Am I really alone in wanting an Amiga AGA compatible?

[mechy]

Hey guys,

    I have Amiga Forever and it's a great effort and does let me run AmigaOS and get nostalgic but I still like running actual hardware. I'd be interested in running the latest AmigaOS if the hardware could be made for less. However, since it still runs over RISC chips the cost of a motherboard is too high for me to dedicate currently. I the OS could be ported to AMD/Intel that would be amazing but the money is likely not there.

    Am I really alone in wanting a retro Amiga AGA compatible clone system that would be as close to 100% compatible with the A1200/A4000 series? No I couldn't pay $1500 for it.

    However, with the retro scene offering Atari 2600 Flashback compatible systems(hacks for adding a cartridge) and now the RetroN 5 supporting NES, Famicom, SNES, Super Famicom, Genesis, Mega Drive, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, & Game Boy Advance cartridges, along with a multitude of retro Coleco, Intellivision, others and the previous success of the C64DTV - doesn't it seem like there might be a place for Amiga? Isn't there some cost effective way with modern ICs to create an AGA hardware system in a complete package compatible with modern TVs, USB, etc. and sell enough to get costs down?

   Am I wrong is the Amiga chipset still so complicated that even with modern ICs it's too expensive to clone like these other systems have been and release a modern hardware retro system?

I mean they even just released a complete replacement motherboard for the C64, which I do understand is less complicated than the custom chips but the market must be small for a replacement C64 motherboard at this point - isn't it? Not that I'm not also a C64 fan as well but I'd be more interested in a new C64DTV myself.

-Nyle

The c64 is big in europe and uk etc still. Sadly not as much in the USA,but my c64 from 1983 is still going,and i have kept my 128dcr's etc.
Why reinvent the wheel. there are plenty of working aga amigas out there needing a good home,and if you shop smart they can be had for reasonable prices.
  It amazes me how much time and effort people spend trying to get around the real stuff out there.
I see A4000's go for reasonable prices on ebay and the worst case they might need caps to make them reliable-just avoid ones with battery damage. add a cf for a hd  and away you go.

[mechy]

I guess that depends on one's definition of "reasonable".  :lol:

for example:
 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-Amiga-4000-4000d-040-w-VideoToaster-keyboard-mouse-US-/161736900521?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25a8453fa9

He might take a $500 offer. i have seen 4k's go from $350 - 1200+ depending what they came with.
It doesn't seem to have battery damage,has a buster 11(full working z3 buss), you get a 040,16MB should work in 2-8MB simms if alternating sockets have clips(i think so from the pics). add a cf adapter as hd(sandisk 32GB cf's on sale for $29 now). toaster isn't of much use for most people(could do a web cam with it lol).. assuming he took the offer, you would have a working machine for around $600. seems reasonable.
 you have a good base to build on if you want a gfx card or anything down the road,and add a pal/ntsc switch and viola! a whdload machine.  

I know someone will ask about the 32gb cf:  http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=1012242&gclid=CPHop9Hvq8YCFQqSaQodBPAH1g&Q=&m=Y&is=REG&A=details

Mech

[mechy]

Isn't that link proof positive that classic Amiga system are reaching outrageous prices? That buying an FPGA Arcade seem to be not only dirt cheap but ultimate solution instead of buying an A4000D?

How is $500 outrageous? its probably a quarter of what it cost new. Maybe you expect something for nothing? The fpga arcade has no expansion bus to add anything to it.
Can you even buy a fpga arcade? are you comparing a real machine with vapor?(its vapor until i can hold it in my hand and use it).
what does the replay cost, i cant find a price anywhere on the site?
nevertheless, my goal wasnt to hijack his thread.

[mechy]

Because you can buy it now if you want and this is the link where you can buy it:

http://amiga.amedia-computer.com/index.php/catalogue/infos/3/9/CONFVESAFPGA#.VYzk4kaIlZg

It is literally available for sale and they will literally ship it to you immediately. To answer your question what makes it special? Everything that the classic Amiga gives with it's expansion ports are already implemented in the FPGA Arcade therefore there is no need for expansion at all.

Such as the following:

1) USB
2) Network
3) Scandoubler
4) Sound blaster
5) CPU speed
6) RTG
7) RAM
Hard drive
9) Virtual disk
10) VGA port

For 499 euro I believe it is even cheaper than classic Amiga if you  intend to expand it like crazy and still the FPGA Arcade is faster than the fasted expanded classic Amiga. What else does it offer beside all the above I mentioned?

Check out the different platforms it also offer:

http://www.fpgaarcade.com/platforms/

Like matt pointed out, for that base price it doesn't beat a highly expanded amiga. its 030 with no fpu/mmu-The a4000 is a 040/25mhz with full mmu/fpu-well most models). so your are not making a fair comparison. I suspect by the time you expanded fpgaarcade  to specs you claim it would be quite a bit more.
facts is facts,and you can spin it any way you like. My 4k has been running since 1992 pretty much 24/7 only down for adding boards etc. It still has the original caps. I'd say i got quite good value from it.

