Potential add-on board?

[nyteschayde]

I cannot help but think that the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3 would make a great platform for an accelerator for the Amiga.

With the raw CPU power (as compared to the 68k platform), and the RAM, an accelerator card that takes a CM1 or CM3 card and uses the ARM CPU as either a CPU accelerator via 68K emulation and/or as a secondary processor in the same way that a PPC is used on the Amiga platform.

If not as a CPU, perhaps as a video card. With HDMI out and the GPU on the CM3, it could/would be a great peripheral in that aspect as well. It also can serve as a USB stack provider given it can run in either HOST or OTG mode.

Finally, barring everything else, it could serve as a computer in the computer for when you need to browse the internet. I am sure a parallel port data transfer could be setup.

Seems like someone like TerribleFire could work wonders with the flexibility this $30 card offers.

[nicholas]

I've long fantasised of an x86 running a 68k cpu emulator on a trapdoor card or cpu slot board, arm would be nice also. Far beyond my capabilities though.

Would theoretically be much faster than an fpga based 68k.

On the subject of using an rpi for networking inside an Amiga, i think Kolla is doing this already.

[billt]

What will comnect to what? Cpu slot to usb2? maybe enough gpio to make a "software bus" but that wound not likely perform well. I made apb and ahb bus before on gpio, was very slow but suitable for the unusual situation at hand. Ibwouldnt do this for something in the real world.

[Matt_H]

If I'm remembering correctly, I think it was Kermit Woodall (of NovaDesign fame) who published something in the early 2000s about wiring 68K emulation output on an x86 box directly into the CPU socket of an A1000. So it seems like it's possible in theory, although I'm not sure how far along the project got.

[Pat the Cat]

Pi is good for price, but for performance, Odroid is hard to beat.

You can either go FSUAE emulator, AROS, or wait for an ARM version of AmigaOS4.

I'm not in a rush.

[Pat the Cat]

What will comnect to what? Cpu slot to usb2? maybe enough gpio to make a "software bus" but that wound not likely perform well. I made apb and ahb bus before on gpio, was very slow but suitable for the unusual situation at hand. Ibwouldnt do this for something in the real world.

The Compute Module has the same form factor as a DDR2 SODIMM, so can be connected to Amiga buses.

Cheap graphics card, other goodies very connectable. Unlike Odroid or Pi.

[kolla]

I give all my Amiga systems a pi (zero), primarily to act as network bridge, giving them wifi (with modern capabilities) and hence avoid the need for cables all over. Bonuses are that the pi also can share filesystems and give Amiga access to USB storage (imagine if someone wrote USB-over-IP driver for Poseidon), playback of music files can be offloaded to the pi, it can act as web proxy and bypass the hurdle of resource hungry modern SSL/TLS handling, giving rsh/rlogin/telnet access solely to the Amiga, it's the "jump host" for ssh out to the world... it also acts as name server, ntp server and whatever else I find useful.

I am curious if it would be possible to network Amiga with Pi directly over parallel port, using the GPIO pins in the Pi. It is of course possible via Plipbox

[cunnpole]

http://www.fpgaarcade.com/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=1221

[Pat the Cat]

I give all my Amiga systems a pi (zero), primarily to act as network bridge, giving them wifi (with modern capabilities) and hence avoid the need for cables all over. Bonuses are that the pi also can share filesystems and give Amiga access to USB storage (imagine if someone wrote USB-over-IP driver for Poseidon), playback of music files can be offloaded to the pi, it can act as web proxy and bypass the hurdle of resource hungry modern SSL/TLS handling, giving rsh/rlogin/telnet access solely to the Amiga, it's the "jump host" for ssh out to the world... it also acts as name server, ntp server and whatever else I find useful.

I am curious if it would be possible to network Amiga with Pi directly over parallel port, using the GPIO pins in the Pi. It is of course possible via Plipbox

Sounds like a very clever idea. Any chance of blogging or documenting it?

I've been trying to setup a connection via a high speed PCMCIA serial port and not getting much success. Ideally I'd like to use the A1200 as programmer and archiver for the various bits of Pi and Arduino that I have.

GPIO pins are doable (just my opinion) but you have to be careful if power for the Pi goes that route - there is no protection for reversed polarity or 5V going down the wrong pin to a 3.3V input. Link to the HAT I'm playing with, it's open source and giving me a few headaches...

http://www.watterott.com/de/RPi-FabScan-HAT

[kirk_m]

I give all my Amiga systems a pi (zero), primarily to act as network bridge, giving them wifi (with modern capabilities) and hence avoid the need for cables all over. Bonuses are that the pi also can share filesystems and give Amiga access to USB storage (imagine if someone wrote USB-over-IP driver for Poseidon), playback of music files can be offloaded to the pi, it can act as web proxy and bypass the hurdle of resource hungry modern SSL/TLS handling, giving rsh/rlogin/telnet access solely to the Amiga, it's the "jump host" for ssh out to the world... it also acts as name server, ntp server and whatever else I find useful.

I am curious if it would be possible to network Amiga with Pi directly over parallel port, using the GPIO pins in the Pi. It is of course possible via Plipbox

I'd love to see documentation of how you did this.  It sounds awesome.

[EugeneNine]

The Compute Module has the same form factor as a DDR2 SODIMM, so can be connected to Amiga buses.

Cheap graphics card, other goodies very connectable. Unlike Odroid or Pi.

The form factor is the same but the pinout isn't going to be compatible with any Amiga bus, its simply bringing out the USB and and i/o ports.

I've been wondering though, the (PC) ISA bus was/is pretty slow I wonder if the i/o pins on a Pi were brought out to a latch could it be used to drive ISA cards. There are not enough pins for address and data so it would probably need to mux it like the 8085.  Then we could eventually built a Pi bridgeboard.

[Pat the Cat]

After checking the datasheet, you are quite right. The Computer Module has exactly the same connections as a Raspberry PI... so yes, people are pretty much limited to using serial connectors to talk to the beast.

So it isn't going to talk faster than say, an Indivision. Although it could probably execute graphics instructions quicker once it received them.

[Lizard]

@nyteschayde: You're not the only one thinking about that idea: http://www.fpgaarcade.com/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=1221

[mikej]

Hi.
I think the CM3 module will run very nicely as a 68060.

"The Computer Module has exactly the same connections as a Raspberry PI... so yes, people are pretty much limited to using serial connectors to talk to the beast."

Not quite. It has a lot more IO pins on the edge connector, and these can be used as a local bus interface, similar to the original 68K.

[nyteschayde]

What will comnect to what? Cpu slot to usb2? maybe enough gpio to make a "software bus" but that wound not likely perform well. I made apb and ahb bus before on gpio, was very slow but suitable for the unusual situation at hand. Ibwouldnt do this for something in the real world.

It would need a card with a normal trap door edge connector. The CM3 has a slot based edge connector of its own. Hence it would need a card developed to interface and I am not presuming it would be easy.