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Author Topic: Replicated motherboards, any interest?  (Read 8630 times)

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Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Replicated motherboards, any interest?
« on: September 24, 2011, 04:34:37 AM »
With basis in the Amiga 550 thread. Is there any interest in replacement motherboards for Amiga computers, and how should they be designed?

There are three main ways of doing this:

 * Exact replication of the original, requires a supply of original chips like Agnus, Paula, Denise. And what board revision to model after?
 * Same external board connectors as the original, but using FPGA:s to run it.
 * Accelerated with high performance Motorola or PowerPC processors. Software compatibility may be an issue.

And what Amiga model and board revision models should be used?

The main idea is to be able to open the chassi, and replace a possible battery acid compromised or physically broken board with a newly made one. It should be mentioned that PCB area is at a premium ;)
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: Replicated motherboards, any interest?
« Reply #1 on: September 24, 2011, 05:13:40 AM »
A cost reduction move would be to produce a single layer base board that provides external ports etc, and then a socket inside where a small board can be fitted.
The original chips can be replicated with FPGA:s on chip-per-chip basis, at a large cost.

Both ideas would use up considerable space. Meaning original add-on hardware may be impossible to fit.

@Cosmos, There's lot's of bit-banging software which is OCS/ECS only, I suspect.
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: Replicated motherboards, any interest?
« Reply #2 on: September 24, 2011, 07:50:15 AM »
Quote from: amigadave;660997
in the future as original hardware starts to fail


Any educated guess when the price point will make the situation of a world without any realistic hardware offers anywhere to occur ?
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: Replicated motherboards, any interest?
« Reply #3 on: September 24, 2011, 10:05:53 AM »
Why not 16 MB RAM?, the 68000 can handle that.
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: Replicated motherboards, any interest?
« Reply #4 on: September 24, 2011, 12:55:15 PM »
@matthey, Natami hasn't sold any card nor does it fit physically as all external connectors require an PCB that uses the same size and fasteners to work.

@vidarh, No need use up the free I/O pads for keyboard. Just put an microcontroller that talks PS2/USB in one end and "amiga keyboard" in the other.
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: Replicated motherboards, any interest?
« Reply #5 on: September 25, 2011, 04:23:28 PM »
Quote from: SamuraiCrow;661186
Because the I/O chips have to map into memory somewhere.


So you map away sections of the ram that overlapps with I/O or ROM:s to make use every address. The rest could be used for RTG with own memory, or ram disk etc.

The best overall setup seems to create a standard sized FPGA board with a standard connection between boards. Then a model (A1000, 500, 1200, 3000 etc) specific board that match external connector placement.

Acceleration can be arranged by using optimized HDL-code for the FPGA as well as feature models that will be even faster. PowerPC implementation should be put in sight as a feature project.
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: Replicated motherboards, any interest?
« Reply #6 on: September 26, 2011, 11:55:15 AM »
Quote from: FrenchShark;661328
For those who want to measure the connector spacing on their A500 or A600, it is quite easy : use a flatbed scanner to scan the backside of your Amiga PCB and then a tool like Gimp to measure the spacing between connectors.

One can use a caliper though to replicate the whole board scan+gimp might not be that bad.

Quote from: billt;661332
How about this: Use or design some standard module to hold the FPGA(s) themselves, which connect to each such new Amiga replacement motherboard through the same connections of whatever kind it may be. Then each motherboard routes the FPGA pins as needed for that motherboard. Perhaps not all pins are used in each motherboard, such as pins for Zorro2 on A2000 are nothing on A500, but there are enough pins for A3000 or A4000 as well. Perhaps a couple FPGA modules are needed together to fill out enough pins to do everything if A3000/4000 CPU slot is present as well as Zorro and all other connectors. The motherboards get simpler this way, they basically hold connectors, routing between them, level shifting as necessary to the FPGA modules, and whatever PHY type stuff at the connectors. If you need more than one FPGA module, they are all the same thing, not different modules in different places. Each motherboard may have a different configuration to the FPGAs, but the modules don't need to get specialized for anything, for reducing engineering iterations/redundancy. If multiple ones are needed in a machine, some pins will connect them together in a suitable way as needed per motherboard.

Yeah some "dumb" baseboard module and standardized sized and slotted FPGA-boards to plugin would be useful. ITX is nice, but won't fit inside an A500, A600, A1200 etc.

