Clone-A demonstration successful, new Catweasel drivers, Breakpoint sponsoring

[Donar]

Were they working on the AAA chipset as well, or am I wrong here?

Nope they are not working on AAA (and it wouldn't be AGA compatible). But AGA is a target. Maybe targets will improve with time... :-D (<-only my 2 cents)

I'd buy one immediately as long as they had some way to import new games to the device.

According to a report from someone who attended the show something like SD- or FlashCard's should be incorporated.

I'm sorry, I'd very, very much like to see a "stupid Amiga in a joystick thing". I'd buy one immediately as long as they had some way to import new games to the device (memory stick?)

individual computers will try to produce "developer style" boards with an FPGA on it so you can see Clone-A growing. This Board could be in itx formfactor, and should be open enough to hack the hell out of it. Unfortunately 68k Accellerators will not fit on a standard Clone-A. (Maybe someone can "hack" it on...)

The "stupid Amiga-Joystick thingie" could follow if an investor is interested to help developing the FPGA version to an ASIC. So if you know someone with deep pockets let Jens know...

Please take my information with a grain of salt as targets are moving, and i only wrote up information from a german forum....

Bye

[Donar]

...I don't see much of a market for Amiga custom chip replacements...

And that possibly is the reason individual computers will not make/sell "Custom Chip Replacements".
They only re- engineered one chip after another, replacing the Original Chips of Olivers AMIGA 500 with FPGA Clones, so they know everything- even bus communication is 100%. -> They won't sell these as they are only engineering samples.
It's like Commodore did not sell "Lorraine" to end customers.

My money would be better spent on a total Amiga replacement such as the Minimig.

All chips should/will be merged into one FPGA and put on an itx Board that works on it's own (like MiniMig).

Another thought I was having is that with custom hardware is that we should not have need for these over priced accelerator boards anymore right?

Erm, which Accelerator Boards will you use instead? Someone had to develop a new one so we get access to new maybe not so expensive accelerator Boards. They are expensive because they are rare... and maybe new ones will be expensive too because of low quantities.

Bye

[Donar]

But I don't know how all that stuff works, I don't understand why a 68xxx board could not work like a standard PC board where you just change jumpers or something in the bios to adapt for the new CPU.

We speak here of different generations of 68k CPU, like in PC world the different generations are not pin compatible. You can not stick a Core2Duo in a 486 motherboard.

...Coldfire is not a desktop CPU, therefore it is not suited for the Amiga...

Oh, not again ;-)

Clone-A is not a desktop chip set/motherboard, therefore it is not suited for the Amiga.

It works the other way around also. :-D

What you need is a true 68K CPU or a clone that behaves exactly like a 68K.

The true "powerfull" 68k CPU's are very expensive, and i have heard that FPGA's are not big enough (or too expensive) to clone one of the last generation 68k's.
 

...anything else will have to run emulation, which kills the MHz and de-grades the CPU to something slower than an un-accelerated A500...

Do you really think that a chip that is (MIPS wise) 4 times faster than a 68060 will be slower than a 68000 at 7 MHz, even if it's running Emulation? I have seen screenshots from ATARI Coldfire project running TOS on a Coldfire Evaluation board that look otherwise.

If somebody would hack a PPC 970 on Clone A you had an bicycle with turbine...

I have been attacked for sharing my opinion about the "ColdFusion" board and my prediction that it will not see the light of day - at least not in working condition.

Sorry but i sometimes have the impression that people criticise you for the way how you give your statements, and not because you just say: "It can not work because of xyz".

ok
coldfire mode = off
topic CLONE-A = on

:-)

[Donar]

Maybe you missed the initial question to my reply?

Question:

As for expensive accellerator boards. I was thinking, ... they could design the new boards so that you can just drop a chip on it, as opposed to having to buy some expensive expansion board you know?

Answer:

We speak here of different generations of 68k CPU, like in PC world the different generations are not pin compatible. You can not stick a Core2Duo in a 486 motherboard.

So to speak: If there is a 68020 on the board, you can not make a drop in replacement with an 68060.

 :-D