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Author Topic: Cold Fusion accelerator  (Read 4562 times)

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Offline Oli_hd

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Re: Cold Fusion accelerator
« on: March 29, 2007, 11:25:54 AM »
You rang my lord? ;-)
Well after taking the last prototype to the bigbash I set to work on testing it, basically it didnt work again. :(
So its paused at the moment while I build up some more experience, I now have a few simpler projects on the go which should help.... that said I dont think your going to see a Coldfire card from me, although I will keep working on one.
In my honest opinion the I dont think a standard V4 coldfire can be interfaced to the Amiga's bus, except in the same piggyback way the PPC was done on the Cyberstorm. The only way I see forward is to use the V4e and its built in PCI bus and stick a PCI slave controller on the Amiga's side... not a clean system and not without its problems (for example trying to keep the address's of the motherboard mounted chips and ports in the same place)

So anyway at the moment Im playing with 10 minor projects, most just Zorro test boards and the like. (Placed an order just last night for the chips needed, the PCB's arrived two weeks ago... also I ordered an old V2 Coldfire which uses more 68K like bus signals, but is less 68K compatiable, just to play with)

Oh and by the way guys I reuploaded the CDTV website (along with the coldfire site) as I think Ive finally sorted out the server problems I had been having. I am also working on a redesign of the CDTV website, with lots of new info.

Thats basically it, I wish it was quicker, the project is getting rather old now and the costs have been high yet I still have nothing to show for it which is a bit of a bummer but I wont give up... but its probably best if you look at other solutions.
 

Offline Oli_hd

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Re: Cold Fusion accelerator
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2007, 01:43:17 PM »
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The problem that i think Oli_hd is referring too is actually getting the existing data & address bus used in the Amiga to talk to a Coldfire V4 or V4e cpu as they must be somewhat different.

Yeah there were a few things, getting all the interupts out of the V4 was a pig (hacking the serial port to output int2 for example) and a lot of other similar things which may not have stopped the card working on its own but overall it just didnt work.

If you were to make a Coldfire co-pro for a normal 68K then a PCI or Bridgeboard solution would be the quickest, and just like the PPC it could lead to a CF native motherboard after a while... that wasnt my goal though.