A500 Cartridge

[trekiej]

Is it possible to make a cartridge for the A500 through the expansion port?  I am going to check my A500 book tonight to see what the memory map says.
I remember how the NeoGeo had a 300 MB cartridge.
I do not think it can handle that much memory anyway with out extra logic.

I have seen a MC68340 micro controler on Mouser.
I would like to make an accelerator for the A500.
I need to invest alot into SMT/SMD technology.  

I got my Parallax/Ubicom SX48 in today and I almost need a magnifying glass to see it. :-D

[AMC258]

It all depends on what you call a cartridge.

But, yes it's possible.  Nothing's impossible.

[trekiej]

You probably think this guy fell off his Work Bench and landed on his PC. : )

I am looking for stuff to do to a A500 expansion port.
I hope it survived the cold weather this winter.

I wish I could find CNC controler software for the Amiga that uses the parallel port to control stepper motors.

I also saw a box that allowed the A500 to have a New Tek toaster hook to it.  It hooked to the parallel port and video port.  I believe.

On a side note.
What do you think about Amiga Robotics?
That could be a great way to get Minimig into other areas of interest.
Oops.  Enough said.
Later.

[AMC258]

I wrote a very powerful industrial CNC control package on my A500 about 10 years ago.  The whole project got cancelled though, and I don't know if I even have the code anymore.  It did NOT control stepper motors, it controlled  a common industrial interface board which in turn controlled analog and digital servo and spindle drives.  Interestingly, the board plugged into an ISA slot, but just for power, like a KitchenSync.  It had connectors on it for serial data.  It was a perfect fit for an A2000!

Now, getting an Amiga to control stepper motors would be a real piece of cake!  Especially via the parallel port.  I have some hardware around here I could do this with if I really wanted to, which, frankly, I don't.  Of course, owning a CNC vertical mill may have something to do with this.

There is no way you could connect a Toaster to the parallel port and video port.  You would need to add a genuine video slot, by wiring directly to the custom chips, not just by plugging anything in.

I have considered lots of industrial uses for the MiniMig!  Now, whether or not I ever bother with them....  The power of having a computer with Amiga capabilities on a chip!!

[trekiej]

Cool deal.
I am not for sure about the external box for video.
I saw one advertised in maybe Amiga World mag.  I wish I new more about it.

I have been out of the Amiga for a while looking to buy new hardware when it happens.I have 3 Amigas, A1000, A500, A1200.  I hope to produce something one day for the Amiga.  

I am a Vectrex fan too.  Why, I do not know?

Being able to run a cnc machine with my amiga would be nice.  I wish I could just buy a cnc machine and I would not need to build one. : (  

It is fun to me to be in electronics and robotics.
How could we define an Amiga-bot?

[Dingo_aus]

The only question is, apart from the "cool" factor, what big advantage would a A500 or clone have for use in a robot?

I mean there has been a lot of development into chips for portable devices like ARM-Cored based microcontrollers.

You can get 32 bit ARM7s running at 60MHz for less than $10.....even get Atmel ARM7s at less than USD$3 in bulk.

Not to mention the competition in industrial boards at the moment (just view some of the boards that run Linux reported at http://www.linuxdevices.com/ )

Don't get me wrong, if you have a heap of existing code or some other reason I'd like to hear about it for robotics but is there much other than the "cool" factor?

[Oli_hd]

Is it possible to make a cartridge for the A500 through the expansion port? I am going to check my A500 book tonight to see what the memory map says.  I remember how the NeoGeo had a 300 MB cartridge.  I do not think it can handle that much memory anyway with out extra logic.

Well you could just stick a flash disk on a board, have it generate the chipselect from a fixed location and have some software to look at that address and load whatever is there.
Not really what I would call a cartridge system though.
Better to add an autobooting IDE card and use compact flash "cartridges" with the games on.
There are designs on Aminet for IDE cards or Zorro adaptors to use normal Zorro IDE cards.

[trekiej]

I know that elbox sells memory upgrades.  One will upgrade the video mem. and the other ram.  It says you can have a total of 10 megs. That would cost about 200.00 us dollars.
I would buy them if I could right now.  I believe the A500 could access 8 plus megs without an accellerator.

Who sells an A500 ide or scsi controller?

I guess in light of MS Robotics software, what could the amiga do beter?  The Amiga OS is much better.  It would be nice to have a robotics section on Amiga.org.

[AMC258]

Microsoft does robotics?  Thank God I have never had to deal with that.  It's bad enough dealing with PC-based CNC's on a daily basis!  The only robotics I deal with are Fanuc and custom stuff.

[trekiej]

 :-D

I wonder if changing a cartridge would alow changing a function.  I saw a concept computer where the components looked like over grown carts that users could remove.  
 
I am doing what I can to get into cnc and robotics.  I want to use automation to get products to market faster.
I hope to do something for the Amiga community as well.

later

 

[bobamu]

wasn't an a500 cartridge addon a bit of hardware that crysalis were supposed to be looking at "back in the day"?

[trekiej]

I appologize, I am not for sure on that.