The DraCo/Dracovision, the first "true" Amiga clone

[aperez]

Thanks, I've joined. I'm looking to figure out how to get to the workbench on my Draco Casablanca. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions

[Gulliver]

@aperez

An approach which MAY have some result:
1-Take out the harddisk from the casablanca put it in a PC, make a backup (disk image).
2-Run WinUAE and add the harddisk to it
3-Format the disk using FFS
4-Instal workbench 3.1
5-Install Picasso96 or Cybergraphx Altais drivers
6-If casablanca is a 060 install a proper 68060.library
7-Put the harddisk back to your casablanca
8-Cross your fingers and pray... You may be able to watch something on the screen.

NOTE: Check the motherboard of the casablanca for the graphics chip it is using, and change the driver accordingly (If it exists). I dont know which chip it is using, i am assuming it is some Altais variant!


GOOD LUCK!

[Pyromania]

I played with the Draco cube in Germany in 1995. It was a cool system.

[Tension]

Well, given the fact that the Draco runs AmigaOS, but not hardware hitting programs... And this is a feature of the "NextGen" Amiga machines... Perhaps te Draco should be considered the first of the NextGen machines?

Good point.

What if it could run UAE, would that then make it an Amiga clone because it would run all Amiga software.  Hmmm....

[cv643d]

IMHO no, WB needs to be able to run in hardware at least.

[Gulliver]

@aperez

More on the Casablanca: you wont have audio, sound chip is unsupported by current AHI drivers, Chip is an Analog Devices AD1845JP more info on it at http://datasheet.octopart.com/AD1845JP-Analog-Devices-datasheet-21662.pdf
Tocatta soundcard uses Analog Device 1848KP chipset which may be compatible with the 1845JP
details at http://datasheet.octopart.com/AD1848KP-Analog-Devices-datasheet-117009.pdf

About Casablanca floppy format:
The floppy disk is a pc one and it uses special pc format (blocks of 1 Kb with specially encoded mfm values to protect against copying on pc), but the file system is a typical amiga file system adapted to this format (changed block sizes).You can easily mount an image of this floppy disk using simple mountlist on a real amiga.

ROM/Kickstart: It uses Amiga 3000 kickstart roms plus other custom made, that heavily patches the first ones.

[jaesonk]

There's still an Amiga VLabMotion & DraCo group on Yahoo:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amiga_vlabmotion/

DraCo can run AmigaOS3.9:
http://www.cash-multimedia.com/ms5.html

DraCo is the only Amiga device/clone/whatever that supports Firewire.  It was available as an add-on board.  I can use HD cameras with my DraCo.  HD camera downconverts to SD, connect to DraCo via Firewire and get a very high quality image.

DraCo was expensive but so was the VideoToaster/Flyer once you added all the pieces to make it usable (Amiga box/accelerator card/TBCs/etc).  DraCo & MovieShop offered much more than the Digital Broadcaster NLE.  The MovieShop NLE has essentially unlimited tracks of video & audio, fx, titling, etc.  MovieShop is Avid-ish.  With the multi-play feature, I can play up to 6 synced clips in a window and click the ones I want as it plays in realtime, from there it creates a basic timeline with my edit decisions.  It's like a virtual switcher.  Great for multi-camera coverage of events.

Video partition size on DraCo isn't limited as it was on the little brother VLM.  I have 180GB SCSI drives in my DraCo.  Partition it large or small.  I'm not sure if Toaster/Flyer had size limits.

DraCo works with USB cards & ethernet.  It has a ZII bus.  The other expansion bus is the custom DraCo bus, which is faster than Z3, but only supported by MacroSystems custom DraCo cards.  

I have used multiple display cards on my DraCo with CyberGraphX.  I can have MovieShop on one monitor and Monument Designer open on a 2nd monitor.

If I render something more complicated on my Mac, I can export a JPG stream of images to an ISO9660 DVD and then read that on my DraCo into MovieShop.

The DraCo Cube is slightly faster than the Tower version.

AmigaOS 4 is sadly missing video editing capabilities.  Even a direct port of MovieShop to OS4, without any new features, would be a big improvement and enticement for running OS4.  You'd have to work a way around the custom hardware though.

[jaesonk]

Der Draconer (German resource):
http://draconer.gmxhome.de/

Yahoo DraCo Group (German):
http://de.groups.yahoo.com/group/draconer/

Scene-Handler group:
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/scenehandler

MovieShop group (Italian):
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/moviework

[orb85750]

Yes, I'd call Draco an Amiga clone even if it was designed for nonlinear video and couldn't run all your game software.  After all, it was 040 or 060 and ran OS 3.1.  BUT their next system, the Draco Casablanca (which I own), is a black box that doesn't even read Amiga disks, or have a CLI as far as I can tell.  It runs some type of patched OS 3.1, but it's not a computer IMO unless I can figure out how to get into it.

[orb85750]

Hi there, if interest still exists and if there are people out there with Draco's and Casablanca's i'd be glad to share thoughts with you in the group i started a few weeks ago! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Draco-Casablanca/?yguid=345414320
I just hope this isn't considered a show-off.. :-) Strangely enough, nobody seems to have visited!

That group has been around for a couple of years, right?  Anyway, I'm still hoping to get an answer to my question there about the Casablanca (from Oct. 23), but I'm not holding my breath.

[amigau]

more on DraCo history here:

http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/draco.html

amigau
http://www.amigau.com

[Iggy]

I seem to remember a company selling bare Casablancas for rebuilding old systems.
I'll have to see if I can find the site again.
If I remember right the price was in the $4000 to $600 range.

[Gulliver]

@Iggy
http://templates.earthstores.com/1147/list.asp?id=4D434E414C4C5953504C5547414E44504C4159&cat=144517

[mechy]

I have/use a draco vision, and it runs a remarkable amount of rtg amiga software etc.It uses real 3.1 roms and works with a real workbench 3.1(i have 3.9 installed on it currently).

They actually built custom version of the amiga (vlab,retina z3,tocatta)boards that use the dracobus,which is fatser than Zorro3.CPU board(named eltannin iirc)has the 68060,3.1 roms,and other stuff on it,its the size of a zorrocard. and the retina is called Atlaise.

Close or not its a remarkable amount of engineering.

sadly the draco cubes came out originally here in the usa at $15000.luckily i got mine cheap from a friend.Support was always horrible from macrosystems and many needed chip upgrades to work right,some bad solder joints(the one i got originally had a small oak stick pushing on a card for it to operate reliable lol.

It does operate well,i still have a old movie on the harddrive i pulled in and never did edit or mess with it.. heh

One of the amiga mags had a great review of the draco cube.. here: http://amr.abime.net/issue_2867_pages <-page 40 on....

mike

[Iggy]

@Iggy
http://templates.earthstores.com/1147/list.asp?id=4D434E414C4C5953504C5547414E44504C4159&cat=144517

That would be the site! Thanks Gulliver.

[orb85750]

That would be the site! Thanks Gulliver.

Very expensive.  Go to eBay for cheaper (and complete) Casablanca systems if you want one.