Accelerator for Amiga 600 advice

[scu98rkr]

I want to buy an accelerator for my Amiga 600.

The ACA 630 looks perfect but that is not available anymore.

The ACA 620 looks to considerably less powerful ? Especially as its only got a 68020EC with approx 10MB instead of the full 68020 with more memory.

I see there is also something called a Furia S628. Do you need to order this direct from the creator ?

Anyone know which is quick ACA 620 or Furia S628 ?

Anyone know if any more ACA 630's are ever likely to be produced again ?

[Iggy]

I want to buy an accelerator for my Amiga 600.
 
The ACA 630 looks perfect but that is not available anymore.
 
The ACA 620 looks to considerably less powerful ? Especially as its only got a 68020EC with approx 10MB instead of the full 68020 with more memory.
 
I see there is also something called a Furia S628. Do you need to order this direct from the creator ?
 
Anyone know which is quick ACA 620 or Furia S628 ?
 
Anyone know if any more ACA 630's are ever likely to be produced again ?

The reason for the shift in production is the availability of processors.
And no, the ACA630 is probably out of production.
Look for a used one.

[scu98rkr]

Cheers for the reply seems pretty poor that the tech to make the accelerator is there but the 68030 processors arent.

[scu98rkr]

seems quite strange that the 1232 is still in production then with a 68030 processor and reasonably priced at £120.

[Iggy]

If you are only going to produce a few, virtually any 68K processor is still available (except some of the late mask '040s and '060s).
 
But finding a good source for any quantity can be difficult.
These are old chips.

[pyrre]

What about making the ACA 030 without the cpu. just adding a socket for cpu and fpu...?
there has got to be a bunch of amigans having a cpu available....

[alexh]

ACA630 doesn't have an FPU.

[pyrre]

ACA630 doesn't have an FPU.

My point was to make the aca 030 board with sockets for connecting a cpu and even an fpu.. If such socket is desirable...

Many of us got processors collecting dust. why not put them to use..

Even in the future make 040 and 060 boards with just sockets...
I got a 040 i cant use as the accelerator is broken....
Would be nice with some new hardware for it.

[alexh]

You've obviously no idea how much it costs to make an accelerator. The market for new accelerators is already highly diluted by the number of Apollo 620, Apollo 630, ACA-630, ACA-620 accelerators there are in existence already.

Your only chance for a new ACA-630 would be to contact Jens schoenfeld directly and ask him if he has any spare. I believe by law he probably needs to keep back a percentage of spares for warranty replacements. EU warranty lasts for two years.

But your best bet is the second hand market.

Oh and the Furia is a 28MHz 68000 accelerator with 2Mbytes RAM and so is going to be slower than the 16MHz ACA-620 but not by too much.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ciIBY59hSyo#!

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm105/fitzsteve/P1010885.jpg

[pyrre]

You've obviously no idea how much it costs to make an accelerator.

No i do not. sorry for my ignorance.
But when you already got an available board.. how hard is it to just the cpu socket?

[spirantho]

This has been suggested in the past. I seem to recall that Jens didn't like the idea because the support questions would come back to him, and possibly reflect badly on his product.

When you control the entire board, you have control over Quality Assurance.
When you provide just a socket, the customer could put in fake, damaged or just plain wrong chips, and he'd still have to provide support - and if he didn't then it would look bad for him.

That's why there's not a socket version, and to be honest it makes sense to me. Keeping a good rep is hard enough, let alone when people are fitting their own CPUs....

[pyrre]

This has been suggested in the past. I seem to recall that Jens didn't like the idea because the support questions would come back to him, and possibly reflect badly on his product.

When you control the entire board, you have control over Quality Assurance.
When you provide just a socket, the customer could put in fake, damaged or just plain wrong chips, and he'd still have to provide support - and if he didn't then it would look bad for him.

That's why there's not a socket version, and to be honest it makes sense to me. Keeping a good rep is hard enough, let alone when people are fitting their own CPUs....

Put that way it makes sense.

[alexh]

But when you already got an available board.. how hard is it to just the cpu socket?

You should be asking the question like... "There are no more left... how much would it cost to do another production run?" and the answer must be "too much".

There is an ACA-630/25 for sale over at Amibay with an A600 + A604 for €370. It would have originally cost €250 without the A600. See if you can barter him down.

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=34633&highlight=aca630

[fitzsteve]

I understand a lot of the work on the ACA630 was done by hand and made it more expensive to produce, a shame really as it is truly the best option for an A600 by a long way.  Sadly second hand prices have reached such heights that it's now cheaper to buy an A1200 and Blizzard 1230!  You'll even have change for some other goodies!

ACA620 is actually a pretty decent spec for an A600 since really you wont get the most out of the ACA630 due to the limitations of ECS (i.e a 16 colour workbench still runs quite slow on an A600 even with ACA630)

The 620 still has MapRom and 11.3mb is still enough for most ECS WHDload games, the 16mhz 020 gives an 8 colour workbench a nice boost even at 800x600 with the Indi ECS which is what I run my A600 with now since selling my ACA630.  Of course I miss the 630's power but the 620 is enough for me...

[scu98rkr]

Ok I ordered a ACA 620 I'll see how it goes.

Do you think it might be worth getting an Indi ECS in the future ?

Unfortunately my trapdoor expansion is an  original I brought as a kid in the 90's so would need to upgrade to 604 too.