Thread
Dream peripherals (the return)
OK we had fun with this one last time, so let's everyone post your dream 68k peripherals, internal or external. Let's start with a list of all those "I wish there was a _____ for _____". Discussions about the feasibility of hacking them up ourselves or getting them made will come after.
If you would care to bold your wished-for items as I have below, it will make it easier to scan through the discussion.
I'll start:
PDS/Nubus dual head video cards.
PDS/Nubus IDE/ATA/RAID
If you would care to bold your wished-for items as I have below, it will make it easier to scan through the discussion.
I'll start:
PDS/Nubus dual head video cards.
PDS/Nubus IDE/ATA/RAID
Firewire/SATA/PATA/USB Nubus cards
64MB PDS Video card for quadra with DVD decoder built in, 1600x1200@24Bit accelerated 85Hz refresh also has RAM board built in using common PC100 SDRAM.
High tech captures cards that use the 840AV build in DAV slot (same for the DAV in PCI Powermacs).
64MB PDS Video card for quadra with DVD decoder built in, 1600x1200@24Bit accelerated 85Hz refresh also has RAM board built in using common PC100 SDRAM.
High tech captures cards that use the 840AV build in DAV slot (same for the DAV in PCI Powermacs).
68k/PPC/x86 Chips on the same board. that way, you could run a system like parallels type that under system 8.1 (for the 68k AND PPC support) you can use windows 2k Pro, and move them around much like you do under OS X
Dream OS? Unix backed 8.1! or rather, how about, OS X that runs on a 68k? that would ROCK.
I could also go for a Video card that supports Dual VGA or VGA and a DVI port under the 68k
All of this, in an iMac G4-like setup. The system is at the base, and at the top of the neck, it would have like a 13" or 14" 1024x768 Screen.
While we are at it, let's through in some PC-66/100/133 Memory slots that will run with both PowerPC/68k and x86 (pref Intel Pentium II 300-500Mhz) the Power PC can be a G4 if need be, and the 68k can run at 100Mhz!!.
I know I am totally off the wall, but just think of what you could do with this machine? you could run 68k Apps natively, and windows, and OS X like system. since it would do 68k native, the OS X doesn't need an OS for classic, but rather, it loads with boot, and will allow them to run them integrated.
Dream OS? Unix backed 8.1! or rather, how about, OS X that runs on a 68k? that would ROCK.
I could also go for a Video card that supports Dual VGA or VGA and a DVI port under the 68k
All of this, in an iMac G4-like setup. The system is at the base, and at the top of the neck, it would have like a 13" or 14" 1024x768 Screen.
While we are at it, let's through in some PC-66/100/133 Memory slots that will run with both PowerPC/68k and x86 (pref Intel Pentium II 300-500Mhz) the Power PC can be a G4 if need be, and the 68k can run at 100Mhz!!.
I know I am totally off the wall, but just think of what you could do with this machine? you could run 68k Apps natively, and windows, and OS X like system. since it would do 68k native, the OS X doesn't need an OS for classic, but rather, it loads with boot, and will allow them to run them integrated.
Its just as much fun to try to remember seeing something that fits somebody's wish...even if it turns out you're remembering things that never existed! [
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My own wishes...
- Software that took advantage of: all the special hardware in the IIfx, the DSPs in the 660av/840av, DSPs aimed at Photoshop (but if I remember right didn't accelerate all that many functions)
- Multi-processor 68K? Even possible?
- More uses for Radius Rockets w/ Rocket Share
- Dual 68K 840av with 6 Nubus slots split over two busses
- Faster x86 cards for 68K or PPC Macs. Even something like a 1 GHz P3 would be great. Plenty of power for basic apps in Win. Hell I'd even like to see something like that for PCs. All the boards I ever see for Mac, PC, Sun are all from back in the days of the 486, P1
- I always wanted a two-drive SCSI enclosure for my 840av (when I had one) that looked the same as the tower but about 1/3 - 1/2 as tall. And said "AV RAID" or something else cool on the front [
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] ]'>As in Nubus cards in a PCI Mac or PCI cards in a Nubus Mac? You can do the first if you want to pay for the Second Wave expansion chasis.
If you're really after this, routinely search for Acard SCSI adapters. I've been looking for the higher end (Ultra2 SCSI and greater) models to use ATA drives in and have even stumbled upon an online store selling those more expensive boards for $35 dollars once. Considering that seems to be the typical price of a 50-pin adapter and about 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the faster models, with luck you could come across the 50-pin"s for a price that's more in line with what it "should" cost to use an ATA drive in an interface that slow.
