ACA500 prototype

[psxphill]

and it will be external (which is simply not acceptable for me).

After many years of having internal cards in an A500, I much prefer everything to be external.
 
The prototype that lies flat on the desk looks much better.
 
I'm not sure I'd have added any ram or CPU & made it require either an A1200 ram or accelerator.
 
But I guess Jens thinks there are some people who just want a standalone cheap expansion they can plug into an A500 for WHDLOAD.

[psxphill]

If the purpose of the card is adding an ACA12xx to an A500, then completely remove all ram and the 68000, making it a simpler and cheaper design.

Yeah, I would probably have done that personally. However the cost of the board isn't just based on the cost of the components, so some decisions might not make as much sense to us as they do to Jens. He might also be wrong, but I think he's got so far through now that even if he is wrong then he's not going to change it anyway.
 

Why though?
 
I haven't used my A500 in weeks, because with the A590 connected, I simply have nowhere to set it up!

Because I'm fed up with having to keep opening it up to unplug one thing and plug another thing in & the sockets give up eventually.
 
I'd have probably bought an A1200 over an A600.

[psxphill]

I'm afraid I have to agree, it's not pretty, in fact it's actually probably a bit dangerous to have all those chips exposed.

That is a different argument, a case will solve that.
 

Not really sure where Jen's is going with this product, he's normally pretty much spot on with his hardware.

What you mean is that you normally agree with him, he might still be spot on with it (or at least as close as you can get with making hardware for such an obsolete computer).
 

I'm not a 500 owner but if I was I'd be after an internal design, either an FPGA based solution or an 030 and something with at least 8 MB RAM.

Maybe come back when you have an A500 & have tried cramming in multiple upgrades inside the case. A megachip and 1.8mb trapdoor expansion with a gary tower of death takes up a lot of the room.

[psxphill]

If your problem is the 68000 and WHDLoad because of the QUIT key, then Jens has said that his card would intercept that (whatever it is) and allow it to quit.
(I'm pretty sure anyway, that thread is huge and I can't find it now with a quick browse)
Found it: http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=872545&postcount=683

The quit key can even be implemented on a stock a500, but you would need to replace the vector table at the end of the kickstart rom.
 
I think figuring this out was the reason why the 020 was dropped.
 

Would 14mhz display a lets say s letter drawer full of games that much quicker to justify this expense?

Buy one and try it. Your question is too vague, how much quicker does it need to be to justify the cost? That isn't the main reason to buy one of these anyway.
 
You need to have an external CPU for the external kickstart loading to work.
 

It has to be fitted inside like the first prototype.

That statement is provably wrong. Jens says he had to make it external, I prefer it.
 
However there is no reason why you can't just hack in an 86 pin connector inside your A500. It will involve doing some major DIY, remove shielding etc & probably remove any other internal expansions but if you want to do it then go for it. You might have problems attaching something to the real 86 pin connector, but if you want it to be internal then it's unlikely you've got anything on there anyway.
 
There are loads of things you could add to a wish list for something like this, but ultimately it's an A500 and certain upgrades are pretty pointless. You could put an 060 in it, but what are you going to run?

[psxphill]

there is no case so far ive read on a1k, and it doesnt look as if it would fit into any standard case.

One of the news sites said it would ship in a sandwich case, although I haven't seen anything from Jens so far.
 
There are mounting holes, so a case should be doable.
 
However I can completely understand if Jens doesn't produce a case. People who aren't going to use an accelerator will probably want a small case, while those who plug an accelerator in the back will want a larger one. But how large? As the user may want to plug in an accelerator that doesn't even fit in an A1200 trapdoor.
 
He is on a hiding to nothing with this product.

[psxphill]

which you probably refer to as "sandwich". thats how i understand it at least.

A sandwich is basically a top plate and bottom plate. Like the early raspberry pi cases http://www.thepixelpump.com/widdershins/images/pi2240.jpg
 
I heard aluminium, but it could be a lie.
 

seems many existing accels you may want to stick upon aca500 are not supposed to work.

Jens has only said that he won't endorse a compatibility list. All we know so far is that synchronous designs don't appear to work, because one of his own accelerators is incompatible due to this. He has tested it successfully with an 030 Blizzard, but he won't even guarantee that in case it was a fluke.
 
There are a number of inherent problems with this project. I am disappointed that he won't/can't support DMA on the A2000 version, although my disappointment is largely reduced as I sold mine after waiting for something like this for years.