Apollo 1240 vs. A3640

[Tension]

Q1) Which system is better?

A1200: Apollo 1240 Turbo Full 040 28Mhz 16MB Simm

A4000: Standard A3640 v3.0 I think, 25Mhz 16MB on the Amiga board.

I was using the A1200 until 2002. I got the A4000 because the A1200 got too unreliable (had problems with the trapdoor slot connector, keyboard pcb thingy, silly buffered IDE interface thingy, dodgy Power Tower PSU connectors etc etc).  I`m thinking bout using the A1200 tower again, or more likely, getting a stock 1200 somewhere and using it cos the A4000 is really doing weird things now.

Q2) Anyone got an old A1200 for sale??  Surely someone must have one lying around the place.

[Tension]

dare i bump this thread

[ChaosLord]

Apollo 1240 is waaaaay better than A3640.
I did extensive timing tests many years ago to determine the maximum framerate for my game.

The A3640 has a design flaw that makes it access memory very slowly.

The Apollo 1240 is super fast at accessing memory.

Both are very hot and need a heat sink.

[tabuhuso]

Apollo 1240 upgradeable to 060 but 3640 never...

[rkauer]

 Apollo 1240: own memory = fast;

 A3640: not even 1kb available on-board = dog slow.

 Make your choice.

[ChaosLord]

Apollo 1240 = Not designed by Dave Haynie = superfast

A3640 = designed by Dave Haynie = dog slow

The choice is yours.

[Zac67]

The A3640's 'design flaw' is that it's completely missing local RAM. It was designed as the "cheapest '040 board known to man", the only way to get it past C= management (otherwise the A4000 would've got an '030). As you can see from the names on the board, Dave Haynie wasn't one of the developers.

[Tension]

Bring back Dave Haynie!!!!

[nOw2]

dare i bump this thread

Not after 3 hours.

The A1200 will be faster, but that's not what you asked.

If 'better' also includes reliable, then you have an answer already - A1200s can be less reliable due to the nature of how they are upgraded. The A4000 is a very solid base to start from.

[darksun9210]

... provided it doesn't get eaten by battery acid.  :-(

the A3640 as previously stated was basicly a botch job to bolt a 68040 chip onto the A4000's cpu slot. built cheaply and designed quickly. comparison to any other 040 board isn't really fair.

personally, i'd rather have an A4000 with A3640 than an A1200 with an apollo. day to day stuff you aren't going to notice the difference, and you have the chance of better  upgrades anyway... :-)

[alexh]

Zac67 wrote:
As you can see from the names on the board, Dave Haynie wasn't one of the developers.

His name is all over the source code to the A3640 PAL (programmable logic chips). I just think he wasn't involved in the PCB design.

[Macabre]

Well, ik have an a1200 with an apollo (only 40Mhz and 32Mb fastram installed) and one of my amiga4000 has a a3640.

The a1200 is much faster but not as stable as the a4000.

Also, if you want to softkick to play old a500 games you need to use the remap apollo tool to make it work.

I have to reinsert the apollo card quite often, it just doesn't seem to fit well.

[Zac67]

alexh wrote:

His name is all over the source code to the A3640 PAL (programmable logic chips). I just think he wasn't involved in the PCB design.

That's true. But I do remember him ranting about the A3640, something in the line of 'a poor man's '040'. Probably he got involved when it came to integrating all the 4000's components.