New type of accelerator design?

[AmigaNow]

I was wondering. Since there are now things for the Amiga such as the CFIDE68k, and the MiniMig was invented, how difficult would it be to have an accelerator the size of an A1200 trapdoor that had either a programmable chip or an AMD 64x2, which could emulate a very fast 68020 or 68040?
    I'm thinking of a board whose sole purpose is to allow memory expansion and this emulation. Nothing else, unless it would be convenient in the case of a programmable chip to also provide USB, SATA, etc.
    I'm also wondering if this emulation would run Amiga programs much faster than a real chip? I know in WinUAE it is quite fast!
    Any thoughts? Would this be possible? Would you own such a device? There must be some interest in Amiga if GVP has recently come out with new accelerators?

Thanks for your consideration,

AmigaNow

[JC]

Well, it would be nice to have a super fast Amiga if you were doing 3D rendering & animating but I don't think there are many people left that still use the Amiga for such tasks.

[bloodline]

I was wondering. Since there are now things for the Amiga such as the CFIDE68k, and the MiniMig was invented, how difficult would it be to have an accelerator the size of an A1200 trapdoor that had either a programmable chip or an AMD 64x2, which could emulate a very fast 68020 or 68040?
    I'm thinking of a board whose sole purpose is to allow memory expansion and this emulation. Nothing else, unless it would be convenient in the case of a programmable chip to also provide USB, SATA, etc.
    I'm also wondering if this emulation would run Amiga programs much faster than a real chip? I know in WinUAE it is quite fast!
    Any thoughts? Would this be possible? Would you own such a device? There must be some interest in Amiga if GVP has recently come out with new accelerators?

Thanks for your consideration,

AmigaNow

The problem is that when you use a modern chip like one of the nice intel or AMD chips you can use all the support chips that are very easy to interface with them!

Look here: http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/spearhead/pico-itx/

That is an entire modern computer (with USB, Audio, VGA and Ethernet) on a board smaller than an Amiga trapdoor accelerator (10cm x 7.2cm)!

Then you have to wonder what the point of using the A1200 is...

[wawrzon]

the team around natami project is apparently developing a modern 68k softcore. it seems to be an open source project. and it was stated that there are parties going to licence the softcore, but no further details were revealed. obviously as soon as such softcore is complete it could be used in an accelerator. anything else would probably be too complicated a task. we will see what will come out of this.

[koaftder]

With things like this, the Amiga becomes a keyboard and mouse controller.

[Zac67]

... until you add USB...

[Ilwrath]

With things like this, the Amiga becomes a keyboard and mouse controller.

And a pretty awkward and poor one, at that.  If you're going to virtualize and throw an abstraction layer in to present a modern processor and bus to the old Amiga, why not just virtualize the rest of the old Amiga, while you're at it?  

It's really confusing to figure out where retro hardware ends and modern emulation begins.

[wawrzon]

amiga side holds still the aga chipset, as long as anyone still wants to use it. anyway im fine with using amiga as keyboard controller, my current mouse is usb but i dont want to miss the help key. just dont question the sanity of it all. it has been chewed through endless times.

[Tajmaster]

Why bother building an accelerator for the original Amigas? There are still limitations, compatibility issues, lots of hacking and fudging (hardware and software wise) for anything thats is more than a 68K type board. If someone builds an x86 based accelerator, no doubt youll need a tower, a new power supply, 3 reboots to get the thing working, itll have a "memory window" or some other fancy blurb that means its crippled in some way, and half your stuff wont work with it. LOL OK Im takin the p1ss a bit but Im sure you see where Im coming from
I think its more worth while in the long run to develop a decent, modern motherboard that anyone could buy build a modern new Amiga with like in the PC market.
Of course a new motherboard is probably going to cost me two bollocks and a kidney in the Amiga world so how about porting the OS to x86 and making use of cheap, available standard PC hardware? Then I can keep my bollocks and kidney!:laughing:
All this has been discussed to death before of course

[wawrzon]

@Tajmaster: http://www.natami.net/
nuff said.

[bloodline]

... until you add USB...

Exactly!

So, instead of building an accelerator based on a modern CPU... what you really want is an amiga USB keyboard... that idea has merit...

[Piru]

what you really want is an amiga USB keyboard... that idea has merit...

http://www.jschoenfeld.de/news/news109_e.htm perhaps?

Regardless, anyone here dreaming of new amiga can pretty much forget it if natami is your only hope. That project has so unrealistic targets it will never complete.

[wawrzon]

http://www.jschoenfeld.de/news/news109_e.htm perhaps?

Regardless, anyone here dreaming of new amiga can pretty much forget it if natami is your only hope. That project has so unrealistic targets it will never complete.

not that i care too much. neither for aros or mos or os4 alltogether. but if they ever succeed i will get one for sure.

[bloodline]

not that i care too much. neither for aros or mos or os4 alltogether. but if they ever succeed i will get one for sure.

You can use all three now... I can't really see how they could succeed any more that that?

[wawrzon]

@bloodline: im really sorry that i cant give you a reasonable answer. the fact is when i try aros another time it as if it just rejects me (not even when it crashes, i just play a little around get bored and then forget it). on os4 happens something similar. i have it installed, but i run it today only to test one thing or another and then switch back to 3.9. for mos i dont have hardware and i dont even know when ive run winuae for the last time. i must be a hopeless cause i guess, but being a true retard i feel good with it.