New Amiga Accelerators

[Atheist]

Hi bd1308,

This is what I would buy. I have an Amiga 2000.
(Note: I'm going to buy a NatAmi60. I would buy this as well, though.)

So, I would want an accelerator of these ideal specifications.

It would be:
1 Gig of DDR2 ram [1]
68060 @100 MHz [2]
Have a 68000 @20 Mhz on there for 100% compatibility [3]
Hard drive controller, if it's there or not, I'm not concerned.

However, if you could make some SCSI 1 to compact flash card readers so I could boot off of a CF from my controller on my Zorro II bus, that would be very handy..... Are those available new anywhere? I've looked on the internet and couldn't find any at all.

What would be cool is if you could have a "development board".

Put on circuitry and 2 empty sockets, one for a second 68000 and a second 68060 of the same speeds as the first 2. (you could probably put the 68000 onto the board, as it isn't too expensive). Also a 1 Gig DDR slot for them. Then, people can try to make AOS SMP capable. Interesting experiment!!!!

I have no idea how much it would cost, but even $600 US is not too much, I think, for taking AOS's prowess out for a test spin. :-D

Now we get crazy, but if it ALSO had a socket for an FPGA, then we could really experiment. People could try things similar to DSP, Altivec etc. designs....

Amiga's potentials are unlimited!


[1] sell board unpopulated
[2] that's the fastest available ever, from what I understand
[3] what's the fastest a 68000 can go? Ever had a 33MHz model?

[Atheist]

Oh, and, an ethernet and USB 2.0 port would be VERY useful, but I'd still get it if it didn't have one.

Would it be difficult to include a telephone jack and 56K modem on there? "Plug and play" baby!!!!

[Atheist]

Here's an easy project.... And one that will be sellable.

Make a PCI card for the NatAmi60 that can hold 16 Gigs of ram.

A person could put in 1 gig at a time, upto 16.

This is a ram: "hard drive". It would be accessed only through  device calls, i.e.
copy dh0:Bladerunner.mpg2 RHD0: clone
run dvplayer rhd0:Bladerunner

When you turn off the computer, it erases everything from RHD0:, because it's only usable when the computer is on.

That way, MAYBE a mere 100 MHz Amiga could play MPEG2 DVDs?

Let's show 'em what we're made of! I'm your customer for that one!

[Atheist]

SamuraiCrow is correct. AOS would see is as a hard drive in a PCI slot, but it's made of RAM!

This could be usable on ANY computer even Macs and pcs and even AmigaOnes, big market potential. Since you CAN'T turn off the swap file on an XP (it won't work right anymore, it is pure garbage), then people would want to use it as swap space!!!

Since it's really a hard drive controller, you could put 2 compact flash card and 2 SD ram card sockets on there too.

IN FACT, if you make it with 4 compact flash card sockets, and create a RAID circuit, so that every byte read and written is spread across the 4 CF cards (nothing to do with the OS, the OS thinks it's writing to a standard IDE device), then you could get a throughput of 4 cards * 266x transfer * 150,000 bytes (base flash card speed) a second = 159,600,000 Bytes per second!!!!!!!!
159 Megs a second transfer rate, sustained, can hard drives go that fast?

State that 4 CF cards must be on it for the controller to work and they all have to be the same ram capacity.

pkillo wrote:

A 16gb ram disk would be _sweet_. But as long as we're dreaming, why not make it accept 4gb modules, and take it all the way up to 64gb total?

Hi pkillo,

I'll tell you why not, because I didn't know they make 4 Gig ram modules. ;-) :-)

I heard that there are 2 Gig ram modules, though. Never seen them listed.

[Atheist]

bloodline wrote:
@Atheist

First off, I never have to swap file switched on on my XP machines (they all have over 1gig ram...).

Hi bloodline,

I'm not sure if I have service pack 1 or not (and I don't have 2), but, when I turn off the swap file, it is IMPOSSIBLE to install EverQuest.... It just would not install and there was no g DAMN explanation given to the USER (that's me) as to WHY it COULD NOT install!!!!!! (It probably would have been IMPOSSIBLE for a MS tech, through e-mail, to figure it out, too!)

bloodline wrote:

Secondly... wander over to a local Computer store and check out the latest USB Flash drives... I have two 16gig OCZ Rally2s sitting on my desk right now... they only cost me £35 each...

Well, if you're putting 4 in, and remember, the highest rated costliest types, it gets rather pricey. I was thinking, you put the most essential things in there, like the OS and EverQuest.

bloodline wrote:

Finally... a 2Gig DIMM can be bought from any good computer store, I bought a 2Gig Corsair DD2 SODIMM  last week for my MacBook Pro for £29 from http://www.dabs.com

Isn't it much cheaper to buy 3 1 Gigs?

Now that I think about it, I think I saw it in a computer store once, but thought the clerk made a mistake describing it.

Also, you STILL need a 1 Gig to get to xps limit of 3 Gigs.

Funny that, AOS came out in 1985, with a 2 Gig limit and billy gates, in 2008 has a mere 1 Gig ram space edge over us!!!!!!!!

AND, their OS uses up almost all of the extra 1 gig, so we're STILL ahead!!!!


NatAmi60, 512K of OS, 270.5 Megs free!!!!!!!!!! Woohoooo!! :-D :-D :-D :-D

[Atheist]

Piru wrote:

AOS would see is as a hard drive in a PCI slot, but it's made of RAM!

It would not. No drivers.

Hi Piru,

Where? On an XP computer? The PCI CARD would have the logic that separates the data to the separate CF cards, and rebuilds them before sending it back to the computer in a read.

On the NatAmi60, they're making PCI drivers, and to the computer, it would look like a NORMAL IDE controller. The OS does not need to know the data is being written across four CF cards.

Piru wrote:

big market potential.

lol

You're so negative! It's easy to say that when they're NOT available.

EVERYONE would want one!

Piru wrote:

Since you CAN'T turn off the swap file on an XP (it won't work right anymore, it is pure garbage), then people would want to use it as swap space!!!

That's huge load of nonsense. First of all you can turn the swap off and it works just fine.

As described above, MY xp computer DOESN'T work with the swap file off.

Do you have EverQuest? Try what I did.

[/quote]
Piru wrote:

 Second you would obviously put the memory to the mobo directly, rather than going thru dead slow PCI bus.

But hey, tens of GB/s isn't as impressive as 159,600,000 Bytes per second!!!!!!!![/quote]

Don't you understand what I wrote? It's a HARD DRIVE made of 4 CF cards..... Not main system ram.


And the NatAmi60, unfortunately won't have more memory slots,.... wish it would. :-((((

[Atheist]

Piru wrote:

In 32-bit XP, the 3GB limit is actually hardware one. Windows XP itself could easily use more.

Hi Piru,

On the Amiga 1000 in 1985, it was a hardware one too!

[Atheist]

Piru wrote:

It's a HARD DRIVE made of 4 CF cards..... Not main system ram.

Hard drive keeps its contents over power off. What you're proposing is a not a hard disk, and it has absolutely zero benefit over system main memory.

Hi Piru,

Huh? It's using CF, compact flash cards, all the contents would still be there the next day, you can boot up off of it!

Piru wrote:

On the Amiga 1000 in 1985, it was a hardware one too!

But AmigaOS cannot use more than 2GB, even though the hardware would allow it.

I think sane people would ONLY choose an Amiga capped at 2 gigs of ram over xp capped at 3!