New Amiga Accelerators

[bd1308]

I am discussing with a friend of mine about possibly re-producing some of these long-out-of-production PPC/68k accelerator cards.

Several pics were pulled from ads, and the feasibility of re-creating these cards seemed promising..


If you have a spare PPC or 68040/68060 card for a A1200 lying around, please let me know on a pm (no ebay ads). I have cash/paypal/money order waiting.

[bloodline]

You have to be kidding...

Recreating a PPC card from a photo... first off, it would cost you more than you could ever make back...

These cards were VERY complex beasts, 8 layer boards or something... to try and interface two incompatible CPUs (The 040 and the 603) onto an old 68020 bus, is a horrific task... the firmware development alone would probably cost more than your entire budget.

I honestly cant see what advantage this would have over running UAE on something like a Mini/Pico-ITX board...?!?

[billt]

Photographs are not going to tell you what voodoo magic is going on inside the FPGA, the ROM/flash chip, etc. It won't work without that stuff, even if you manage to reproduce the PCB layout and get the electrical characteristics of that layout working well for timing, signal integrity, etc. And to really recreate the PCB, you'll need to sacrifice at least one board, probably more, to get chip pin pads and internal layer routing scanned. Than you have a PCB, an empty FPGA, and missing parts that are no longer available or sellable in a product due to ROHS.

If you're going to go to that much expense/effort to re-engineer such an old and complicated thing, we're all better off if you instead use that time and money to create a new board, ROHS compliant, leave out the 68K chip, and give us some more recent features, modern clock speed, memory, etc.

[pyrre]

If you have the skills and equipment, why not try to build a new mother board. With 040/060 DDR memory bus and PCI?
I think that would be easier. And parts may still be available to do so...
If i am not wrong the 603/604 cpus are hard to find. and really hard to find in any quantity for mass production...

[mfletcher]

Is there any real advantage to getting a PPC board in the first place other than being able to install AOS 4? I just use my Amiga for games, demos and music... surely I can do all that just with an 680x0 accelerator and WB 3.1/3.5/3.9.

Going by the ridiculous prices these cards fetch on Ebay, there is definitely a demand for them, but as someone else has pointed out, it would be cost prohibitive to produce them for the dwindling stock of Amiga's out there

[skurk]

bd1308 wrote:
Several pics were pulled from ads, and the feasibility of re-creating these cards seemed promising..

Well, it *COULD* be feasible if they were single or double layer boards... It gets worse when you have 3, 4 maybe 5 layers.

Maybe you can pull it off if you buy a working example, and grind off each layer.  

[Nostalgiac]

Several pics were pulled from ads, and the feasibility of re-creating these cards seemed promising..

allow me to ....

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sorry... but...

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ahum

good luck

Tom UK

[niklasni1]

I just watched Star Wars again and I think I'll have a working lightsaber clone next week!

[tokyoracer]

A new 060 Accelerator is possibly viable but PPC? Forget it.

[Zac67]

Without the CPLD data your plan is damned.

You don't even know what a CPLD is? Twice so.

[bd1308]

Zac67 wrote:
Without the CPLD data your plan is damned.

You don't even know what a CPLD is? Twice so.

Fortunately, I'm not doing the legwork. I am looking for a 040 card to give to the guy, who will dissect the card and build a new one, along with getting the other chips re-created.

And no...I dont know/care about what CPLD is.

I'll stop here.

[Boot_WB]

It's an ambitious project - just mapping the pcb alone will be a lengthy process, and if the CPLDs are protected, then I don't know how you'll manage to recreate the programming of them.

I wish you luck though.

Just remember: there'll always be people who say it can't be done. They may be right, they may be wrong, but that's no reason to give up trying.

Regards



Rich

[bd1308]

All I need to know is this:

If an 040 accelerator came out for lets say--the A1200 @ $300 per unit, would there be a market for them?

The same for an 060 model?

The rest is possible--the rest will happen provided there is some interest (more than 50 people ) in this. Several people have been contacted regarding getting the chips copied, boards scanned, etc.

I'm sharing details, I just want to know if this could happen if the price was around $300......for an 040 or 060 accelerator.

[mbrantley]

I would buy a new 060 accelerator for any of my Amigas. I'd prefer an 060 accelerator for the 4000/3000 or even 2000 but would pimp out my 1200 with an 060 if offered the choice in the same ballpark as your price.

[Boot_WB]

Given the price of second-hand hardware (Ebay), then I believe that the $300 for a new 040 or 060 accelerator would be very competitive, assuming it is stable.

As to numbers... who knows? I think 50 is a given, but more than 100 ...?
Some people would buy it partly to support the effort, partly out of curiosity, whereas others would buy it out of a genuine desire/need for an 040/060 accelerator.

If you do manage to get a working prototype and - eventually - a production run, then A1200 accelerator would definitely be the way to go to get the numbers. Personally, I'd like to see an A4000 version aswell though.

Regards



Rich