Don't know if this is available with any of the wireless "game adapters" and I'm too tired to check. 8-o I just think those things are fantastic. I've gotten many pre-wireless systems on my network even lent one to a friend who's notebook internal wireless died. If my Linksys WGA54g didn't melt itself I'd be using it right now...
I used to have a Spigot Pro AV which I think used the DAV slot in the 840av. Can't think of anything that used the DAV in PCI Powermacs! [
] ]'>My own wishes...
- Software that took advantage of: all the special hardware in the IIfx, the DSPs in the 660av/840av, DSPs aimed at Photoshop (but if I remember right didn't accelerate all that many functions)
- Multi-processor 68K? Even possible?
- More uses for Radius Rockets w/ Rocket Share
- Dual 68K 840av with 6 Nubus slots split over two busses
- Faster x86 cards for 68K or PPC Macs. Even something like a 1 GHz P3 would be great. Plenty of power for basic apps in Win. Hell I'd even like to see something like that for PCs. All the boards I ever see for Mac, PC, Sun are all from back in the days of the 486, P1
- I always wanted a two-drive SCSI enclosure for my 840av (when I had one) that looked the same as the tower but about 1/3 - 1/2 as tall. And said "AV RAID" or something else cool on the front [
] ]'>Theoretically, you could probably come pretty close if you could disassemble NeXTSTEP and recompile it for Mac II's/Quadras instead of NeXT boxes. The NeXT motherboards look like they stole a lot of ideas from Apple using a lot of the same components and expansion ports.
Some more wishes:
dual PDS slot adapters
PDS/Nubus to PCMCIA
PDS to (other types of) PDS adapters
"MacLegacy" card - A PCI Radius Rocket with ports.
Full '040 at 40MHz; RAM, ROM, cache and VRAM slots; 660/840AV DSP, DAV and S-Video; old-school Mac video, SCSI (int/ext), ADB, and LocalTalk/GeoPort compatible serial ports.
For bonus points it has other older slots too, like Nubus, PDS, CommSlot and the AV/TV/FM slot, and an empty socket for another '040 [] ]'> Oh, and integration with OS X/Classic/Rosetta - in that OS X can scoot apps over to it seamlessly that it can't run in emulation.
G3/4/5 "RocketPCI" for Intel machines - with all of the above
dual PDS slot adapters
PDS/Nubus to PCMCIA
PDS to (other types of) PDS adapters
"MacLegacy" card - A PCI Radius Rocket with ports.
Full '040 at 40MHz; RAM, ROM, cache and VRAM slots; 660/840AV DSP, DAV and S-Video; old-school Mac video, SCSI (int/ext), ADB, and LocalTalk/GeoPort compatible serial ports.
For bonus points it has other older slots too, like Nubus, PDS, CommSlot and the AV/TV/FM slot, and an empty socket for another '040 [
] ]'> Oh, and integration with OS X/Classic/Rosetta - in that OS X can scoot apps over to it seamlessly that it can't run in emulation.G3/4/5 "RocketPCI" for Intel machines - with all of the above
Ahem: Now for a feasibility rant:
I wonder: take an existing Nubus SCSI card and replace [some stuff] to make it an ATA card ... that still looks like a SCSI card to the Mac. In my dreams it's a case of replacing one IC :
Ain't gonna happen, unless Trash80 gets a lifetime supply of Jolt and a pet army of engineers.
CF+PCMCIA+HFS+VM
You'd get close with a 7100/8100, a G3 upgrade, a Radius Rocket and a Nubus DOS card or VPC. Or a PCI machine with a G4, an OrangeMicro card and Basilisk.
Liquid nitrogen?
...or you can source the near-mythical PowerComputing PCI+Nubus riser
They were useable in some audio programs apparently. Apart from that, all it takes is for someone to write or port stuff to them...
I think you've answered your own question there
Yes please- Dual 68K 840av with 6 Nubus slots
With updated drivers for OS X and WinXP/Vista - but Boot Camp and Parallels pretty much kill the business case for these
Get a scrapped 840/8100 case and cut it down
Or run NetBSD and the Just-In-Time build of Basilisk II
And they ran '030s and '040s so it shouldn't be an impossible recompile.
That reminds me. Wasn't there a PowerComputing model that had a socketed 604e? Maybe it was never produced or I have the wrong company. Anyway how about faster IBM PPC upgrades, single or more processors. They've got to beat a G3 at some speed lol.
