hard to install opalvision ?

[amigadave]

Hi:
Is it hard to install opalvision card on amiga 2000 ?
I am not a hardware person, but would really love to
acquire and install opalvision.
Thank you !!!

The card is easy enough to install into the video slot of an A2000, and unlike the Video Toaster, or GVP IV24, the Opal Vision card does not need an adapter or the video slot aligned with one of the Zorro2/3 slots.

It has been a while since I sold my Opal Vision card, but you should have no trouble installing it and the software.

Too bad it was never finished with the completion of the "Roaster" chip, which would have given it tons of video effects capabilities, maybe even better than the NewTek Video Toaster.

I had contact from an Amiga dealer who claimed he had sued, or threatened to sue the manufacturer of the Opal Vision card and as settlement, or as an incentive to drop the lawsuit, he was sent one of the very few prototype "Roaster" chips, but I never saw it, or saw any proof that he indeed did get one of them.

Does anyone have any proof that any "Roaster" chips were produced that actually worked and provided any of the proposed special video effects/transitions?

[amigadave]

It is just a Xilinx chip that plugs in the empty socket. It was going to come out with a manual, extra software and a video breakout box.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/blacktar/1516984512/lightbox/

http://www.binarydevotion.com/?p=97

http://translate.google.fr/translate?u=http://obligement.free.fr/articles/roaster.php&sl=fr&tl=en&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8

Nice find with those links, thanks.

I did not see anywhere in the linked pages that the Roaster Chip was "just a Xlink chip", do you have a source for that info?

By Xlinx chip you mean FPGA, right?  If it was an easy chip to get hold of, was the code to program it ever released or leaked to the general public?

If I had known that I could install a commonly available chip and obtain the code to create the Roaster chip, I would have kept my Opal Vision card.  The breakout add-ons could probably have been hacked together, if the person doing it knew anything about audio/video equipment and wiring.

I surely would have liked to see the Roaster chip in action, but I thought it was a myth and had never been finished enough to be shown anywhere.

Thanks again for the links and info.

@Jeff,

Without the Roaster chip, the Opal Vision card is not much use except to display 24bit images and use Opal Paint, which is a very powerful and full featured paint program for the Amiga.  It can't be used as an RTG video card for Workbench and other software (IIRC).

[amigadave]

The roaster chip did exist. I had talked to a guy who had one of the few working ones back in the day. He had a web site on the now defunct geocities - https://web.archive.org/web/20010428112833/http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lab/2056/   (this link times out alot and is not of much help. the wayback servers must be congested).I seem to think this page went with the info i recall but who knows, its been a long time.

As i understood it he was going to attempt to duplicate it and bring some of the other opalvision addons out. I dont know if making new CPLD's of the roaster chip was the trouble, he ran out of money or motivation or what.

Did you happen to get a look at the Roaster chip itself?  Was it an Xlinx chip, as has been claimed?  I wonder how many Roaster chips were ever made?  5, 10, 25, 100?  That article says the inventor made over one million dollars in royalties from the Opal Vision card and Opal Paint, but when Commodore went bankrupt, he quit working on the Opal Vision products and switched to his next invention.  I would be very surprised if several distributors of the Opal Vision cards did not sue the inventor for failing to fulfill his promise of delivering the Roaster chip and associated software that he had promised, and the distributors had counted on, which is why they had purchased so many of the Opal Vision cards.  The Opal Vision card was nice for displaying 24bit images and Opal Paint was a great paint system, but the main selling point of the card was the promised video effects that the Roaster chip would provide.

I wonder if Xlinx made socketed FPGA chips in 1993 or 1994?  Did Xlinx make ASIC chips as well as FPGA chips in the same time frame?

I guess none of this matters much, since standard definition video is not important to many people today and owners of Opal Vision cards are not searching for the owners of the few Roaster equipped Opal Vision cards, to figure out how to duplicate the Roaster chip, if indeed it is an Xlinx FPGA chip.  I just find it strange that the Roaster chip was not available in larger quantities, if it was an Xlinx FPGA.  Even if the software was not complete, and even if the additional hardware pieces were not produced in quantity, I would have expected someone in the Amiga community to get a hold of the code to program the Xlinx chip and many more owners of Opal Vision cards would have obtained that chip for their Opal Vision cards.

[amigadave]

@mechy,

Thanks for the explanation of why it must have been a CPLD chip from Xlinx, not an FPGA.  I had not thought about the fact it would have needed a flashrom as well to store the code to load the FPGA.

Regarding the reasoning for stopping work on the Opal Vision suite and Roaster Chip, I was only quoting the reason given by the journalist who interviewed the inventor, from the article you linked.