Quote from: billt;661332
And while you're at it, swap ISA slots for 3.3V (or universal if slots can be that way) PCI slots on A2000/3000/4000 and give them an active bridge to be useful.

Better keep to the specifications. ISA is 5 V in all cases, even thoe 3,3 V logic is accepted at input. Any FPGA must tolerate 5 V from ISA cards. And PCI is nice but it is timing tricky and I/O heavy.

Quote from: billt;661332
Would you intend to have CPU slots present, or expect to use softcore 68K? CPU slot makes PowerUP board usage and OS4 Classic possible for machines that take them...

Softcore 68k is likely the convenient solution. But CPU slot is possible with FPGA provided you have the I/O connections.

Quote from: billt;661332
Or, since we're reinventing things, why not turn A500s into A1200s, A2000s into A4000s, etc? Does that go beyond what you want to do, by leaving out people with broken A2000s now not being able to use their A2000 addons, and this is not what you want to do?

By loading the correct image you can downgrade at will.

Quote from: billt;661332
And then go crazy, put MXM laptop graphics slots in the keyboard style computers, muxing their outputs with the "Amiga" graphics outputs like some Zorro gfx cards can do (PicassoIV for example), maybe laptop mini-PCI for wifi slot, internal SATA perhaps if chosen FGAs can do that, etc. :)

This will likely increase cost in a non-benefitial way. Better to use plain junk PC for such uses.

Quote from: Azryl;661341
What we really need is a proper production run of Amiga keyboards that plug into USB or ps2. This is of greater value for users of mini-mig or the proposed newer FPGA motherboards. I have a few A2000 keyboards with broken cpu's sitting in my cupboard! Its annoying.

Producing keyboards is really expensive. I know a larger organisation that did just that, the prices were in the parity of 800 USD/keyboard in larger series. Though maybe there are cheaper ways?, the pcb is cheap, the conductive rubber mat likely too. I think the real cost comes from precision molding many keys. the absolute cheapest is to modify existing keyboards.

Quote from: Azryl;661341
Without some new standards how can we bring prices lower for interface hardware like wi-fi, usb or rj45? Amiga network cards and usb cards are getting harder and harder to source :(

Dunno what you mean by "new standards". But these peripherals are easily created with a standard FPGA + standard interface chip if you need one. The catch is writing the Amiga driver.

Quote from: Azryl;661341
Don't get me wrong I love my Amiga's but I would really love a new Amiga in a small tower with associated new keyboard and high precision mouse!

FPGA Arcade will do that for you already.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2011, 12:06:01 PM by freqmax »
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: Replicated motherboards, any interest?
« Reply #7 on: September 26, 2011, 01:05:17 PM »
Most PC style boards, in particular ATX uses connectors that uses space vertically. And will likely not fit.
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: Replicated motherboards, any interest?
« Reply #8 on: October 02, 2011, 11:50:37 AM »
Quote from: Azryl;661341
Don't get me wrong I love my Amiga's but I would really love a new Amiga in a small tower with associated new keyboard and high precision mouse!

Wish list for me would be :-

A new FPGA based motherboard with PC standard layout (ipx mini-mig?)
4meg chip ram (much better than 2meg as a standard)
8meg fast ram on the mobo
A high clocked 68000 fpga implimentation
Kickstart 3.1

With this type of system I could get back into Amiga graphics and programming.

An FPGA Arcade for hardware and AROS for software will do this for you with 50 MB RAM. If you can deal with 4 MB RAM in total Minimig can handle this right now.

Any suggestion for a C compiler?

Quote from: amigadave;662163
I don't see why you need a new production run of Amiga keyboards when the MiniMig and FPGA Arcade Replay Board (and soon Natami) already support using any off the shelf PS2, or USB keyboard and AmigaKit already sells Amiga branded keyboards?

The closest resemblance of an Amiga keyboard available seems to be an A1200 keyboard that has to be put into a DIY flat box together with a microcontroller to make anything like a detachable keyboard that A2000, A3000, A4000 had. So didn't find any Amiga keyboards there.

And integrated keyboard with the rest of the computer is not a good ergonomic choice..
 

Offline freqmaxTopic starter

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Re: Replicated motherboards, any interest?
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2011, 09:58:03 PM »
If you can make CNC cut metalblocks coated with teflon and put in molten plastic under high pressure you might make your own keys. Make sure they are cured properly and absolutly free of toxic.