I've tried. Didn't work out. For one thing I had no idea how to join the top and bottom once some metal was cut from the middle - was told it couldn't be welded. Oh well that projects long past.Get a scrapped 840/8100 case and cut it down
I can't believe he still has all that Radius stuff listed! Any profit must have long disappeared in ebay fees. I bought what I think was his second to last StudioArray at least 3 years ago. I still have it though its suffered from mod attempts. For some reason I wanted to remove the StudioArray sticker from the front. Well once it was off I saw there was a recessed spot for a company name badge (BTW FWB used the same enclosure at some point). I don't know what led to painting it black and sanding it not necessarily in that order but it took off the texture that was in the original paint (maybe it was a black paint job I regretted). Its one of the last remaining Mac items in my parent's basement. Along with two 81/110s (not defaced by me). And man what I spent in buying those stupid 1' external SCSI cables that HAD to have the Sun-style clips. They are now in the box of 1000 SCSI cables = box full of money. This was all part of my interest in the VideoVision Telecast system. I've still got two Telecast boxes, two monster cables, one VV Nubus card, one VV PCI + Telecast card, manuals, video tape, software. All needs to go except maybe one 81/110. I never used the Telecast much but its still got more connections than much newer video capture systems. Problem is the rendering speed on the old systems its compatible with. But man that box with the lights is cool. [8D] Oh so I'll throw in something for the wish list so I can say this post is sorta on topic: more blinkenlights
I passed up getting the studioarray for my PCI Telecast, just using an ata/66 card and ide drives. I did get all (I think) the manuals and software for the VV, my vhs tape is for the nubus setup, was there one specific to the PCI version?.
Quicksilver: Are you fireselling the VV stuff?
Quicksilver: Are you fireselling the VV stuff?
USB thoughts:
I note:
So: if one could complete the necessary hardware, and run NetBSD/m68k with the JIT build of Basilisk II
I note:
Another reference
So: if one could complete the necessary hardware, and run NetBSD/m68k with the JIT build of Basilisk II
... perhaps the driver problem would not be so insurmountable.
Well, there's always clock chipping... I don't know how much head room the processors in the 1.42GHz version have, nor how efficient the copper heat sink is. I have purchase four or five beefy heat sinks with heat pipes all over them from the PC oriented world, and one of these days I will find a circular tuit. Then I'll cobble some adapters to mount these heat sinks in the MDD (all chosen so their bases will cover dual G4s, and their height won't bump the hard drive mount) and test who provides the best cooling. Following that, serious overclocking to see how fast the MDD can go with stock CPUs and serious cooling.
Of course, the 1.42 GHz copper heat sink may already be as efficient as the specialized PC heat sinks, and the G4s may already be near the top of their performance ceiling...
I think there's a web site where some fellow took his MDD dual up close to 1.6 GHz. Since you won't get much bettter than 1.8 GHz from upgrades (IIRC) that's pretty good.
I thought I saw OSX on a 68k machine once - it was slow as molasses in -10F weather... and I think it was running via a VM on linux
EDIT: AHH linky: http://mactalk.com.au/articles/68kpanther/
EDIT: AHH linky: http://mactalk.com.au/articles/68kpanther/
Yes, I've seen that site and I think I have it saved somewhere, but I always misplace the link. I believe he got it up to 1.67ghz. I would try it; I'm confident in my soldering skills, but my machine generates so much heat as it is, I'd have to do as he did and invest in additional fans. Maybe some day. :/
7200rpm ATA laptop drive that doesn't cost a buttload. iBook processor upgrades, mac laptop hard drive size lime remover with a simple firmware hack. XPostFacto updated for Leopard(its open source anyways). Wireless power up to 800 ft. Macrovision to be removed from all VHS decks. DVD deck for you car, none of this crappy "portable" dvd players with the screen. cheaper MacPro with upgradeable parts.
Yes you can. Nubus DOS cards are pretty slow though. If you want anything faster than (I think) a 486, you're looking at a PCI card, which rules out your Rocket.Hrm, can you use a Radius Rocket in a NuBus PowerPC? Combine that with a NuBus DOS compatibility card, and wish granted!
OrangeMicro made the only true Nubus slot x86 cards as far as I know. The one in the 6100DOS was an '040 PDS card with a 601 PDS adapter bracket.
/edit/ seems there was also the following:
There ya go. No G3 and no HPV/AV video as the PDS slot is taken, but add a good Nubus video card and the Rocket, and you're in business. Presumably it'll fit the 8100 PDS as well.