Why bother with fpgaarcade and such anyway,a emulator on a cheap pc does the same( i prefer real hw!), its not like this stuff will give you the real amiga experience no matter how cool/neet/wow fpga arcade etc is.

That is the problem when your only criteria is cheap.. u get what you pay for. i know in 10 more years if i sold my a4000 i would get my money back or more, they hold their value if you take care of them and i look at it as a good investment. I have been fixing amigas since 87' and 90% of the problems on 4000's  i run into are user caused by plugging in something wrong,neglecting the psu fan until the machine overheats badly,or such. very few chip repairs other than battery damage or caps going bad..roms having bitrot etc.

[mechy]

@danbeaver, mechy
You guys are being a bit harsh on the FPGA hardware. The old Amiga hardware has its nostalgia and advantages which means many will continue to enjoy using it but it will always have its limitations too.

classic Amiga hardware advantages/disadvantages
+ nostalgia of real, old and substantial hardware
+ serviceable and expandable
+ CPU compatibility, performance and features set the standard
+ relatively good HD performance is possible
+ relatively fast RTG and 3D are possible
- it is old and more is failing everyday
- I/O is mostly outdated
- OCS/ECS/AGA and chip memory are slow
- not enough AGA compatible hardware
- Zorro II/III and PCI are relatively slow
- cost is high for good hardware

FPGA Amiga hardware advantages/disadvantages
+ very flexible and upgradable because of FPGA
+ modern I/O
+ RTG (but no 3D yet)
+ fast AGA, chip memory (also expandable >2MB) and custom chips possible
+ fast memory
+ easily degradable for compatibility
+ production can increase to meet demand
+ small and energy efficient
+ standard power supplies and cases possible
- CPU, FPU, MMU performance and availability limited by FPGA cost (improving though)
- SATA and PCIe require a significantly more expensive FPGA (improving though)
- SD/microSD disk performance is unexceptional
- not enough memory for power users

The 1st generation FPGA hardware like the MiniMig was neat but not very useful for most Amiga users because they had better hardware. The 2nd generation FPGA hardware like the FPGA Arcade and Mist are good enough and useful enough to have sitting beside good old Amiga hardware and will upgrade many users with low spec and/or broken Amiga hardware. A 3rd gen FPGA Amiga hardware could be what the Natami tried to do before its time and could become the main Amiga computer for many. It would require more cooperation, investment and standards for it to happen. Nobody is going to throw the old Amiga hardware away though .

Don't get me wrong, its amazing what these guys have done, I just wish amigans had stuck together to further the hardware we had. we are so split in so many ways that its amazing jens even makes hardware for us. emulator and users of these fpga machines don't buy his hardware or support amiga stores for the most part.
One man, George Braun(sp!?) is a good example of what can be done, even thought his hardware did not further the specs past what we have,this one guy managed to build a amiga motherboard with better specs for the 1000. Imagine if we had all stuck together for a common goal.

[mechy]

I would like to have, mobo with following features :

A1200 and A4000 CPU slot, so that any A1200 / A4000 accelerator would be useable.
At least 4 Zorro II / III slot, so that Zorro mode would be selectable, no matter wich accelerator is used. I mean Zorro III mode should be availlable even if A1200 accelerator is used. Should be doable, RMB did it as a prototype.
At least 2 active PCI slots. But Zorro slots are more important.

I love the 1200  and own several but...you are asking for stuff that has been done. Building on the 1200 makes no sense at all. its not a proper full 32bit design to start with..bad power supply,motherboard bugs,slow unbuffered ide,EC cpu, its like buiding a house on a mud foundation or in pc terms.. trying to build a 386 into a gaming/full blown internet machine.
zorro2 and 3 use the same slot, theres no need to make it selectable, either card works in it in either mode automagically.

The 4000 is more bang for the buck from the get go. Having said that what i would like to see is a new 4000 board with onboard 060,512k fast ram,pci or pcie slots native,with usb,ethernet etc local bus to the cpu,eliminating bottlenecks. I cant undertsand why anyone would build on a 1200 when they want what the 4k has. its not cheaper and all the added 1200 dongles generally make it where something is bound to not make good contact and start acting up. Even if you take a 1200 all the way,the bppc is still way slower than the csppc-not to mention csppc uwscsi rocks,and you still dont have proper zorro3 because 1200 is missing buster chip(i said proper,not the buggy z3 busboards or the hokey ziv overclocked zorro2). It may sound like i'm down on 1200's but im not, i'm just stating hardware facts.

[mechy]

Just get a real Amiga and be done with it.  If you don't have the money save up for it.  I would spend my hard earned money on REAL Amiga hardware vs some hacked micro computer that is pretty much worthless and has zero monetary value after purchased.

Rich

Well said.

[mechy]

@Mechy

You are right and wrong same time. It doesn't need to have limitattions of A1200 or A4000. All I'm asking is support for excisting accelerators and Zorro cards.

