Ways of adding Fast RAM to my A600?

[taemiga]

OK, so I've been browsing Vesalia.de and AmigaKit and all I can find in A600 ram expansions are the A602 and A603, which are both Chip RAM expansions.

I really want Fast RAM, though, 1MB chip is enough for me. Problem is, I haven't seen any Fast RAM thingies for the 600. Where are they?

I know I can use a PCMCIA SRAM card, but that's not really an option because:
1. I already use a PCMCIA SD card adapter and want to continue using it.
2. SRAM cards are hard to find and way too expensive when they do show up.
3. I heard that PCMCIA-based RAM really isn't so fast and actually can slow the whole system further down (not sure how true this is, though).

Are there "proper" RAM expansions like the A602/A603, and if not, could either of these two somehow be altered to become Fast RAM instead of Chip RAM? Even 1MB would do it for me, though 2MB would be really great.
Note that I don't want to end up with Slow RAM either, i.e. RAM seen by the system as "fast RAM" but really running at chip-RAM speeds.

Ty in advance.

[som99]

OK, so I've been browsing Vesalia.de and AmigaKit and all I can find in A600 ram expansions are the A602 and A603, which are both Chip RAM expansions.

I really want Fast RAM, though, 1MB chip is enough for me. Problem is, I haven't seen any Fast RAM thingies for the 600. Where are they?

I know I can use a PCMCIA SRAM card, but that's not really an option because:
1. I already use a PCMCIA SD card adapter and want to continue using it.
2. SRAM cards are hard to find and way too expensive when they do show up.
3. I heard that PCMCIA-based RAM really isn't so fast and actually can slow the whole system further down (not sure how true this is, though).

Are there "proper" RAM expansions like the A602/A603, and if not, could either of these two somehow be altered to become Fast RAM instead of Chip RAM? Even 1MB would do it for me, though 2MB would be really great.
Note that I don't want to end up with Slow RAM either, i.e. RAM seen by the system as "fast RAM" but really running at chip-RAM speeds.

Ty in advance.

As far as I know there is no way to add fastram without using the PCMCIA slot, why not use a 4GB CF card with a 44pins IDE to CF adapter? Then if you want to transfer files between a Windows machine and your amiga just put the CF card in a CF reader on your PC and mount it in winUAE.

Tho tests shows that adding fastram to a A600 do not slow down your system but ingrease speed, but the 1200 will be slower.

[tone007]

There was this: http://amigasc.saspack.ru/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=28&osCsid=ujut3oqsuac2d3ln2keua8pkh4, Zetr0 on eab was trying to organize the production of some more or something similar, not sure how that went.

[Matt_H]

A series of Fast RAM expansions that clip over the 68000 has been developed in the past few years, but they're not widely available. Keep your eyes peeled for another production run.

[XDelusion]

I'm still waiting on a second run of the A608's. :/

[taemiga]

OMG, yes, I completely forgot about the A608. Hmm, but I don't have that kind of patience, or even the need for 8MB...

I might just stick with an A603 anyway and just get 2MB, and not worry about it being all Chip RAM. Matter of fact, what's the speed difference between chip and fast on an A600 anyway? Probably not that much that I should really need to worry about it. I know the little bugger is just slow by design, anyway.

I prefer a real HD over an IDE-to-CF adapter btw, and I can already exchange files between the 600 and my PC either by plugging the HD into my laptop and accessing it via WinUAE, or simply with the SD card I use with my PCMCIA card reader. (I incidentally picked up that card reader in the erroneous assumption I could use it as PCMCIA fast RAM, now I know only SRAM cards work in that capacity - sorry for the pun) :-P

In the end, the A600 really is only meant for transferring all my stuff to my WinUAE environment anyway, where I can pig out to my heart's content in terms of emulating a super-Amiga.

[NovaCoder]

http://www.a608-amiga.co.uk/

[runequester]

This is purely ignorance on my part but does the 600 not have a trapdoor slot for expansion cards ? Or is it just that none were made.

[XDelusion]

It does, and the A608 leaves it availble for other upgrades, such as those 68030's that few of us will ever have the privlage of owning. :/

[kolla]

Wrong, the 030 boards clip over the 68000 chip, just like the 608.
The trapdoor was for chipram upgrades and clock.

[XDelusion]

Yikes, I'm not sure I'd trust a CPU that clips on top of another CPU. I wonder how stable that could be.

[Chartus]

Go with a SRAM card for memory expansion.  It will actually speed up the A600 some. (about 30%)  The only computer it would slow down is the A1200.  It would be good to get your chip mem up to max with a 603 expansion card.

[fitzsteve]

Yikes, I'm not sure I'd trust a CPU that clips on top of another CPU. I wonder how stable that could be.

If you have good chip contact then its perfectly fine, I own an Apollo 630 and that clips over the chip.  I did have some problems (i.e crashing) when it wasn't clipped in place properly but now its seated correctlt the system is very stable and I have a nice heat sink on the 030 chip to keep things cool.

I had it running for most of the day at the recent Retro festival in Bletchly park and it was 100% stable.

@taemiga, put your name down for an A608, it might be a while but worth the wait

In the mean time if you see a cheap PCMCIA SRAM card (tip is to search SRAM on ebay every so often) or PSRAM and sometimes they can go cheap.  All you need to do is power down swap the card for your PCMCIA CF card when you want to transfer files.

As has already been meantioned the trap door is only for chip ram upgrade/clock, all the Fast Ram, accelerators clip over the chip.

Steve.

[rkauer]

^^ Wut Fitzsteve said: the PCMCIA SRAM card (up to 4Mb) will give the little A600 a nice 30% boost in speed, pretty the same as an A608, which my good friend Zetr0 is doing.

 The problem is the A608 whishlist is turning the corner of the street (x28!) and buying one from Russia is hideously expensive.

 There is Ian Stedman finalising an "A620" (maybe A630), which is a project I was participate some months back. A matter of wait-and-see. But probably the whishlist will double the A608 queue!

 So, why you want to speed up your A600 so bad? Because of the "because I can" feel or because is what you can get?

 Someone told me the best A500 upgrade is an A1200. The A600 is a kind of small footprint A500 without extended keyboard and the lateral Zorro-like expansion bus but with IDE & PCMCIA instead.

 For the baby Amiga there is a very expansions available, no matter what.

 What's your choice?