A new 40Mhz 68040 or 75 Mhz 68060 motherboard with:
PCI SLOTS
IDE Ports 2 each that support 2 devices (Master/Slave)
USB 2.0 ports
DVD drive support
10/100 Ethernet on board
VGA port w/1024 x768 True color support
Support for 2 Gigs RAM (2 RAM slots)
OS 8.1 released as Freeware
OS 8.1 SOURCE code to allow patching to support new features.
Micro ATX MOBO sized to fit any micro ATX case & power supply
PCI SLOTS
IDE Ports 2 each that support 2 devices (Master/Slave)
USB 2.0 ports
DVD drive support
10/100 Ethernet on board
VGA port w/1024 x768 True color support
Support for 2 Gigs RAM (2 RAM slots)
OS 8.1 released as Freeware
OS 8.1 SOURCE code to allow patching to support new features.
Micro ATX MOBO sized to fit any micro ATX case & power supply
I have run Windows 95 on my 6100 DOS Compatible with no problems at all. Theoretically, Windows 98 is even a possibility, but I wouldn't count on it being usable. (I made sure to leave Internet Explorer 4 *NOT* installed on Windows 95 specifically because it installed the Windows 98-style desktop that slowed it down.)
Bunsen,
have a look for this item at ebay (SCSI-PCMCIA-Adapter):
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=230238279872
Adtron lists this item as a Mac compatible device. It usually is very expensive. But I do not have any experience with this kind of adaptor.
have a look for this item at ebay (SCSI-PCMCIA-Adapter):
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=230238279872
Adtron lists this item as a Mac compatible device. It usually is very expensive. But I do not have any experience with this kind of adaptor.
Re-reading the very first post in this thread I remember a do-it-yourself hardware project I read about in the year 1994: some computer magazine, the German c't, published complete instructions to set up an ADB interface hardware, with an additional RS232 port, several digital I/Os and even expandability to attach a chip card reader. Instructions how to program this device are given, as well. The author Carsten Meyer is very skilled in various electronics and programming and works for the publisher, still.
Here you find the article (in German language; probably the paper has been translated somewhere else):
http://www.heise.de/ct/94/11/230/
The company eMedia supplies an empty pcb (Euro 19.50) and a ready to use programmed EPROM (Euro 14.50) as well as hardcopies of the paper, still. A complete set of parts should be around a probably given 100 $ limit.
With the I/O capabilies one could set up a closed loop to control some other device, let's say switching off a toaster after detecting the bread is nicely browned with some homegrewn image recognition software for a QuickTake webcam in the kitchen ;-)
Did someone make this device or even did some useful liberation with it ?
Here you find the article (in German language; probably the paper has been translated somewhere else):
http://www.heise.de/ct/94/11/230/
The company eMedia supplies an empty pcb (Euro 19.50) and a ready to use programmed EPROM (Euro 14.50) as well as hardcopies of the paper, still. A complete set of parts should be around a probably given 100 $ limit.
With the I/O capabilies one could set up a closed loop to control some other device, let's say switching off a toaster after detecting the bread is nicely browned with some homegrewn image recognition software for a QuickTake webcam in the kitchen ;-)
Did someone make this device or even did some useful liberation with it ?
There's a reasonably good Wikipedia entry... More useful to you might be the link to a Nubus spec:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ti/2242825-0001_NuBus_Spec1983.pdf
Someone previously mentioned a dual-output video card for 68k Macs.
I'd just like one with DVI. As mentioned by others, USB would be nice, too. (While DVI wouldn't require any special drivers, since VGA vs. DVI could be handled purely in hardware, USB would require drivers be written.)
As a side note, I just discovered that my über-fancy ViewSonic 19" CRT (supports 2048x1536 at 60 Hz, or 1600x1200 at 75 Hz,) does not support 640x480 at 60 Hz! The frequency is too low for it. My Performa 600 defaults to that, and I can't use my BNC-to-DA-15 cable; I have to use the VGA cable with a dip-switch-equipped adapter to force it into 1024x768 fixed frequency mode, which somehow tricks the computer into sending out 640x480 66 Hz. (No, it won't display 1024x768.) I suppose I should just throw in a NuBus video card, but I haven't cracked the case open yet.
Another funny artifact of this monitor is that it will only go up to 1600x1200 over VGA, even if I override its DDC claims; yet it will go up to the full 2048x1536 over BNC. In spite of the two high resolutions, its phosphor grid can only realistically display 1280x960 without losing data. If I expand the picture to the very edges, 1440x1050 is ALMOST usable. (By "losing data", I mean that if I display a 50% black/50% white grid, like the default background on black and white Macs, I can see the individual black and white dots at 1280x960 or lower. At 1440x1050, I get moiré patterns on the edges, which have lower phosphor density than the middle. At higher than 1440x1050, I get moiré patters all over. At 2048x1536, the pattern looks completely gray.)
