Poll, new accelerator for A500/A600.

[Dr_Righteous]

If it works in the A500, chances are it'll also work in the A2000, and that is of far more use to me (tho I own both). In the interest of cost effectiveness, 32MB of SDRAM is plenty. Dual channel IDE would be awesome. No need for CF, since there are plenty of CF2IDE adapters out there. Ethernet is a nice idea, but USB would be better.

Now what would REALLY kick @$$ would be a PCI bus on the accellerator... Then use a cable connected between the accellerator and a "PCI dummy" card to plug into a PCI backplane mounted either internally (on say an A2k) or externally in a PCI expansion tower (A500/600).

Of course you'd have to buffer the connection at both ends, and shield the hell out of the cable... I think this would be WAY faster than any current PCI solution since it'd be connected directly to the local bus of the accellerator.

[Dr_Righteous]

Aww man... Now that I've read the whole thread, and I see we're chickening out on the ColdFire... I'll restate...

EC020... Ok...
Unsoldered RAM, I like the idea of SODIMM connector for the tight space of A500s.
Dual channel IDE preferred, but even one channel would be fine.

** LOCAL BUS CONNECTOR for future expansion. **

[Dr_Righteous]

@Doppie1200

That's what solder paste and a heat gun are for. :-D

@hppacito

Again, I highly encourage adding a local bus connector of some sort for future expansion. That way the other devices we've discussed putting on it could still be added to a leanly designed board. ie:

Main Accel:
EC020
xxxMB RAM
IDE interface
(ROM??)
Local Bus interface

Add-on boards:
USB
Ethernet
RTG board
etc.

Since you've got a goodly number of processors, I suggest 2/3 of them for the A500 and 1/3 for the A600... Tho I do like the idea of a single PCB design, just in case one of the A500/A2000 buyers decides to move it to an A600 later by changing the connectors (hack, of course).