Build new board with all of those limitations would be stupid. I would offer Super fast cip ram, Super fast and realibale Zorro II/III and PCI

This way people could use their 040/060 accelerators, without needing to buy Super expensive A4000 accelerator or new A1200 accelerator. It is possible to have Zorro III with A1200 accelerator.  PCI would be essential for those who doesn't have all needed Zorro cards.

why do all that when you are 1 step away from a new motherboard with the cpu/ram onboard which would allow you to make it all faster and fix the bottlenecks, exhisting accelerators etc are bottlenecks as is zorro. the way to make everything super fast (pci) is to bypass zorro3 and hook it to the cpu(like what grex tries to do). other options are fix buster,which would be possible but costly.

[mechy]

And I can buy a mobo ready to rock - Where and How Much ($) ? ? ?

I can't tell if you are being facetious,you totally missed my point, or if you are serious.

:confused:

[mechy]

A common goal is great if it can be done . . . I get it!

I was serious . . .  (never mess with someone that has the skills)  The recreation of a A1000 mobo is great, but what if you don't have the tech skills or time to buy a board and parts to do it yourself?

Can one be purchased ready to rock?  And what about expansions?  Can it be done for a reasonable cost (not cheap I know).

I'm curious . . .

The point i was trying to make is if one man can design this,imagine what could of been done if all of the amiga community got behind making new boards with better features. Granted you can only go so far with real 060's but a board with 060,ram,sata(scsi or ide or whatever) with fast usb and ethernet local to the cpu,all in one would make for a reliable machine and no need for a accelerator(although the flot could be left there for later fpga addon or whatever).

To answer your questions, no they were a project you had to build. He also made a 060 card for it and it had ide. he also engineered a picassoII gfx card for it among other things. the pcboards themselves were not very costly.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.gb97816.homepage.t-online.de/&prev=search

http://www.illuwatar.se/project_pages/gba1000/gba1000.htm

[mechy]

I wanted an A4000 to replace my old A4000/030 that I sold when I really needed the money. I've purchased 5 different A4000D and an A4000T - they all had hardware problems and ultimately ended up in booting to a colored screen. No matter of cleaning or basic maintenance would get them back and functional. I assume they needed new capacitors, which is beyond my soldering ability. The cost to have them repaired was high. I sold them for parts and fortunately recouped most of the money paid.

The bottom line is, even with how well engineered Amiga hardware was, there is an end of life on all of it. It really seems like there must be some market for an AGA retro hardware solution that would offer good compatibility, modern video output and USB.

I might be dreaming but it just seems like there must be a market worldwide.

the aga chipset is quite robust even being old, not much fails in 4000s other than caps,ram etc-battery damage is also a bad one. All the ttl level chips can still be bought from places like mouser etc. having a motherboard and 3640 capped runs under $100 so that doesnt seem crazy to me. It sounds like you gave up due to lack of experience. Sadly all the info to make these machines go is on the net. I am confident i have enough parts and such for my 4000's to easily outlive me.
We have the code to make new pals/gals etc for most machines like the 3000 and some accelerators.
The programmable parts will usually fail before the major chipset,just because PLD's/eproms/fpga/cpld/microcontrollers etc can suffer from bit rot and lose their contents.Even so i think you can expect 20 years or more from them.

The one other common failure on the 4lk is on the 3640 accelerator, when a cap leaks it often eats a trace under the cap. its not too hard to fix usually. Of course there are the variables of what stupid people do to these machines to damage them. I have seen some carnage caused by people who shouldn't be messing in hardware but didnt have the sense to realize it.

You will find these old Hmos/Nmos chips will likely go on 60+ years.. the c64 is already over 32+ years old

[mechy]

I've been hoping that Jens would come out with his AGA project for some time now. He supposedly reverse engineered most of the AGa chipset. In this case he's going to use existing stock of old chips. Hopefully, a full replacement motherboard modernized.

There is a guy that calls himself maccaps on ebay i think it is:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amiga-A4000-Re-Cap-Service-/181795613932?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a53dcecec

he also has a web page i believe.

I have a c64reloaded and its a neet board.
The amiga board jens is doing infortunately needs alot of dongles and is a 1200 style board. i want a 4k board with onboard 060 preferrably without all the bottle necks of the 1200.
Jens has supposedly bought up the world supply of aga chips i hear ;/

mech

[mechy]

That's what the article seemed to imply about Jens and the AGA supply. Where did you see the additional details on the board Jens is working on? I'd suspect he'd want to use boards he's designed to fill in the gaps. I agree, I'd love to see a more modern AGA board myself.

Have you used the guy on eBay to redo any boards yourself?

-Nyle

I dont recall where i saw the details on jens stuff, sorry.
As for caps, i do my own and have been for 20 years now, i have recapped many a board for others,but i hate doing it,you almost have to put a gun to my head lol.  the only thing worse those is changing 72pin simm sockets

I just suggested the maccaps guy as a solution, i dont know much about his work, hopefuly he isnt doing silly stuff like using tantalums and ceramics in place of electrolytics in the power circuits.