What is Status of COLDFIRE PROJECT?

[Dr_Righteous]

I got an update off the Yahoo Group the other day... Oli is having trouble with the new prototype. The CPU is getting too hot for some reason and he's working the bugs out. He's also got a couple of side projects going, including Z3 USB and Firewire cards (spinoffs from the CF card's features).

So, things are progressing... Just not as quickly as we'd all like.

[Dr_Righteous]

@whabang

As a personal pet project I have been fiddling around with such a design. While still in block-diagram design at the moment, I am making some progress. It's one of those things that's constantly on my mind, so I keep playing with it.

It's two designs really... One incorporating the original chipset, one completely overhauled to updated hardware. QuickLogic has some really nice chips that work well with 680x0 processors... Mainly an SDRAM controller and a PCI controller... From there the possibilities are endless!

The real nightmare will be in getting OS3.x to run on the updated board. It'll have to involve patching kickstart before boot (using a flashrom and nvram), and using a customized installer to install WB including the necessary drivers. This will also get around the legalities of distributing a modified version of OS3.x, since it works like an emulator (using what you already own)  :-D

[Dr_Righteous]

@whabang

Well at the moment I'm sticking to the 060... But if I can get that far, I don't see any trouble getting a CF board to work, since I intend to incorporate an A1200 style expansion connector  :-D

[Dr_Righteous]

Just to kinda restate what Karlos said... Motorola has created code to set the v4+ ColdFire processor into a 680x0 compatability mode. The idea behind the "ColdFusion" accelerator is to load this code from a ROM before Kickstart and the rest of the system loads... Thus turning the ColdFire into a 680x0 cpu upgrade on steroids!  :-D

Based on some polling data collected, some other nicities will be added to the accelerator, like USB and such... Having direct access to the CPU local bus will make these add-ons much faster than anything connected to the Zorro bus.

I've followed this project pretty closely since the begining, since I myself had the same idea back when the v3 CF came out... But of course that chip seriously lacked 680x0 compatability.

What can I say? I'm a 680x0 junkie!