Id buy a coldfire

[Monkey]

OK, this is my first post here (anywhere) so forgive me if I screw this up somhow.

I just wated to say I think getting a working coldfire cpu in to a "classic" Amiga is a great idea. I buy one for sure, that coupled with a 10/100 network card would mean my A4000 could stop collecting dust as it sadly is at the moment. Keep up the good work.

[KennyR]

A coldfire would be the greatest way to soup up a classic Amiga, although you couldn't use PPC software (which is mostly the stuff you need the power for). It would still be great for everything else, though.

The argument that rages though is that lots of people would consider a coldfire an alternative to a new AmigaONE/Pegasos system and not buy one, dragging back and holding the Amiga community firmly in the 90s. Coders would still have to support legacy such horribly slow Amiga IDE, AGA, and all the Amiga bottlenecks. People on the new systems would get less support as people stuck to the old ones - at least that's what some seem to think. I'm not so sure.

I take both views. I'm happy to see people buy coldfires if they want them, it is their choice after all. But those who do buy them should *not* then harry coders who don't release 68k apps they can use 100% of the time, or whine that apps don't support AGA or Paula any more.

[Targhan]

There are somethings that people do that fail all logic tests.  The fact that I would buy a ColdFire card for my A1200 _today_ (if it were available) is evidence of that.  I can't explain it; I don't understand it myself, but I would buy a coldfire accelerator.

[xeron]

Maybe we should have a new poll? The old one is... well... old :-D

"What do you think of the Coldfire project?

1. Great! Its my primary upgrade path (hopefully ;-) )
2. Great! I'm getting a PPC system, but i'll still stick a Coldfire in my old miggy.
3. Bad! Its a distraction from PPC projects
4. I don't want one myself, but its cool
5. Huh? Coldfire what?

2! :-D

[bloodline]

I think the point here is, buy a Cold Fire if you have apps on your Amiga now, which need more power... ray tracing, music processing and image processing springs to mind.

I love the idea of the cold fire, it's about a community taking the bull by the horns and seeing just how far they can go... do you see Atari or MAc users trying to get that little bit extra out of hardware that is over 10 years old... no, Why, becuase their hardwear was nothing special, it was "standard for the time", not excpetional it did not make people think "I'll bet this thing will go faster if I..."

Just my $10,000,000 worth :-D

[yssing]

I would go for Number 2.
The Coldfire is a great project, and it could really be used in classic amigas.

Hmm. I know tha Oli_HD stated that making a new MoBo would be very difficult. But it would be cool.

Just using the already included extras, such as AC97, IDE, USB etc.
"Just" add PCI support, and stick a VGA thingy on one of those ports, some cheap GPU with P96 support.
Add Seriel and parallel ports, maybe some sort of floppy, but this can be achieved via the catweasel.

But anyway, coldfire is a great way to go with the classic stuff.

[xeron]

bloodline wrote:
they can go... do you see Atari or MAc users trying to get that little bit extra out of hardware that is over 10 years old... no,

How do you explain the prototype Atari PPC cards? or the (seemingly stalled) Atari Coldfire Motherboard project? Or the 060 based Atari clones?  :-D

[bloodline]

Tickly wrote:

bloodline wrote:
they can go... do you see Atari or MAc users trying to get that little bit extra out of hardware that is over 10 years old... no,

How do you explain the prototype Atari PPC cards? or the (seemingly stalled) Atari Coldfire Motherboard project? Or the 060 based Atari clones?  :-D

This is the week of proving me wrong... I'm gonna give up  :-D

I'm gonna put a disclaimer in my posts "All information in this post is totally inaccurate, and will be proved as such by better informed members of the human race..."  :-)

Where can I find out about the 'Tari accelerators...

[xeron]

Well, heres a forum topic over on Atari.org about "The Atari Coldfire project": http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979. spooky mirroring of amiga.org or what?  ;-)

There were some prototype Atari specific PowerPC cards made, but I can't find info about them now (damn it!). here is some info about a project to fit Phase 5 PowerUP cards into an Atari Falcon, but I don't think that got anywhere...