I'd just like one with DVI. As mentioned by others, USB would be nice, too. (While DVI wouldn't require any special drivers, since VGA vs. DVI could be handled purely in hardware, USB would require drivers be written.)
As a side note, I just discovered that my über-fancy ViewSonic 19" CRT (supports 2048x1536 at 60 Hz, or 1600x1200 at 75 Hz,) does not support 640x480 at 60 Hz! The frequency is too low for it. My Performa 600 defaults to that, and I can't use my BNC-to-DA-15 cable; I have to use the VGA cable with a dip-switch-equipped adapter to force it into 1024x768 fixed frequency mode, which somehow tricks the computer into sending out 640x480 66 Hz. (No, it won't display 1024x768.) I suppose I should just throw in a NuBus video card, but I haven't cracked the case open yet.
Another funny artifact of this monitor is that it will only go up to 1600x1200 over VGA, even if I override its DDC claims; yet it will go up to the full 2048x1536 over BNC. In spite of the two high resolutions, its phosphor grid can only realistically display 1280x960 without losing data. If I expand the picture to the very edges, 1440x1050 is ALMOST usable. (By "losing data", I mean that if I display a 50% black/50% white grid, like the default background on black and white Macs, I can see the individual black and white dots at 1280x960 or lower. At 1440x1050, I get moiré patterns on the edges, which have lower phosphor density than the middle. At higher than 1440x1050, I get moiré patters all over. At 2048x1536, the pattern looks completely gray.)
A rambling thought or two:
ISA cards provide a lot of the missing functions we're talking about for older machines. ISA is a fairly simple bus to interface with as I understand it, especially if you're not dealing with multiple cards. 8 bit ISA has been interfaced with PIC microcontrollers to provide NICs, sound cards, IDE, etc
So how about a PDS-ISA adapter?
Or a universal card:
* Or FreeDOS, whatever. The expander runs as a headless DOS computer just to support the ISA card and pass data back to the Mac. This being just one implementation. The CPU, software and pin mappings can all be changed in a flash, giving you a whole new card.
ISA cards provide a lot of the missing functions we're talking about for older machines. ISA is a fairly simple bus to interface with as I understand it, especially if you're not dealing with multiple cards. 8 bit ISA has been interfaced with PIC microcontrollers to provide NICs, sound cards, IDE, etc
So how about a PDS-ISA adapter?
Or a universal card:
- FPGA on a card with:
- Clip-on socket headers for:
- 030 PDS, '040 PDS, LC PDS, Nubus, ISA, DDR RAM, 68k/G3/x86 CPU etc, etc in either direction
- Re-programming the FPGA allows:
- Software pin remapping of all connectors
- 68k or other softcore CPU runs A/ROSE or:
- 8088/x86 running DOS * for driver support
* Or FreeDOS, whatever. The expander runs as a headless DOS computer just to support the ISA card and pass data back to the Mac. This being just one implementation. The CPU, software and pin mappings can all be changed in a flash, giving you a whole new card.
Thought I'd try and explain my universal card a little better.
It requires an FPGA with lots of GPIO pins. Every pin is brought out to 0.1" edge connections at the four sides of the card.
You pick it up and shove a Nubus card connector onto the bottom. Four microswitches mate with little notches you've previously cut out of the Nubus connector and provide a 4-bit ID. The card recognises this and loads the "I am a Nubus card" module into the FPGA. This contains the Nubus pin map, and the FPGA configures all pins correctly for a Nubus slot. It also contains a Nubus controller emulator.
Similar things happen if you plug an LC PDS/ 68k CPU male/ 040 PDS etc connector into the bottom edge.
You do the same at another edge with an ISA (or whatever) female connector. It loads the "ISA host" module.
Taking the case that you'll be using it today as an IDE drive controller, the following happens:
It pretends to be a known SCSI card to the Mac. Thus existing SCSI drivers can be used on the Mac side.
It configures itself as a DOS machine as far as the ISA card is concerned, and loads existing DOS IDE drivers.
In this way it acts as a middleman between the host Mac and existing, readily available ISA cards. This (in theory) takes a lot of the hardware and software development pain out of the loop. As time goes on, patches could be developed to allow it to natively support IDE drives in pretend-SCSI-PDS-card mode, and other functions as time and imagination permit.
