ACA1230/56 - what's the deal?

[brownb2]

What's the deal with Amigakit not stocking the ACA1230 56mhz? Is this version prone to overheating or something in comparison to the 42mhz?

I've got an O/C'd Viper at 42mhz so the ACA1230/42 model will only get me a nominal speed increase of around 1 MIP or so, whereas the 56mhz is significantly faster tha  the one I have. Really I want my Amiga to be capable of playing stereo MP3s, at the moment I can just manage mono.

[EDIT]I see as of today they don't even have the ACA1230/42 [/EDIT]

[Buzzfuzz]

Their not being made anymore.
You could ask Jens, but I doubt he's going to make more now, he's busy with the Indivision Mk2 and a SATA controller.

[brownb2]

Shame, I'd like to believe there is still a market at least to shift 5-10 units a month but stopping production would suggest it's just not feasible especially if it's just a one man affair.

[Buzzfuzz]

Well I'm sure he has whole team backing him up, but the thing is parts and resources, it's getting more and more expensive.
 

Shame, I'd like to believe there is still a market at least to shift 5-10 units a month but stopping production would suggest it's just not feasible especially if it's just a one man affair.

[zipper]

I think it's just because of too high parts price.

[Akiko]

Has Jens actually said somewhere that there won't be another production run?

[amigakit]

There will not be another run of 1230/56 unless some 50Mhz 68030 CPUs are found.

Individual Computers stated at the time that the all the ACA 1230 cards were a one-off special run.  Once they are gone, thats it.

[runequester]

No heat issues that I noticed, but I think a shortage of suitable processors is the culprit.

[Akiko]

There will not be another run of 1230/56 unless some 50Mhz 68030 CPUs are found.

Individual Computers stated at the time that the all the ACA 1230 cards were a one-off special run.  Once they are gone, thats it.

Aww that's a real shame, I can't think of a single piece of hardware in recent years that has benefited the average user and for people coming back to the community more.

I guess unless someone comes up with a new FPGA based accelerator in future, then £70+ for a used 8MB memory card on eBay will remain the norm.

[dreamcast270mhz]

Akiko,

What would be neat would be a 500mhz FPGA PPC/68k accelerator card, that was dual core, one for each type of CPU.

[Iggy]

Akiko,

What would be neat would be a 500mhz FPGA PPC/68k accelerator card, that was dual core, one for each type of CPU.

That's an interesting idea, but I don't think FPGAs are powerful enough to handle the PPC side of this task.
There are some FPGAs with PPC processors built in (I think the Virtex-5 series has that option).

[Tripitaka]

Why is it when I read this thread it reminded me to check on the Natami site I wonder?

[zipper]

No heat issues that I noticed, but I think a shortage of suitable processors is the culprit.

Jens wrote in January:
> Wenn ich irgendwann mal CPUs zu nem vernünftigen Preis bekomme, wird's auch wieder 56MHz-Karten geben. Leider ist das im Moment nicht der Fall, praktisch alle Chip-Broker sehen eine 50MHz 68030-CPU (sogar die B-Typen) in astronomischen Höhen. Neu kaufen ist keine Option (da teurer als die ACA selbst) - einzig Abwarten hilft...

The CPU chips are ATM available only for astronomical prices.
So it's the price, not shortage.

[brownb2]

That's probably due to the fact that Freescale (who I believe purchased the chip fab from Motorola) only manufacture the chip in sets of 10,000 and the 68030 and below are marked as "discontinued", per unit price depending upon model is ~$100. I guess resellers/trade sellers have to get their markup somehow.

Jens wrote in January:
The CPU chips are ATM available only for astronomical prices.
So it's the price, not shortage.

[Crumb]

I want my Amiga to be capable of playing stereo MP3s, at the moment I can just manage mono.

A 030 won't be enough to play 44Khz 128kbit MP3 in stereo. You would need a 060 in order to do that comfortably.