Crappy comparison of Amiga 1200 vs Atari Falcon

[pyrre]

Not sure why he keeps making reference to pc and mac sound cards too, saying that by the 90's the Amiga's sound was lagging behind. Maybe he doesn't know that 16-bit sound cards have always been around for the A1500/2000/3000/4000 machines. Even the wedge-cased Amiga's got 16-bit sound cards...these connected via serial/parallel, pcmcia, or clockport.

With the standard 68EC020 cpu onboard the A1200, the bus is 24 not 32-bit. Adding a cpu upgrade with fastram gives 32-bit. Unless he was referring to AGA? If he was then the falcon bus width should have been listed as 16 not 32.

Check this (very long) thread out if you fancy some Atari vs Amiga discussion/arguments/flame-wars. They talk about the Falcon vs. A1200 too later on in the thread IIRC:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/29957-atari-st-vs-amiga/page-1?hl=fastrobplusamiga1000

Enjoy

Question:

Looking at the surface of the A1200 motherboard. you see prints next to the 020 cpu. looking like the oulines of a 6881/2 fpu. if one found a full blown MC 020 and a fpu... I wonder if it would be possible to replace the cpu and add an fpu directly to the motherboard. and would it be possible to replace the crystal with, lets say 16mhz....

I have wondered about his for many years....

[giZmo350]

Question:

Looking at the surface of the A1200 motherboard. you see prints next to the 020 cpu. looking like the oulines of a 6881/2 fpu. if one found a full blown MC 020 and a fpu... I wonder if it would be possible to replace the cpu and add an fpu directly to the motherboard. and would it be possible to replace the crystal with, lets say 16mhz....

I have wondered about his for many years....

Yes Sir!

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=69974

I know I saw a detailed blog once but can't find it ATM....
Here's some additional Googling....http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=amiga+1200+fpu&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1

[OldB0y]

£599 probably - the US prices were:
"The Falcon030 is available in four variations -- 1 meg of RAM and no hard
drive, 4 meg of RAM and no hard drive, 4 meg of RAM and an 80 meg hard
drive, and 14 meg of RAM and an 80 meg hard drive.  Retail prices range
from $799 to $1899.  Actual street price is generally $100-200 less."

Nope, I remember the UK magazine ads for it.  Pricing in the UK almost never reflects the actual dollar to pound currancy conversion.  Due to additional taxes etc, if something in the US is $799, it will more often than not end up being £799 (ie about 1.5 times more than what it costs in the US), if not a LOT more.  This was the case for many years, and for many products, still is.

[pyrre]

Yes Sir!

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=69974

I know I saw a detailed blog once but can't find it ATM....
Here's some additional Googling....http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=amiga+1200+fpu&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1

sweet.. i didn't know that.

now. next question.. is it possible to replace the cpu with a proper MC 020?
and thirdly.. is it possible to overclock the system, if so. by how much?
20mhz- 25mhz??

[giZmo350]

sweet.. i didn't know that.

now. next question.. is it possible to replace the cpu with a proper MC 020?
and thirdly.. is it possible to overclock the system, if so. by how much?
20mhz- 25mhz??

MC020? Hmmm, maybe, But timing of most of the a1200 circuits are synchronous, which would alter other HW operations if you change the CPU clock. I think any clock change to the CPU would require a separate clock (in theory)... that's why accelerators work.

Interesting read here... doesn't really go anywhere and a promising link is dead.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=67006

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Looking at the surface of the A1200 motherboard. you see prints next to the 020 cpu. looking like the oulines of a 6881/2 fpu. if one found a full blown MC 020 and a fpu... I wonder if it would be possible to replace the cpu and add an fpu directly to the motherboard. and would it be possible to replace the crystal with, lets say 16mhz....

Yes, you can add a 68881.  It's been done and there's pictures somewhere here on the forum.  But it will only run at 14MHz.  And no, you can't replace the crystal, since that will throw off all the Amiga's other timings.  :p

Edit:  Oops, missed Gizmo's response!  

[pyrre]

@gizmo350 and oldsmobile_Mike
I see. pretty much stuck with the 14mhz speeds then.

[Kronos]

And as to replacing the 68ec20 with a full 68020.

a) you wouldn't get any benefits, since the Mobo still has only 24bit addressspace

b) those extra 8 signals might get confusing signals (assuming there even is an 020 with the same package as the ec)

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

pretty much stuck with the 14mhz speeds then.

Add an accelerator!  

[matthey]

@gizmo350 and oldsmobile_Mike
I see. pretty much stuck with the 14mhz speeds then.

Stuck with 68EC020@14 MHz? Your sig says:

"Amiga 1200 Tower Os 3.9
BPPC 603e+ 040-25/200, 256MBram, BVIsionPPC, Indivision AGA MK2"

An Amiga 1200 motherboard would not be worth modding even if doubling the clock frequency of the 68EC020 was possible. The performance would still be bottle necked by the lack of data cache (which forces memory to be used directly without any cache for data) and slow chip memory (data accesses are not cached so the CPU waits for these slow memory accesses). If you are poor (it appears not from your sig) then add a fast memory card to a stock 1200. If you have enough money for more performance, a good 68030 (or FPGA) accelerator with fast memory could provide several times stock performance while maintaining excellent compatibility. A 68040-68060 would provide significantly more performance but some compatibility is lost compared to a 68020/68030.

@Oldsmobile_Mike
You beat me with the short answer. You must have had your coffee today .

[pyrre]

Add an accelerator!  

yeah.. i got one.
but i was just going to tinker about with one of the MB i have....

The thought goes:
Route the 28mhz signal from the oscillator directly to the CLK pin on the cpu. That should in theory run the cpu at 28Mhz.
and add fpu and 4/8MB trapdoor ram card....

This should work, in theory at least. and of course unless one need complicated circuits to maintain the timing with the chipset...

Would be fun to test it out, just to see if it would work....

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

@Oldsmobile_Mike
You beat me with the short answer. You must have had your coffee today .

Third cup!  

Yeah, I saw that sig and was scratching my head, too.  Maybe he's trolling?  

[pyrre]

Third cup!  

Yeah, I saw that sig and was scratching my head, too.  Maybe he's trolling?  

Trolling.... WTF

Is it no longer possible to have any conversation with fellow amigans withoug getting flamed....?

[matthey]

Trolling.... WTF

Is it no longer possible to have any conversation with fellow amigans without getting flamed....?

Trolling was my first thought also. There is no next generation Amiga talk so I figured there was a logical explanation. I refrained from using the word troll but I still made a joke of the "inconsistency" .

[golem]

I would have loved a 56001 DSP on the A1200. I think they missed the boat in just sticking with Paula. And thats why the Atari produced numerous Cubase revisions.

[pyrre]

Trolling was my first thought also. There is no next generation Amiga talk so I figured there was a logical explanation. I refrained from using the word troll but I still made a joke of the "inconsistency" .

The whole tread was about A1200 VS Falcon....
what is then wrong in airing some thoughts about the A1200 and what it could be capable about with minimum expense?