Here is some info about the "Hades", "Medusa" and "Milan" Atari clones.

[bloodline]

Tickly wrote:
Well, heres a forum topic over on Atari.org about "The Atari Coldfire project": http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979. spooky mirroring of amiga.org or what?  ;-)

There were some prototype Atari specific PowerPC cards made, but I can't find info about them now (damn it!). here is some info about a project to fit Phase 5 PowerUP cards into an Atari Falcon, but I don't think that got anywhere...

Here is some info about the "Hades", "Medusa" and "Milan" Atari clones.

Facinating, but the Atari was built of standard computer components, and had a freely avaible, portable OS (I refer to GEM as TOS was was well toss :-D ).

I really don't get the point... GEM is available for PC's and no Atari software ever needed anything moe powerful than an 8Mhz 68000...

Sure the Flacon has some nice features, but it was too little too late. I rather liked the 16bit GFX and 16bit Audio... the A1200 should have had those...

bloodline wrote:

Tickly wrote:
Well, heres a forum topic over on Atari.org about "The Atari Coldfire project": http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979. spooky mirroring of amiga.org or what?  ;-)

There were some prototype Atari specific PowerPC cards made, but I can't find info about them now (damn it!). here is some info about a project to fit Phase 5 PowerUP cards into an Atari Falcon, but I don't think that got anywhere...

Here is some info about the "Hades", "Medusa" and "Milan" Atari clones.

Facinating, but the Atari was built of standard computer components, and had a freely avaible, portable OS (I refer to GEM as TOS was was well toss :-D ).

I really don't get the point... GEM is available for PC's and no Atari software ever needed anything moe powerful than an 8Mhz 68000...

Sure the Flacon has some nice features, but it was too little too late. I rather liked the 16bit GFX and 16bit Audio... the A1200 should have had those...

Milan '060

These would be nice for running AROS!

[xeron]

Aha! I found some info! A company called "Titan-BSS" were making a PowerPC card called "Tempest" for the Atari Falcon.

Their website has long since disappeared, but I found it in the web archive...

Read about it here.

[bloodline]

mdma wrote:

bloodline wrote:

Tickly wrote:
Well, heres a forum topic over on Atari.org about "The Atari Coldfire project": http://forums.atari.org/read.php3?num=3&id=11991&thread=11979. spooky mirroring of amiga.org or what?  ;-)

There were some prototype Atari specific PowerPC cards made, but I can't find info about them now (damn it!). here is some info about a project to fit Phase 5 PowerUP cards into an Atari Falcon, but I don't think that got anywhere...

Here is some info about the "Hades", "Medusa" and "Milan" Atari clones.

Facinating, but the Atari was built of standard computer components, and had a freely avaible, portable OS (I refer to GEM as TOS was was well toss :-D ).

I really don't get the point... GEM is available for PC's and no Atari software ever needed anything moe powerful than an 8Mhz 68000...

Sure the Flacon has some nice features, but it was too little too late. I rather liked the 16bit GFX and 16bit Audio... the A1200 should have had those...

Milan '060

These would be nice for running AROS!

Certainly doable, but I'm sure you are well aware of that... :-D

Any yes, I wish I hadn't trashed the Old ST I had, AROS on that would have been soooooo funny :-)  :-)

[xeron]

bloodline wrote:
and no Atari software ever needed anything moe powerful than an 8Mhz 68000...

Bzzzt! Lots of Atari software has been released that use 020, 030, 040 and even 060 processors. Most people don't use just the basic GEM desktop and TOS, they use MiNT, MagiC, etc.

Sure the Flacon has some nice features, but it was too little too late.

So are you saying Atari fans should just give up with their machines and operating system, and forget it? Why is it any different to the Amiga?

Atari is a hobby computer, much like the Amiga. Its users grew up with Atari, they enjoy using them, tinkering with them, and upgrading them.