New Ematrix 030 Accelerator For A1200?

[amiga1084]

Hello All,

Has anyone heard of this brand Ematrix 030 Accelerator made for Amiga 1200? They are made in the Philippines and said in the Ebay posting they are brand new!

Check it out-
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/EMATRIX-A1230-50-Mhz-A1200-68030-Accelerator-50-Mhz-PGA-CPU-and-32-Meg-RAM-/290922837191?pt=US_Vintage_Computers_Mainframes&hash=item43bc5a34c7&_uhb=1

Thanks in advance,
Merv Stent

[Fats]

Has anyone heard of this brand Ematrix 030 Accelerator made for Amiga 1200?

Highly likely this: Amiga Hardware Database; Big Book of Amiga Hardware

[klx300r]

had a buddy that had one of these back in the day and it worked great in his A1200 rev 1d4

[AmiDude]

The EMatrix A1230 is a decent and reliable card. It's far more better than Jens his ACA-crap (wich isn't plug 'n' play).

[klx300r]

The EMatrix A1230 is a decent and reliable card. It's far more better than Jens his ACA-crap (wich isn't plug 'n' play).

This is a very dishonest statement regarding the Indivision ACA cards. I've got one of the original ACA1230@56 cards and it's the fastest 030 card I've ever owned. Works with everything and is PCMCIA friendly. If you're referring to the fact that one simple line must be added to the startup-sequence to fine tune the card then your statement is exaggerated to say the least.
My only wish is that it had an option for an FPU.

[ZeBeeDee]

Am not Jens bashing here BUT it would have been nice for an install disk (or ADF/DMS archive) that would have read the Kickstart version in the A1200 ROMS and then given you various choices in the way of command line switches, before inserting the relevant line into the startup-sequence.

If other manufactures could do it back in the 90's then surely his programmer(s) could have done likewise ...

Don't get me wrong, the ACA's are great but lets face it, the lack of documentation and software support were a bit sparse at the time.

[AmiDude]

...My only wish is that it had an option for an FPU.

Yeah, that's another downside. But I was referring to the fact that it isn't plug 'n' play with some A1200 mobo's. People on different forums complaining about doing a mod first in order to get it working properly.

[ElPolloDiabl]

I think Jens made a nice product at an affordable price. They sold out very quickly.

A card with any accelerator was very expensive in the old days, partly because RAM cost a fortune as well.

I'll have 2MB RAM upgrade and 40 megabyte hard drive. Price $1500...   :rofl:

[magnetic]

I would def take an ematrix before ANY aca card. This whole "timing fix" thing is BS i've had countless brands of a1200 cpus working no prob. Apollo, ematrix, blizz, gvp, etc etc and yes on dif rev boards

[carls]

Yeah, that's another downside. But I was referring to the fact that it isn't plug 'n' play with some A1200 mobo's. People on different forums complaining about doing a mod first in order to get it working properly.

I bought an ACA 1220 a while back and it didn't work in my A1200 (3.1 ROMs). Since the store selling it didn't inform me of the possible need for timing fixes, I returned the card and got a refund.

I fail to understand why the ACA cards are so finicky. I've used several other cards in that Amiga without problems, including a Blizzard 1260 from DCE. The idea of soldering on the MoBo when all my other cards work perfectly isn't very appealing. I know that Ind. Comp. is a one-man effort but if all other card manufacturers managed to bypass the timing fixes, why not IC? It's weird to me.

Individual Computers have done some good stuff as well. I've previously owned an X-Surf card which worked brilliantly, both the network side and the IDE controller.

[som99]

Well I have an ACA 1231/42MHz I had to do timing fix on my miggy but wasen't so hard then just a simple line in startup-sequence and all ran like a charm, so im happy with it even if I did not know I had to do timing fixes before I bought it it was quite easy to find out.

But sure, they should write when selling that some boards require timing fixes.
But it's fully understandable that some people do not want or can do the timing fixes.

Besides that I love my card and it runs great

[carls]

Well I have an ACA 1231/42MHz I had to do timing fix on my miggy but wasen't so hard then just a simple line in startup-sequence and all ran like a charm, so im happy with it even if I did not know I had to do timing fixes before I bought it it was quite easy to find out.

No, the timing fixes referenced here are actual hardware fixes, which means that you have to do some soldering on your A1200 motherboard. It's not needed for _all_ A1200:s, but quite a lot of them seems to need this (and from what I've gathered, different MoBo revisions require different fixes). The ACATune software added to the startup-sequence will not fix any of these problems.

[som99]

No, the timing fixes referenced here are actual hardware fixes, which means that you have to do some soldering on your A1200 motherboard. It's not needed for _all_ A1200:s, but quite a lot of them seems to need this (and from what I've gathered, different MoBo revisions require different fixes). The ACATune software added to the startup-sequence will not fix any of these problems.

Wait what? I did not say that the ACATune software did fix any timing issue. Maybe I was to unclear in my phrasing.

What I wrote was that I had to do a timing fix which wasen't hard for me since I got no problems soldering (it was also quite easy to find info about this for different MB revs, my mb was a rev 2B board). Then I only had to install ACATune and add a line to my startup-sequence.

I had to do the rev 2B fix found here http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Amiga/amiga_hacks/A1200_Mobo_fix/a1200_mobo_fix.html

Read what I wrote again. Two things, timing fix and add a startup-sequence line (for the ACAtune software).

I had to do timing fix on my miggy but wasen't so hard then just a simple line in startup-sequence

[Tenacious]

I would def take an ematrix before ANY aca card. This whole "timing fix" thing is BS i've had countless brands of a1200 cpus working no prob. Apollo, ematrix, blizz, gvp, etc etc and yes on dif rev boards

+1

Jens has made some innovative products when other makers were leaving the market.  OTOH, he seems to use buyers as his testers.  I have a worthless Delina Flipper (IIRC, several hundred dollars!), that at the time I bought it, was assumed to be plug-n-play and completely functional.  

My ACA also doesn't work.  I have tried once to apply timing fixes, so far, with no success (and I'm no dunce with a soldering iron!).

I will generally take a wait and see attitude before buying anything else from Jens.

[midway]

Excuse my ignorance, but what exactly happens if u dont do the timing fix? Will it crash? And do all 1200s need it? What can I do to check if an a1200 needs it ? There was some game but I forgot...