Kickflash finally available in the US

[redrumloa]

Sorry for the drive by posting, but I wanted to let you all know i have an ample stock of Kickflash boards in stock and ready for immediate delivery. I also am adding plenty more unique and hard to get items like Delfina Flipper Clockport edition.

Still working with the temp shop, sorry. Free US 50 state shipping is still valid.

[redrumloa]

Oops price correction on the Kickflash. It's $47 including shipping, not $50. It's been corrected.

For those who don't know what the Kickflash is, read the original specs HERE

and the final production specs HERE

[amiga2000]

I did not know the kickflash was even available... Is this the one that is/was being released by Individual Computers? On their website, it had said that they would not release it until new kickstart ROM's were released.

The picture looks like this is a zorro card. Individual Computers description seemed like it would fit into the ROM socket, and allow the original Kickstart to be fitted on top of that.

Where can I find out more about this product? I have had a ROM switcher in my Amiga2000 for a long time that has not worked (due to incompatibilities with other cards).
 

[redrumloa]

Hi I just added a couple of links, the second link has the production version specs. It is definately a zorro card and has 1Meg of flash memory and a clockport for future expansion.

I can't wait to play with this myself, there are alot of possibilities!

-Edit-
HERE is the last discussion on AO about it. Once our final site is up I will be adding tons of information, time permitting.. Time time time...

[Pyromania]

So if I read the specs correctly you have to remove the Kickstart ROMS on your motherboard and put them on this Zorro card? (KickFlash).

[Jope]

Pyromania wrote:
So if I read the specs correctly you have to remove the Kickstart ROMS on your motherboard and put them on this Zorro card? (KickFlash).

Read the production specs.. It's now a Zorro card where the kickstart can load rom modules from.

[MaDDuck]

So, let me see if I get this striaght:
1. It will read your KS ROMs and load them into flash RAM
2. It will then access them a bit faster than reading the ROMs from the MLB

therefore, it would offer some performance increase.

And, of course, it would allow a newer machine (A3000, A4000) to actually boot upto a 1.3 ROM.

Did I miss something??

[redrumloa]

Did I miss something??

1) 1MB flash ram: Any left over memory can be used as fast virtual hard drive space.

2) Built in clockport: You can use this for additional expansability, but it is recomended you keep available for when #3 comes out.

3) Flash RAM expansion modules up to 1GB are in development. With one of these hooked up to the expansion module you will have lots of fast virtual HD space.

It's Friday and I plan on installing one of these badboys this weekend for sure. I will share my experiences when I do.

[Lo]

3) Flash RAM expansion modules up to 1GB are in development.

[Lemmink]

MaDDuck wrote:
So, let me see if I get this striaght:
1. It will read your KS ROMs and load them into flash RAM
2. It will then access them a bit faster than reading the ROMs from the MLB

therefore, it would offer some performance increase.

And, of course, it would allow a newer machine (A3000, A4000) to actually boot upto a 1.3 ROM.

Did I miss something??

No no no no.
This card does basically the same as Blizzkick or similar programms. Only that it does this in hardware even before the harddrive has spun up. So you could build your custom made Kickstart by utilizeing parts of the OS3.5/3.9 ROM-Updatefiles or other modules. This will save you the hazzel of an extra reboot.
You can compare this to the flasrom-part of the algor or the ROMulus module for the Highway.

[DanDude]

Very cool!   I might use them for my 2000's.

:-)

[tjaoz]

@MaDDuck

For A3000 and A4000 there is much faster Flash card with all Kickflash features. It is eFlash 4000 from Elbox. eFlash 4000 is a Zorro III card. Kickflash is Zorro II. eFlash 4000 info page is here.

[MaDDuck]

.....I always wondered about that.

Is the speed/performance increase really worth it?

I understand that a 68040@25Mhz needs all of the help that it can get!

[redrumloa]

Is the speed/performance increase really worth it?

Do you use OS3.5 oe 3.9? How many reboots and how long does it take to boot your computer? How much would you appreciate the convience of booting into other rom revisions(say for game compatability)?

IMO it is worth it.

[Lemmink]

@MaDDuck

For A3000 and A4000 there is much faster Flash card with all Kickflash features. It is eFlash 4000 from Elbox. eFlash 4000 is a Zorro III card. Kickflash is Zorro II. eFlash 4000 info page is here.

Whaahaha, that was a good one. Sure makes a huge different if reading of a few hundred kb of kickstartcode takes 0.5 or 0.2 seconds. Advertise this again when Elbox delivers a software that actually let`s you use this card.