Using a PC as an accelerator? Had an idea last night....

[bloodline]

@BillHarrison,

If we abstract your idea, you basiclly want to connect a modern x86 to the CPU bus of an Amiga. Then run a 68k emulator on the x86 so that the it looks like a 68k to the Amiga. Perfectly resonable idea and one I toyed with back in 2002... I expect my old posts are still in the archive here somewhere...

But now there are 3 problems...

1) As Piru has pointed out the market for this is so small it would be impossible to make it a resonable price, the cost of developing the hardware and software alone could NEVER be recouped.

2) Once you've built this new CPU board, you would want to add USB, a sound chip, a GFX chip, perhaps S-ATA (you pretty much get all these things for free with the x86 support chips)... then you have to ask yourself what is the Amiga actually doing? Why have I bothered to build an interface to the Amiga when everything is now offloaded to the new board...

3) On my machine at least (a MacBook Pro), it can, with UAE/WinUAE emulate any real Amiga I have... better than my real Amigas...since all output is by default on a nice monitor and via better audio... I don't have to use one of my aged Amiga Mice with the dodgy left click...

In short, it would have been nice 8 years ago... but not now :-)

[bloodline]

But all this revolves around the flawed assumption that UAE is less compatible than real hardware, this really isn't true anymore.

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hardlink wrote:

amigaksi wrote:
... You are only making a "black-box" type replacement of the CPU.

EXACTLY! (which is what an ICE box is)

It may not make the overall system faster than with an 060, but you can't even buy 060's new anymore, let alone for a CDTV.

I am typing in English, am I not? Are you unable to understand the points that people are trying to tell you?

[bloodline]

If I could interupt this wankfest for a moment... But why?!?!

Ok, lets take the original idea... you have the Amiga (via the CPU slot) wired to a PC (probaby via a USB). Then the PC runs a 68k emulator and controls the Amiga. Ok... so where is the fast RAM going to be? On the Amiga or are you just going to use the PC's RAM? If you are going to use the PC's RAM, why not use the PC's GFX and Sound cards? Why not use it's Keyboard and Mouse... in fact why waste time with the Amiga at all, and JUST RUN UAE...

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BillHarrison wrote:
I mean, that could be said of this entire forum Bloodline.  Why mess with a slower / fragile / expensive hardware period?  Why not just ALL run winuae and forget the hardware completely?  

Nostalgia, the technical challenge, the feel of real amiga hardware, etc.  Why not stay at home and watch tv instead of climbing a mountain?  Its certainly easier!

This is a better idea, you you are going down this route:

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37763

[bloodline]

Well if the AGA emulation isn't very good in UAE, name me a program I can run that would fail in UAE please :-)

This is a wankfest because of the initial assumption that UAE has problems.