Coldfusion (ex AmigaColdfire) project poll

[Framiga]

Enter your vote today!  A new poll has been created for the Amigacoldfire group:





On the A3/4000 version what would you prefer?

  o A standard SD-Ram DIMM and no expansion slots
  o SO-DIMM and three expansion slots


To vote, please visit the following YahooGroups web page:

AmigaColdfire Project

[whabang]

Well, Unless it's a DDR-SODIMM It'll be hard to get memory for those cards in a year or two... :-(

[System]

Can we have some definition of what these "expansion slots" would be (miniPCI, or some custom thing?), what expansions would be planned for it, a little more info?

[Oli_hd]

LMAO, Is it a slow news day?
The question was just because I did an A4K design using SO-Dimms and it worked out I had a lot more space left... it wasnt that important a question. 8-)

Anyhow, just to say that I didnt post the news item.. it was just an interesting question to see if the people on the group woudl rather have a few expansion slots or a full sided DIMM on the A4K version.

[Oli_hd]

Hi,

Can we have some definition of what these "expansion slots" would be (miniPCI, or some custom thing?), what expansions would be planned for it, a little more info?

Sure, its not miniPCI or anything like that, its a custom interface. (at the moment its a small 72pin SO-DIMM socket connected directly to the CPU bus, 32bit data, 24bit address)

The slot wouldnt be for anything major like PCI or graphics, basically it was so the basic board would just have the Coldfire and SD-Ram (flash, bus logic, etc) and for USB, Ethernet and other basic upgrades to be added on, partly to make a cheap card, partly as a secondary expansion slot for things that do not require something the size of a Zorro card.

As for upgrades planned... well the chips I have been playing with up to now include USB, SCSI2, 10baseT Ethernet, IDE interface & maybe Firewire.

[patrik]

@Oli_hd:

I would urge you to if possible increase the pin-count a little bit and include the last 8-bits of address lines and the required signals for bus-mastering the cpu-bus it is connected to.

The reason for this is that most current expansions applicable to that interface are rather bandwidth intensive and thus propose quite a big load for the cpu if it has to do the data transfers to/from the expansion from/to the memory by itself.

These features would make it possible to create efficient expansions which doesnt hog the cpu. For example a 10/100MBit Ethernet expansion which could do its own memory transfers.


/Patrik

[sprocket]

Would it be practical to produce both versions?

I can think of conditions where I would have uses for either/both.

Many Amigans who own classic hardware have multiple machines.  Some of mine have ethernet and some don't.  One has USB.

If you put a Algor/Norway in your classic and already have a Z based graphics card I don't know if having slots on the Coldfire are an absolute necessity unless you really are a display and network speed junky.

Personally, I'm more interested in increasing my processer speed for applications than I/O to cards.

I'd be much more interested in having an integrated USB 2.0 and Firewire on the Coldfire.

If that happened and someone wrote a Firewire stack it would be practical (without extra boards) to write a non-linear video editing app or port the recently released Toaster edit code.

Processor speed, firewire and USB 2.0 for cameras and decks...that would be cool.

[ikir]

Hi oli_hd  :-)

Any important update? My CD32 is waiting :crazy:

[gregthecanuck]

Hi Oli -

I would like to suggest a setup similar to the Mini-ATX version of the A1.

Have a "basic" board - this contains the CPU, RAM and whatever else makes the "minimum".

You also make available an add-on "Super I/O" board.  This would contain the Firewire, USB2.0, ethernet, etc.  Perhaps there could even be flavours of the I/O board?  One with/without GFX chip, for example?

The trick is balancing what goes into the basic board and what goes into the I/O board.



Cheers!

[Oli_hd]

Hi,

Any important update? My CD32 is waiting

I've been designing more than actually working on the prototype of late so not really, I have a nice A1200 design ready to be printed, I have done another A4000 design but thats it.
Im getting some more equipment to help me get this prototype working very soon because what I am using now is giving me a headache.

[Jose]

Slightly off topic but I'd love to see Firewire on the A1200 version:o

[Erwin-K]

Tried to join the group (06:15 Friday US Central time), but Yahoo's sign-up page would not display the graphic needed by the anti-SPAM system. (Win2KPro, IE 6.x)

I'm interested in having relatively cheap memory plus expansion.

Please note that a bunch of North American users really what to upgrade their A2000 Toaster systems.