Question for OliHD...

[bloodline]

Ok, we are all quite excited by the idea of a Classic Amiga accelerator based on the coldfire.. but did you consider the Dragonball? It runs at 66Mhz as standard without any cooling, maybe with some decent cooling it could be overclocked to something really impressive...

[whabang]

Yeah, and besides: the Dragonball is fully 68000-compatible, IIRC.
On the other hand, it's not much of a performer; a 66 MHz MC68SZ328 only does about 11 MIPS compared to the about 80 MIPS achieved with a 66 MHz 060.

There would also be a problem with all apps demanding 020 and higher.

[Stedy]

Have you taken a look at the Dragonball specs?

MC68SZ328 Parametrics
CPU Performance
10 (MIPS)
Operating Frequency
66(MHz)

A 68030@50Mhz (18 Mips) is faster!

The Dragonball parts are based upon the 68000 core.

[adolescent]

Isn't the Dragonball what they used in the Palm?  Hardly a performer.  

[Karlos]

Stedy wrote:

A 68030@50Mhz (18 Mips) is faster!

I thought a 50MHz 68030 got about 10MIPS. 18 sounds more like a 25MHz 68040.

Not that MIPS really mean anything useful anyway ;-)

[Piru]

Yeah, compare SpecINT or you're comparing apples and oranges...

[Karlos]

Pah, any fool knows oranges are better :lol:

[Jose]

Hmm.. why is it that I only get around 14 (if I remember correctly, the thing is now disassembled) Mips in my A4000 with 3640 :-?

[bloodline]

Jose wrote:
Hmm.. why is it that I only get around 14 (if I remember correctly, the thing is now disassembled) Mips in my A4000 with 3640 :-?

The 3640 is crippled by its memory bus IIRC...

[Karlos]

It sure is. I think it was originally designed for an 030 setup where it would have been actually quite fast (supporting various bursts and whatnot of the 030) but was altered last minute.

Patrik would know - he's a bit of a busmaster ;-)

[patrik]

@Jose:

As you should get somewhere around 18-19 MIPS in Sysinfo with the A3640 I have some questions:

Do you have the standard 68040.library in LIBS:?

Are both the J100 and J104 jumpers on the motherboard set to the "EXT" position?

Is the crystal on the A3640 a 50MHz one?

(edit): One last thing - did you have any working fastram on the motherboard when you got 14 MIPS in Sysinfo?


/Patrik

[Oli_hd]

Hi,

You rang?

As a matter of fact I did, not for its speed mind (See below) but for its compatibility, I wanted to stick a faster CPU in the CDTV and it looked like the best chip for the job. (As the CDTV can be a bit funny with 68030 chips and stuff)

Unfortunately the only one digikey had at the time was a 68306 @ 16Mhz (2.4MIPS), not the fastest in the world huh, but it is a very interesting chip, a 16bit chip, just like the 68000, fully 68000 compatible but able to address up to 64MB of memory, eight chip selects which can be anywhere within its 4Gig internal address space, and two UART's, now thats a cool 68000.

I will do something with the chip sometime, more a novelty thing though.

[bloodline]

Hi Oli, well then... what about the new dragonballs based on the ARM... but have 68k compatibility?

[Karlos]

@bloodline

Do they?

[Oli_hd]

Hi,

to repeat an earlier comment... Do they?

I've been looking for some info on it and cant, just a couple of sites saying you could probably emulate a 68K on the MX1 and not notice any speed drop...

From what I read the Super VZ is the last 68K chip, 16bit running at 10.8 MIPS.

Any info on the chip your talking about would be nice, dont think I will be doing much with it though, sorry.