Comments are welcome.
It requires an FPGA with lots of GPIO pins. Every pin is brought out to 0.1" edge connections at the four sides of the card.
You pick it up and shove a Nubus card connector onto the bottom. Four microswitches mate with little notches you've previously cut out of the Nubus connector and provide a 4-bit ID. The card recognises this and loads the "I am a Nubus card" module into the FPGA. This contains the Nubus pin map, and the FPGA configures all pins correctly for a Nubus slot. It also contains a Nubus controller emulator.
Similar things happen if you plug an LC PDS/ 68k CPU male/ 040 PDS etc connector into the bottom edge.
You do the same at another edge with an ISA (or whatever) female connector. It loads the "ISA host" module.
Taking the case that you'll be using it today as an IDE drive controller, the following happens:
It pretends to be a known SCSI card to the Mac. Thus existing SCSI drivers can be used on the Mac side.
It configures itself as a DOS machine as far as the ISA card is concerned, and loads existing DOS IDE drivers.
In this way it acts as a middleman between the host Mac and existing, readily available ISA cards. This (in theory) takes a lot of the hardware and software development pain out of the loop. As time goes on, patches could be developed to allow it to natively support IDE drives in pretend-SCSI-PDS-card mode, and other functions as time and imagination permit.
Comments are welcome.
Wikipedia says: "Field-programmable gate array".
The FPGA is some kind of microcontroller that can be configured to perform complex logic operations. This can be used to program the behaviour of the device, for example to emulate a circuitry of discrete elements, or to emulate any other controller that might not be available or as easy programmable. A FPGA is a great solution to produce small lots of specialised controllers with least developing costs.
Best of all: developer kits start at about USD 100 (manufacturer Atmel, supplier Digikey, kit including software, breadboard, adaptors etc.).
The FPGA is some kind of microcontroller that can be configured to perform complex logic operations. This can be used to program the behaviour of the device, for example to emulate a circuitry of discrete elements, or to emulate any other controller that might not be available or as easy programmable. A FPGA is a great solution to produce small lots of specialised controllers with least developing costs.
Best of all: developer kits start at about USD 100 (manufacturer Atmel, supplier Digikey, kit including software, breadboard, adaptors etc.).
Dev boards start a lot cheaper than that. A dev board probably won't do for the universal board though. Probably have to make up a new board.
There's no reason (short of time, cost and programming) that I can see why an FPGA couldn't handle the tasks described above. That doesn't mean it would be easy or cheap. It's on a par with some of the feasibility rants in the '060 upgrade thread.
The Xylo boards in the shop (see link) look pretty cool; USB and an ARM CPU on board as well as the FPGA
There's no reason (short of time, cost and programming) that I can see why an FPGA couldn't handle the tasks described above. That doesn't mean it would be easy or cheap. It's on a par with some of the feasibility rants in the '060 upgrade thread.
The Xylo boards in the shop (see link) look pretty cool; USB and an ARM CPU on board as well as the FPGA
It wouldn't be hard at all to make an IDE or even SATA NuBus card... ACARD makes SCSI-IDE and SCSI-SATA chips that support more than one device. Take a blank NuBus card, throw together the easiest 53c80 SCSI card possible, hotwire it to the ACARD SCSI-IDE chip, and break it out into two IDE or four SATA ports.
I mean, most of us dont' have the gear at home to do that tomorrow, but the drivers and circuit design are already done, which makes it a lot easier to throw together than these more exotic plans are.
I mean, most of us dont' have the gear at home to do that tomorrow, but the drivers and circuit design are already done, which makes it a lot easier to throw together than these more exotic plans are.
First up, Nubus is an intelligent protocol and it requires a Nubus controller IC on each card. So you've either got to find those (hah!) or reverse engineer one, then build something to emulate it. It's hardly a "throw together", and there's been plenty of discussion around these parts as to why not.
Second, can these ACARD chips be bought on the open market as bare chips, in small enough quantities and cheap enough to make it viable? IE, quite a lot cheaper than buying the complete SCSI-IDE converter
Thirdly are you sure it's just a single chip and not a combination of chips on the SCSIDE boards that do the magic, including say a proprietary ASIC that ACARD is unlikely to want to sell or just hand out the design? Seeing as they have this profitable line in converter cards we want to undercut.
All of the above being good reasons to go for a fresh PDS design. Yes, I agree it would be best if it -pretended- to be a known SCSI device so we can use existing drivers. How about the fast SCSI PDS controller from the WGS95?
