New type of accelerator design?

[tone007]

If you're talking about using the classic chipset (eg a 1200), the faster the accelerator the less sense it makes (as detailed above).  

It makes more sense for a 3000/4000 though because they don't actually use the chipset (in which case are they even really Amiga's in the first place?).

You seem to be a bit confused.  The 1200 and 4000 share a chipset, the 3000 is closer to the "original" chipset but they're all the Amiga chipset, just different revisions.

[Cammy]

I also think a new PPC accelerator for classic Amigas would be kind of pointless now. First, to keep it compatible it would still need a rare/expensive 68k CPU on it. Then it'd need a PPC as well, and with this you'd still be bottlenecked by the slow A1200 bus and AGA chipset, and probably would only be able to run OS4.0 (not 4.1), and that's provided they're 100% compatible with the old 603/604 accelerators, or else Hyperion would have to make another port. It would probably end up costing as much or more than a Sam440 too.

[NovaCoder]

You seem to be a bit confused.  The 1200 and 4000 share a chipset, the 3000 is closer to the "original" chipset but they're all the Amiga chipset, just different revisions.

Your typical 4000T with a Mediator, Radeon, PPC/060 etc wouldn't make use of Paula and friends in day-to-day usage.

In otherwords, how many RTG users run WB (and WB applications) in AGA

It would have made more sense to ditch the old planar chipset for the 3000/4000 and gone chunky RTG instead.

So to get back on topic, a super fast accelerator for the 4000....yes please, for the 1200/600/500 then no thanks.

[tone007]

It'd make exactly as much use of the chipset as a 1200 with a Mediator, Radeon and PPC/060 would.

[tone007]

Your typical 4000T with a Mediator, Radeon, PPC/060 etc wouldn't make use of Paula and friends in day-to-day usage.

It'd make exactly as much use of the chipset as a 1200 with a Mediator, Radeon and PPC/060 would.

In otherwords, how many RTG users run WB in AGA

Those are some other words.  A great many RTG users out there are using classic Zorro RTG cards, and not Mediator setups.  Accelerators help there, too.

[tone007]

So to get back on topic, a super fast accelerator for the 4000....yes please, for the 1200/600/500 then no thanks.

Seriously, quit bundling the 1200 in with the "old" machines, it's nearly as powerful as the 4000 with the right parts.  You've obviously never seen a nice 1200T setup.

[NovaCoder]

Seriously, quit bundling the 1200 in with the "old" machines, it's nearly as powerful as the 4000 with the right parts.  You've obviously never seen a nice 1200T setup.

But that's my point, a nice 1200T setup with Mediator + RTG & PPC makes no sense to me.....the 1200 MB is not even being used anymore.

[tone007]

But that's my point, a nice 1200T setup with Mediator + RTG & PPC makes no sense to me.....the 1200 MB is not even being used anymore.

Of course it is.  What if you want to play a game of Lemmings?

[recidivist]

The analogy of 1950s teenagers hot-rodding old  Ford Model T comes to mind;all these non-Commodore accelerators change the machine in ways never  part of the original.What we may end up with is a higher performance machine that has little  in common with the original.If one replaces the engine(cpu),the transmission(bus board),the wheels and tires(graphics card),the steering wheel,gearshift,and pedals(new usb mouse,keyboard,the gas tank,(memory),the seats and dashboard(display and GUI),neither machine is really a Ford(Amiga).
Both were popular machines  and both are limited and considered  rightfully obsolete today!
 Both are nice hobby machines to be rolled out at shows and  quiet  weekend s,neither is ready for any superhighway.
If one wants a high performance machine for today AND insists on being "true" to the original then  a new Mustang(SAM 440) is probably a better way to spend money.
 Not so incidentally,I  plan on thinning the herd here soon -have 15 or 20 Amigas and rarely use ANY of them anymore.Maybe I can raise enough funds for a SAM.

[stefcep2]

Personally a mac mini for $200 Aus with ecs emulation running OS 4 would make any 68k-ppc card pointless.

I think a RAM card would be also a good seller for A1200 users who just want a flash card whdload games "console"

[sim085]

What would be nice is to have a re-distribushin of some 'old' accelerator card which was available back then! Are these boards still under patent/copyright? if not, then why can't they just be copied by some company (or a group of people) and re-sold. A pre-order model could be used to make sure no money gets lost.

[bloodline]

What would be nice is to have a re-distribushin of some 'old' accelerator card which was available back then! Are these boards still under patent/copyright? if not, then why can't they just be copied by some company (or a group of people) and re-sold. A pre-order model could be used to make sure no money gets lost.

Any old design is a total no go. Any design now must be RoSH, so any new electronics would be a redesign.

[560SL]

060 for A500... give it to me, NOW!

[Khephren]

Is the trapdoor only for ram and processors? Or could a graphics card (in theory) be designed for it?

[nikodr]

Is the trapdoor only for ram and processors? Or could a graphics card (in theory) be designed for it?

In theory all could happen.Problem is that amiga is not alive anymore in the commercial sense.Back in 80ies or 90ies you could go into any major store that sells computer and electronics and you could find any major supplier selling hardware and software for amiga.Nowdays amiga is just retro thing,and even if not sometimes you have to be a specialist shaman that knows magic words such as amiga os 4.x and sam 440 which most people wouldn't know.

Now in theory if amiga zorro boards and the entire amiga thing would be alive we could have expansions like these.But you see....amiga tries to catch up with the latest pc upgrades.

Mediator pci cards,usb.In my opinion we could even use amiga just as a keyboard controller and psu (easily make a new fpga p4 or ppc g5 card on the expansion slot,use 4 gigabytes of ram and make it boot into a new os.What would amiga then be?Just a keyboard and psu.)

In theory everything is possible
But how many developers are active and how much money we they want to make out of a so fragmented market as the amiga ? (morphos,amiga os 4,aros,amiga os 3.x)

[recidivist]

Exactly WHAT made  an AMIGA special ?

 I submit it was a combination of the OS and the custom chips for sound and video.And I submit the world-wide switch to digital video and audio makes those special Amiga chips  advantages irrelevant now.

 The Amiga OS can be rewritten to run on commodity hardware.It was done already with Amithlon,it can be done again.Amiga Forever  on modern PCs outruns original Amigas as well.

 It is silly of purists to reject Amiga OS x86  as not true Amiga because TRUE Amiga means maximim of 68060 cpu,16 meg RAM,etc. just as sold by Commodore,Escom,Quikpak .(A case can be made that PPC accelerator cards are in the spirit of the original Amiga.)How many insist Apple computers sold  since Apple's change of cpu are not truly  Apples?Would Commodore have switched cpu families ?

  Is not Amiga OS THE single defining difference now ?So it would be nice if Amiga OS would run on all widely available platforms,by which I mean x86,PPC , and whatever is in  super smartphones.I believe this is what Amiga,Inc. had as their vision but lacked the resources to do it.