The most ambitious hardware proposal ever... UAU (wow)

[MskoDestny]

coldfish wrote:
It sounds a bit like to 32X add-on for the old sega Genesis/megadrive.

Kinda good as a concept, but the reality is you end up with a not-quite-new machine that cant-quite-do modern computing tasks and is held back by all the legacy dependencies.

The 32X didn't really have this problem. The SH-2s operated more or less indepedentantly from the 68K. It's limitations in performance were mostly tied to efforts to control costs rather than compromises due to it's connection to the Genesis/Megadrive.

That said, things are getting kind of out of hand with these upgrades to classic Amigas. Some of the proposed upgrades (Dragon, ACK, etc.) are pretty much a whole new computer plugged into a classic Amiga. Someone needs to implement the basic Amiga chipset in FPGA and build a new system around that.

What seems to make the most sense to me, would be to make a PCI card with an FPGA implementation of the basic chipset (perhaps beefed up a bit for more modern stuff). This could be sold alone for AmigaOne users and the like (or even x86 AROS boxes once 68K emulation is integrated) or sold with a ColdFire or PowerPC board maybe in a passive PCI backplane setup with the processor on it's own PCI card. This would allow you to leverage the economies of scale of the Sonnet Crescendo 7200 if you want PowerPC. You could probably even rig it up in a classic Amiga with a PCI busboard and use the MMU to redirect chip memory and direct chipset access to the souped-up PCI version.

[MskoDestny]

Waccoon wrote:

MskoDestny:  Someone needs to implement the basic Amiga chipset in FPGA and build a new system around that.

Why?  Just emulate everything.  The only software that needs the old chipset is the hardware bangin' stuff, and that generally doesn't get a speed boost.

Because real hardware is more fun. Besides it's obvious that emulators aren't satisfying everyone's desires. If they were we wouldn't see ridiculous prices on obsolete accelerators.

and we don't want to get into a situation where the hardware is built, and there's no way to improve compatibility later.

That's the beauty of programmable logic. Find a bug after the hardware ships? Just send out a firmware update. Assuming your hardware was designed with user-perform firmware updates in mind unlike say the Prometheus.

I've always wondered... if you enter a teleporter on Star Trek, do you die, and a mere physical copy of yourself takes your place?

There was an outer limits episode like this

[MskoDestny]

billt wrote:
@MskoDestny

Someone needs to implement the basic Amiga chipset in FPGA and build a new system around that.

BoXeR tried and failed, and they had a good bit of money involved.

One failure doesn't make it an impossible task and from what I understand the failure was largely a business one. From what I've read there were more or less finished prototypes put together.

At this point, with OS4 no longer relying on the classic chipset, why must it be present at all?

There's still a group of people that don't see these "new Amigas" as "real" Amigas. These new PPC based machines are pretty generic and for some people it was the unique combination of the OS AND the hardware that made the Amiga special. An improved AGA might not be the most practical audio and video solution, but the current Amiga market is hardly about being practical.

At the very least trying to put together a new classic system can't be any more silly than trying to shoehorn new accelerators that practically include a whole new computer into 10+ year old classic hardware.

I wish Troika would rename theirs to something unique)

They have. It's called the Amy 05 now or something like that.