FPGA that upgrades Amiga 500 custom chipset or allow internet browsing...

[JimS]

I believe SPI is planned (tentatively?) for the Vampire 500 or Vampire 1200.

And yes, you can get microcontrollers that run the entire TCP/IP stack internally as well as providing ethernet/wifi - which would take a huge load off the CPU in an Amiga.

That offloading is the primary thing that made the Amiga great in the first place.

[Ral-Clan]

If you think about, the expanded 'big box' Classic Amiga's also fit into this bucket, when you've got an RTG card, an AHI sound card and USB controller it's not really using the original chipset for much either.   Adding a PPC card is another step away from the original architecture.

I totally agree with this.  In fact, I made the same argument a few months ago here on A.org when I sold off all my big box Amiga stuff.  Now the only hardware Amiga I keep is a slightly enhanced A500 with hard drive sidecar using the ECS chipset for all sound and video.  I made the argument that with this machine I am actually using more of the actual original Amiga hardware than I was with my decked out RTG, AHI, Accelerator carded big box Amiga. On that latter machine all tasks were done by third-party attachments, leaving the original Commodore hardware to do little else than provide power and a keyboard.

[billt]

There are various issues with your ideas inthe context of doing them as an FPGA. For the webbrowser accelerator, it sounds like you are suggesting a processor that executes human-readable code, as I do not think that HTML5, javascript etc. are "compiled" binary executables. And creating a parser in hardware rather than in software. My view of processors is that these things are better done in software. Perhaps what makes more sense is an FPGA accelerator, something like Majsta's project, or perhaps something like a Zync chip using the ARM cores to emulate 68K faster, or as a fast coprocessor like PPC started out on Phase5 boards.

I see the mouse/joystick ports as way way too slow to do these sorts of things. Go CPU slot/socket or go home. As others have suggested, you may end up duplicating the FPGAReplay as an accelerator card and only using the Amiga host as a power supply, keyboard and mouse...

Jens imagined FPGA replacements for ECS chipset as Clone-A concept, which lives on partially as his flickerfixer products. One could make such things do more than just the ECS chipset with flickerfixed output, add new screenmodes etc.

The emulator idea sounds interesting. There will be a lot of software to go with though.

[AmigaClassicRule]

There are various issues with your ideas inthe context of doing them as an FPGA. For the webbrowser accelerator, it sounds like you are suggesting a processor that executes human-readable code, as I do not think that HTML5, javascript etc. are "compiled" binary executables. And creating a parser in hardware rather than in software. My view of processors is that these things are better done in software. Perhaps what makes more sense is an FPGA accelerator, something like Majsta's project, or perhaps something like a Zync chip using the ARM cores to emulate 68K faster, or as a fast coprocessor like PPC started out on Phase5 boards.

I see the mouse/joystick ports as way way too slow to do these sorts of things. Go CPU slot/socket or go home. As others have suggested, you may end up duplicating the FPGAReplay as an accelerator card and only using the Amiga host as a power supply, keyboard and mouse...

Jens imagined FPGA replacements for ECS chipset as Clone-A concept, which lives on partially as his flickerfixer products. One could make such things do more than just the ECS chipset with flickerfixed output, add new screenmodes etc.

The emulator idea sounds interesting. There will be a lot of software to go with though.

Personally I will stick with my Amiga 500 the way it is...kickstart 1.3..OCS, etc. The only thing I really want in my Amiga 500 is the ability to go online and chat wookiechat on Amiga 500...that is pretty much the coolest thing I could do. I am also planning on getting the GVP HD and watch movies on my Amiga 500..and listen to MP3 on it. if I want AGA or RTG stuff I will use WinUAE.

[AmigaClassicRule]

Personally I will stick with my Amiga 500 the way it is...kickstart  1.3..OCS, etc. The only thing I really want in my Amiga 500 is the  ability to go online and chat wookiechat on Amiga 500...that is pretty  much the coolest thing I could do. I am also planning on getting the GVP  HD and watch movies on my Amiga 500..and listen to MP3 on it. if I want  AGA or RTG stuff I will use WinUAE.

[Madshib]

That's kind of a shame. I understand that the Amiga is a "classic" system, but it never stopped exciting me to imagine what was next. I applaud those that have made "next gen" systems and os porting efforts, but I really would still like to see the next piece of the puzzle.

The vision that many had in the mid nineties, was powerpc. Let's go back there for a minute. Maybe powerpc was the next step, but what of the remaining architecture? Would Hombre have been the best of ECS/AGA with elements of S3 or Cirrus chips? All that graphical power with backward compatibility...

Paula on steroids with DSP? Sweet also...

And what of the OS capabilities built in around these functions?

All this with a shiny new AOS atop fully realizing the multimedia precipice it could have been on.

In the present, I suppose there are many reasons why anyone wouldn't want to undertake an FPGA project that would bring the Amiga to the next level(Classic this and newer machines that)....but I know there is one reason why I would love to see the true A5000/whatever. It would kick a$$

[freqmax]

Maybe you should ask.. What is the most hardware bang for the buck I can accomplish for 700 USD that will make nerds salivate.

Apple did something along the same line for design fanatics..

[Amiga_Nut]

What would be best for 500/1000 is probably side expansion but why surf in 640x400x16 colours?

What I want to see is 2 things for the A1200

1. An adaptor so I can rip out that terrible A1200 keyboard and replace it with an A500 superior unit (OK 2/3 superior, one A500 keyboard OEM is as horrible as all 1200 keyboards too)

2. Some sort of FPGA based system which focusses on Mhz not trying to replicate 060 chipset. A 1ghz 020 based instruction set type FPGA would be great and worth the money, and it would need an onboard graphics chip just like CyberVision used to do etc.

But to be totally honest I can live with needing Windows (or Linux if you really hate MS that much) to play 1080p DTS media files or surfing the net....things that are not cost effective on Amigas.

I am happy enough using some modern tech stuck on the back of Digi-View to make my dynamic Ham lace graphics or doing my graphics for games I am working on with DPaint 3 and 5 (skipped 4, OCS DP4 running on AGA is OK but DP4 AGA is dog slow and kills creativity IMO)