68xxx Mac - Amiga

[textory]

Lots of Mac questions in this forum... ;-)
I also got one, but its also a bit Amiga related:

Are the Motorola Processors used in Macs and Amigas completely identical or are there big differences?

Could I use, for example, the 68020 of a Mac LC (or the 68030 of a LC II) in my A500 or A2000? Of course, it's not a question of MHz, just in case the cpu dies...

[Piru]

They're the same chips. You just need to be careful with EC, LC versions of the CPUs. When you replace the CPU you in most cases need the same kind of replacement one.

Also, remember to check the clockrate of the chips, or you'll be letting the smoke out...

[KThunder]

the cpus macs and amigas use are identical. a 68020 from a mac would fit and work in any 68020 accelerator for an amiga 500 or 2000

[textory]

Thx Piru,

I think a 68020 from a LC will work well.

As far as I know the 68LCxx are in the Performas (got two of them, Performa 475 and Performa 630, they are working well). I just thought of keeping the two LCs in my old mac collection as spare parts...

[textory]

I was thinking about buying an accelerator for my 500/2000 if I can get one from ebay. Running a 68020 in a system where there was a 68000 earlier won't harm the system ... I hope!

[bloodline]

textory wrote:
I was thinking about buying an accelerator for my 500/2000 if I can get one from ebay. Running a 68020 in a system where there was a 68000 earlier won't harm the system ... I hope!

Why would an accelerator harm the system?

[Argus]

I think there may be some confusion here. All Amigas except the 500/600/1000 have a dedicated accelerator slot that is use to plug in an accelerator card, usually but not always with an uprated cpu already attached to it.  The accelerator cpu card takes over the system cpu bus completely and the original cpu, if there is one (e.g. most A4000s have no cpu on the mainboard), remains idle.  There's little use in taking a 68020/030/040 off of an old Mac unless it is to be used as a replacement for a burnt pga-style cpu on an Amiga accelerator card (or back in the day it was possible to buy an accelerator board new w/o the cpu).

The original cpu in the A500/A2000 computers is a large dip-style plastic pack 68000; not pin compatible with any other Motorola chips sans the 68010.  The A2000 can be upgraded with either 1) a dedicate cpu card in the 86-pin accelerator slot or 2) by removing the 68000 from it's socket and plugging in either a 68010 or a special accelerator that plugs directly into the 68000 chip socket. Option 1) is the more common solution and option 2) is the primary (excluding the GVP530) upgrade mode for the A500.

[textory]

@bloodline:

Oooops, sorry ... my clumsy english! I said, that maybe I'd buy an accelerator. I'm sure that this device would never harm an Amiga (maybe it harms me because Wing Commander will be too fast for me). ;-)

@argus:
Disillusioning... thanks a lot for this information. You're right, there's much confusion here. It's not easy to find the specs on the motorola/freescale website (actually I found some in the Google Cache). I think it's the MC68000 (L8 ) used in A500 (and also in A1000, A2000, A500 Plus, CDTV, A600) and the difference to the MC68020 is not only the number of pins (64 -> 114/132).

:-(

[koaftder]

textory wrote:
@bloodline:

Oooops, sorry ... my clumsy english! I said, that maybe I'd buy an accelerator. I'm sure that this device would never harm an Amiga (maybe it harms me because Wing Commander will be too fast for me). ;-)

@argus:
Disillusioning... thanks a lot for this information. You're right, there's much confusion here. It's not easy to find the specs on the motorola/freescale website (actually I found some in the Google Cache). I think it's the MC68000 (L8 ) used in A500 (and also in A1000, A2000, A500 Plus, CDTV, A600) and the difference to the MC68020 is not only the number of pins (64 -> 114/132).

:-(

Wish i had the money to invest in freescale. I told my friends it would be good a year ago when it was pretty low. They lol'd me. Everybody though it was a spinoff that wouldnt go anywhere.