guy buys their bare card and is trying to cram a supposedly "working" second hand pull '0x0 onto it. No matter how many times you can put in bold text on the warranty sheet "Installation of a working CPU chip is up to the user, and we do not support anything but the basic, bare board" there will always be some support issues.
Selling the full card allows for QC and avoids the above, but I'd certainly welcome bare cards if it got accels into more peoples hands.
but in the PC world you can buy your own CPU, Motherboard and FAN... whats the big deal?
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I think the story is that Jens managed to get a batch of 50Mhz chips (that would clock to 56Mhz) at a good price and that batch is now all gone. To buy more chips would cost him a lot more so the price of the cards would obviously have to go up.
There's still a chance that more 56Mhz cards will be made but I wouldn't hold your breath.
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The difference being bbond is people building new commodity hardware PC's are not generally having to buy second hand "pulls" for CPU's. I need an i7 or AM3, I can buy one new in box at the store 1 mile from my house.
What happens when some guy buys a supposedly "working" '030 off ebay to slap in a theoretical "bare" ACA card, and said chip is DOA, or worse yet, could be mangled to the point it may cause damage to said ACA card?
From a business standpoint, I understand fully why they would not ever offer a "bare" board. Quality Control.
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The difference being bbond is people building new commodity hardware PC's are not generally having to buy second hand "pulls" for CPU's. I need an i7 or AM3, I can buy one new in box at the store 1 mile from my house.
What happens when some guy buys a supposedly "working" '030 off ebay to slap in a theoretical "bare" ACA card, and said chip is DOA, or worse yet, could be mangled to the point it may cause damage to said ACA card?
From a business standpoint, I understand fully why they would not ever offer a "bare" board. Quality Control.
Quality control my arse. They won't be made because they would have to priced cheaply. Nobody wants that.
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considered the aca cards are pretty low priced compared to what people flog this stuff for on ebay, I dont think anyone can reasonably accuse Jens of being a price gouger.
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Quality control my arse. They won't be made because they would have to priced cheaply. Nobody wants that.
OK then. Say a cpu is installed and the card doesn't work. You can bet that the user will want to blame the board, no doubt citing that it was pulled off another working device. IC will then have to deal with having the board sent back to them, possibly-damaged, and then testing it (again), finding the board is fine or maybe has been damaged by the user. Then what? I wouldn't want that hassle, who would?
Also when I was installing a different 68040 to replace a faulty one on an Apollo 1240, I bent one of the pins. Thankfully I didn't power it up and I was able to straighten the pin without breaking it, but it just goes to show what can go wrong.
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Exactly, Stefcep2. Not worth the hassles.
Tension, the ACA boards are some of the most reasonably priced accels that have ever been offered for the wedge Amiga's, a real bang for buck deal. IC could have cranked the price up significantly and people would still be buying them up.
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And, don't forget the tendency in this community to come onto the forums and vent about things, so not only might IC have issues with perfectly good boards being returned due to faulty CPUs or customer error, you can be sure that user would be on here giving out, swearing blind it's IC's fault, and thus denting Jens' reputation. I wouldn't do it either.
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@stefcep2
Distributors could install the cpus you send them, they could even buy a small batch of chinese 060 cpus, test them and install them in the boards
There are also new rohs compliant 060 chips without MMU nor FPU (68EC060FE133 sounds cool). AFAIK these 060 chips should work on AmigaOS too.
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@stefcep2
There are also new rohs compliant 060 chips without MMU nor FPU (68EC060FE133 sounds cool). AFAIK these 060 chips should work on AmigaOS too.
Natami systems already run AmigaOS on them.
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Jens, I believe, is very wary of having his good reputation tarnished. While in theory it's a very good idea to sell bare boards without CPUs, in practice it would create reports of unreliable hardware as people use the wrong parts, and however much that's undeserved, it would damage his reputation. Hence I can see exactly why he's not doing that.
Incidentally, the ACA 1230 seems to be using a PLCC chip instead of a PGA like most accelerators. I was thinking of plonking my full '030@50 into a 1230/28 but it wouldn't fit even if I could find where the clocking is done.
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Trouble is 1230/28 is barely fast enough for use with FPS games, price is good yes but the bang just isn't big enough. Not saying there is anything Jens can do about the 50mhz 030 price of course, not really the fault of the producer.
And the bare boards thing? Yes it is no different to buying a PC motherboard and plonking a second hand CPU in there. If it doesn't power up you return the board and the manufacturer/seller will test it with their own known working CPU and return if the board is working (and you haven't physically damaged the board). But again Jens is not obliged to go through that kind of hassle as part and parcel of selling motherboards/bare boards etc.
So I guess my Amiga 1200 will have to stay at 14.2mhz then because other boards are either just as slow or way too overpriced.
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Natami systems already run AmigaOS on them.
a 68EC060/133 would be a nice upgrade, even without a SATA controller (perhaps it's possible to add a cheap buffered PIO PATA controller faster than the onboard ide based on Buddha like he plans to do with ACA520).
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There are also new rohs compliant 060 chips without MMU nor FPU (68EC060FE133 sounds cool). AFAIK these 060 chips should work on AmigaOS too.
The 68EC060FE133 is a re-labeled chip. Motorola or Freescale never made a 133 MHz 060.
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The 68EC060FE133 is a re-labeled chip. Motorola or Freescale never made a 133 MHz 060.
AFAIK It reaches 100Mhz without any cooling so that is fine for me.