The NuBus card requires a little logic to handle arbitration properly, but it's really not very complex from a logic design point of view. It's the kind of thing which will easily fit into a handful (or less) of cheap PLDs now days.
Don't know about that, but if they can, you probably must buy thousands at a time. I doubt that the market is much above hundreds.
Just two chips. The bridge chip and a Flash ROM to hold the configuration code.
Economics, economics, economics...
The SCSI-IDE converter requires one chip per device. So, if you want the equivalent of two ATA channels, you would have to put four SCSI-IDE chips on your card. On the other hand, there's not that much room for drives in most of the machines, so two SCSI-IDE chips would probably be sufficient.
A single FPGA large enough to do the job (two or more ATA channels, with two drives each) would cost less than $30 bought one at a time. But someone must do the skull sweat to make it work.
Performance: A SCSI interface based on the 53C80 is going to be sloooooowwww. Plus the 53C80 isn't exactly cheap any more. It's moved into the realm of "legacy" parts. If you use a 53C80 as the root of your device, you're going to be taking 40 MB/s NuBus and feeding it through 3 - 5 MB/s SCSI to reach a 20 - 60 MB/s (large dependencies on generation of IDE drive used) hard drive.
An FPGA based solution offers potentially cheaper implementation and much much faster performance. Especially if one builds it as a PDS card rather than a NuBus card, where the data and address busses are not multiplexed and the bus speed is faster.
In fairness to the originator of the 53C80=>SCSI-IDE idea, I think he was just thinking of something we could build now, without investing a lot of time in design. He wasn't optimizing at all for cost or performance.
But at that point, I think you may as well just get one or more Acard AEC-7720Us. I still have a few at $39 + ship. There is an outfit on Ebay with hundreds of them for $30, but they don't include the power cable, nor the instructions and their inflated shipping makes their price comparable to mine.
This is about the only way to do it, but on machines pre-660AV and 840AV (IOW, every 680x0 machine except those two) one must basically rewrite the SCSI Manager 4.3 support and add it to the device's firmware. This is probably not trivial.
There were a bunch of people posting their desire to see a universal NUBUS adapter, one that allowed the connection of many modern peripherals such as usb flash drives, parallel port devices, CF cards, ect. I had a wild idea when I took inventory of all the IC's I have lying around. What if you constructed a card that flowed like this:
LCIII PDS (for example)
|
(x2)Ethernet LAN controller (one to an external port)
|
DOS-based PC-on-chip/single board PC, this device would be capable of translating attached devices so that they appear to be network-shared devices. The Mac would not need usb mass-storage drivers, as it would see the flash drive as mapped network drive, same with CF cards, cd-roms, and other peripherals
|
USB, ATA, Serial (COM), etc controllers. The PC-translator would make these appear as standard device types, a USB scanner would appear to be a SCSI scanner. ie. The mac sends a command to a SCSI scanner, the PC chip translates that command to what a USB scanner would understand, and vice-versa.
I would love to build this thing, but I do not have the EE expertise to pull it off. I can design simple things, but nothing like this.
LCIII PDS (for example)
|
(x2)Ethernet LAN controller (one to an external port)
|
DOS-based PC-on-chip/single board PC, this device would be capable of translating attached devices so that they appear to be network-shared devices. The Mac would not need usb mass-storage drivers, as it would see the flash drive as mapped network drive, same with CF cards, cd-roms, and other peripherals
|
USB, ATA, Serial (COM), etc controllers. The PC-translator would make these appear as standard device types, a USB scanner would appear to be a SCSI scanner. ie. The mac sends a command to a SCSI scanner, the PC chip translates that command to what a USB scanner would understand, and vice-versa.
I would love to build this thing, but I do not have the EE expertise to pull it off. I can design simple things, but nothing like this.
The MDD machine I am typing on now is a dual 1.83 Ghz PowerPC, i bought as a stock upgrade. Boots Mac OS fine (the reason i got it) (9.2.2) . Uses both cpus in os9. i do not have proper cooling to play timing boost games.
Its a Encore MDD MDX Duet for xServe or MDD
Sadly I lose the third level of cache (L3 cache) with this card, but it has a much larger L2 cache so i do not miss Apple's L3 cache.
In all benchmarks I am more than pleased. It was a ton of money, but in a few months it might be impossible to find, as all things are if you wait forever. The other reason I did it was that I had only one CPU in this web browser/gaming machine. So for me the ton of money was worth it, because I need os 9.
