Ultra RARE! X-Calibur accelerator for Amiga 4000, pre-production unit #5!

[JimDrew]

I am selling my nearly one of kind (well one of five, and only one known left in existence) pre-production X-Calibur board.  eBay link:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/130786217816?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

[Zac67]

Actually, it's not an accelerator. It's a memory board for the A3640 accelerator.

[JimDrew]

Actually, it is an accelerator because you can run a 33MHz 040 in the board instead of the stock 25Mhz version.

[Zac67]

Interesting, didn't know that yet. Where does the faster oscillator go?

[kickstart]

Where is the processor?

[Zac67]

Never mind, found the manual - the oscillator is swapped on the 3640. So the X-Calibur seems to fix the messy delay logic through the CPU socket - even more interesting.

I would really like to get my hands on this board but it's probably out of my budget. Plus my 3k would require some hacksaw treatment...

@Kickstart: the X-Calibur plugs into the A3640's CPU socket, the original CPU (or a faster one) then moves to the X-Calibur's socket.

[kickstart]

@zac67

Yes i read it in the pic of the box but... without cpu isnt an accelerator at all.

[danbeaver]

Nope, just an early way to exceed the motherboard 16 MB with a direct CPU connection for fast access

[JimDrew]

@zac67

Yes i read it in the pic of the box but... without cpu isnt an accelerator at all.

They typically came without a CPU, and people just removed the CPU from the A3640 board.  But, RCS Management also offered them with a XC68040RC33 for about $300 more.  This let you increase the speed to 33MHz.  These are about $50 now on eBay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/CPU-Chip-Motorola-68040-33-XC68040RC33M-33MHz-w-FPU-Math-LC475-/130750621324?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e7158268c).

So, yes, it can be an accelerator.  I got this one from RCS about 6 months before they were finally released.  This one had many jumper wires (as you can see from the pictures) and an all gold pin interface connector.  The production models used tin pins, not gold.  The memory speed difference was amazing because it uses 64 bit interleaved memory access.

My BUY IT NOW was $200, so I am curious what will happen now that people have bid on it.

[Evillord68]

For all which ask, how fast is this compo, here are my test results:

http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6971&highlight=x-calibur

But my card only works to 27,5MHZ, 33MHZ not possible with my card.

[Crumb]

@JimDrew

FYI the Cyberstorm MK1 you are selling seems to be the 040 model as it lacks the 060 eeprom/firmware chip(s). CSMK1 requires a 060 firmware to work as 060. In addition to that the cpu daughterboard will probably lack a voltage regulator so if somebody plugs-in a 060 he'll probably fry it in a second. If I were you I would update the add with the right information. Upgrading a CSMK1/040 to a 060 is no easy without a real 060 daughterboard, you can check out http://www.a1k.org to see some pics of the process.

[TjLaZer]

@JimDrew

FYI the Cyberstorm MK1 you are selling seems to be the 040 model as it lacks the 060 eeprom/firmware chip(s). CSMK1 requires a 060 firmware to work as 060. In addition to that the cpu daughterboard will probably lack a voltage regulator so if somebody plugs-in a 060 he'll probably fry it in a second. If I were you I would update the add with the right information. Upgrading a CSMK1/040 to a 060 is no easy without a real 060 daughterboard, you can check out http://www.a1k.org to see some pics of the process.

Someone should send him a message on eBay as well with this info, dont want to see anyone fry an 060 and or their Amiga...

[JimDrew]

@JimDrew

FYI the Cyberstorm MK1 you are selling seems to be the 040 model as it lacks the 060 eeprom/firmware chip(s). CSMK1 requires a 060 firmware to work as 060. In addition to that the cpu daughterboard will probably lack a voltage regulator so if somebody plugs-in a 060 he'll probably fry it in a second. If I were you I would update the add with the right information. Upgrading a CSMK1/040 to a 060 is no easy without a real 060 daughterboard, you can check out www.a1k.org to see some pics of the process.

I looked at the link you provided and found nothing about the MKI (other than the SCSI).  The manuals that came with my boards (I bought two complete setups at the same time from Phase 5, one with the 060 installed and one without the 060) talks only about the 060.  The CPU board has the 50MHz oscillator, which is used by the 060 (not the 040).  Several people have PM'd me about the oscillator confirming that is the version for the 060.

I am selling it exactly how I bought it, which is suppose to be compatible with either an 040 or 060.  But I did order it specifically for the 060, as a backup board in case any of the original boards (which also had a sequential serial numbers) were to die.  That never happened, and I sold that system back in the late 90's.

[Dr.Bongo]

My Mk1 CS (which is an 060) looks exactly like the one in your pictures, ROM included.

[JimDrew]

For all which ask, how fast is this compo, here are my test results:

http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6971&highlight=x-calibur

But my card only works to 27,5MHZ, 33MHZ not possible with my card.

With the addition of the X-Calibur boards we were able to help a couple of Hollywood production studios (Amblin Entertainment being one of them) blaze through post production using our Mac emulation with the Avid hardware/software.  We could run the editing suite about 4 times faster than a real Mac, thanks to our replacement floating point math packages and the X-Calibur's super fast memory access.