Generic 68K Computer

[trekiej]

With the GB A1000 being made, is anyone interested in making a generic 68K computer out of it?

[SamuraiCrow]

What's wrong with the Natami?  It has an Amiga-compatible chipset due out in August running on a 90MHz '060 and they will be designing a new processor for it on the FPGA.  (Although they'll need a customized Kickstart first.)

[trekiej]

Nothing, I was currios how Amigans would feel about another possible alternative.

[billt]

What do you mean by "generic"? I think that today, a 68k computer cannot be considered "generic". Especially not an A1000, original or new, which isn't generic, it's an Amiga board fitting a speciific Amiga casework.

[trekiej]

@ billt:
Maybe an open source 68K computer that could be used to teach vhdl,etc.

[Darrin]

SamuraiCrow wrote:
What's wrong with the Natami?  It has an Amiga-compatible chipset due out in August running on a 90MHz '060 and they will be designing a new processor for it on the FPGA.  (Although they'll need a customized Kickstart first.)

I've got to ask, how firm is that date?  I hear a lot about the Natami, but if it is due out in August and it's July now then I'd expect to see fully functioning prototypes being shown at Amiga meetings.

[SamuraiCrow]

On this thread Gunnar said that Thomas finished the board design for the Natami60 last week and that they contacted several companies for quotes on the first production run.

[Darrin]

SamuraiCrow wrote:
On this thread Gunnar said that Thomas finished the board design for the Natami60 last week and that they contacted several companies for quotes on the first production run.

Well that's great news.  Has a fully functioning model actually been demoed though?

[Lemmink]

Huh have I missed something ? I thought the timeline for the completion of the Natami was something with years rather then months ?

[SamuraiCrow]

That's for the Natami70 with its own integrated processor on the same chip as the multimedia chipset.  The Natami60 is the developer board that will likely cost something similar to the AmigaOne and run on a 90MHz 68060 with an FPGA for the graphics chips.  Working the bugs out of the graphics chips and 68070 processor design is what the Natami60 is for.

[persia]

How about a generic lava lamp?

[trekiej]

 :-D

[AmigaEd]

by persia on 2008/7/16 21:25:03
How about a generic lava lamp?

I used to have a generic lava lamp but I customized it so that I'd have something I could run OS4 on.

[persia]

Which is *not* a 68K box...  There's nothing more worthless than a generic 68K box.

[codenetfx]

68K box with some custom chips in FPGA would be very cool though

I wish I had spent more time studying hardware and software to better understand what the limits of FPGA technology really are. If it is possible to design an architecture with muliple CPUs (multiple 68K in FPGA), FPU and a lot of fast ram to serve all CPUs, one could probably design a really fast Amiga. Amiga is already a multiprocessor design and MiniMig project proved it that it is possible to implement the entire ECS chipset on a single FPGA chip. Now, it is imaginable that a better sound chip, a better graphics chip, a more poweful blitter could also be implemented in FPGA (maybe more than one FPGA).

Like I said, I do not know the (speed) limits of FPGA but the idea of maintaining a hardware design in software sounds like a very cool and flexible approach because no custom hardware would ever be needed, which means the computer could go on and on and on... regardless of who is producing it.

persia wrote:
Which is *not* a 68K box...  There's nothing more worthless than a generic 68K box.