Schematics for A500 /600/1000/2000 CPU upgrade ?

[Sparky]

Hi there,

Any germans about with the schematics for the PAK-68/3 ? (Prozessor Austausch Karte)

They are in the 11/93, 12/93, 02/94 and 03/94 issues of C'T

I wouldn't mind having a look a them.

They are alluded to all over the internet (ie. http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?dir=a500proc and look at the Pak-68/3)

Be nice if someone has the magazine and can scan the pages for the schematic and GALs :-)

Oh yes this upgrade is also valid for Atari and Mac's :-)

It sounds interesting as it gives you a 68030 with 2nd level cache, and an option to add faster RAM ... anyone seen or played with one ?

Regards

[Cyberus]

Looks VERY interesting,
any idea of how much RAM you can add?

Regards

[Sparky]

Not sure without reading the magazines ... the Atari bunch have been using them alot, surprised that it's not so well known in the Amiga camp .. maybe in germany ?

I've found the magazines now .. http://www.heise.de/kiosk/archiv/ct/
But need to pay for the articles and I have no credit card at the moment.

Anyone generous enough to purchase the on-line articles but dishonest enough to rip them to somewhere else ? ;-)

[Doobrey]

Have a look at this site..http://www.wrsonline.de/pak3.html
All in German, but it`s pretty easy to understand the basics of the site.
It has the GALs, but I couldn`t find any schematics.. but there is some nice closeups of the top and bottom of a bare board. As long as it isn`t a multi-layer board, it`ll be a good starting point.
As for the memory board, it says it can take 64MB but apart from the GALs there`s nothing to work from.

Looks like a pretty interesting site (if yer into that kinda thing!), wish they published a bit more info though..

edit..
 Found some illustrations of the layout of the Frak/2 memory board on their site..
http://www.wrsonline.de/fr2doku.html#K2.2

[Sparky]

Nice find ... but the GALs come in Amiga, Atari and Mac flavours as well as other flavours depending on what CPU you go for etc ... this site seems Atari orientated.

Also I read somewhere (usenet I think) that the PAK-68/3 is a 4 layer PCB .. so not really that easy to do at home, but simple enough for a proper company to do.

[Orjan]

Dang! You can´t buy the PCB and parts anymore...  :-(

[Sparky]

Orjan wrote:

Dang! You can´t buy the PCB and parts anymore...  :-(

Ahh, but you CAN get a PCB made .. just need the magazine articles as they contain all you need :-)

[Orjan]

Could be interesting... If the price is right, I can guess that a bunch of people would be interested...

I assume they published instructions on how to build it because it was cheaper than to go buy a factory-made card?

[Sparky]

I think they published it as a proof of concept back in 1987, then in 1993/4 they upgraded the design ... it looks like quite a techy magazine.

You have to remember that these days it is MUCH cheaper to get PCB's made, even short runs are pretty cheapy .. 6"x8" 4-layer PCB's are only $39 each even in 20 unit runs.

You'd still need to get the components and stick them on mind :-)

[Sparky]

Well I've had a chat wit the guy who hosts the Atari version of this accelerator, it seems the Atari version is quite mature and has all the latest bells and whistles in the GALs, but the Amiga and Mac versions have dropped off the radar ... sounds like most project in the Amiga world ... he did however say that the accelerator has been tested as working on the Amiga, it's just not up to date.

I guess I'll just have to get a credit card and purchase the articles wit all the info in .. then translate it to English :-)