I built a 4 cpu hackintosh for dirt cheap i use for development on (Apple requires x86 for iphone development, unless you use the third party non-apple iphone compiler and hacks) : Hackintosh = 10.5.2 = Kalyway + iATKOS
The engineer from Newer Technology that figured out how to put ANY cpu into almost every mac product on earth, left the business about 3 years back or so. That is one reason we have no G5s in our g3 and g4 machines. His name is Ben M. He works for the main competitor of Scientific Atlanta now doing all sorts of hacks for older cable boxes to squeeze new firmware code remotely into old existing boxes.
I finally read this thread.
I have written many award winning scsi drivers, as well as designed SCSI host bus adapters (HBA) for the macintosh. In fact I an a main author of what was used by 18 different companies such as Club Mac and APS and Atto and many more (Apollyonics SCSI Director allowed rebranding), and I wrote every line of cd products such as FWB's CD-Rom Toolkit 1 and v2. I also rewrote the USB Mass storage class for OS9, and did a dual port dual 2 gigabit FibreChannel card for OS9. I've done RAID, SATA, ATAPI, Ultra DMA, firewire, and done many many more than those things for I/O hardware. I own the copyright in many cases, and could leverage code if needed to such a ide/sata I/O product.
Adding a SCSI Manager 4.3 "XPT layer" (for ancient machines) is not impossible or hard. FWB did it (loaded a clone of a fake SCSI Manager 4.3 on non 4.3 compatible macs). So many macs allow SCSI Manager 4.3, except for a couple powerc laptops, with system 7.5, that such a "dream nubus card" would not be too restrictive if limited to machines that run 7.5 and had a standard NCR 53C96 SCSI controller chip.
But running ide drives on old mac hardware, whether Nubus or PDS is not what I care about in this dream peripheral thread ...
All I want is someone to figure out how to add a real genuine existing Motorola 333 MHz 68060 chip (V5 core) into a 840AV or other AV. With dual execution pipelines and a larger branch cache, this next-generation core provides a 2x performance increase compared to a 220 MHz MCF5407 device, a V4-based standard product
The chip was announced at Oct. 19, 2002 many years ago !
Because of issues of incompatibility with 68060 though, even though there are royalty-free and price-free software library tricks to make it work, a 68040 emulator is needed, and that is how Amiga people get the 220 MHz MCF5407 device to run their 68030 code.
here are raw diffs, without software exception handling :
http://www.microapl.co.uk/Porting/ColdFire/cf_68k_diffs.html
Think of the chip as a 610 Mhz chip conceptually though, not a 333, because of its internal design. It gets 610 MIPs in benchmarks.
I have written many award winning scsi drivers, as well as designed SCSI host bus adapters (HBA) for the macintosh. In fact I an a main author of what was used by 18 different companies such as Club Mac and APS and Atto and many more (Apollyonics SCSI Director allowed rebranding), and I wrote every line of cd products such as FWB's CD-Rom Toolkit 1 and v2. I also rewrote the USB Mass storage class for OS9, and did a dual port dual 2 gigabit FibreChannel card for OS9. I've done RAID, SATA, ATAPI, Ultra DMA, firewire, and done many many more than those things for I/O hardware. I own the copyright in many cases, and could leverage code if needed to such a ide/sata I/O product.
Adding a SCSI Manager 4.3 "XPT layer" (for ancient machines) is not impossible or hard. FWB did it (loaded a clone of a fake SCSI Manager 4.3 on non 4.3 compatible macs). So many macs allow SCSI Manager 4.3, except for a couple powerc laptops, with system 7.5, that such a "dream nubus card" would not be too restrictive if limited to machines that run 7.5 and had a standard NCR 53C96 SCSI controller chip.
But running ide drives on old mac hardware, whether Nubus or PDS is not what I care about in this dream peripheral thread ...
All I want is someone to figure out how to add a real genuine existing Motorola 333 MHz 68060 chip (V5 core) into a 840AV or other AV. With dual execution pipelines and a larger branch cache, this next-generation core provides a 2x performance increase compared to a 220 MHz MCF5407 device, a V4-based standard product
The chip was announced at Oct. 19, 2002 many years ago !
Because of issues of incompatibility with 68060 though, even though there are royalty-free and price-free software library tricks to make it work, a 68040 emulator is needed, and that is how Amiga people get the 220 MHz MCF5407 device to run their 68030 code.
here are raw diffs, without software exception handling :
http://www.microapl.co.uk/Porting/ColdFire/cf_68k_diffs.html
Think of the chip as a 610 Mhz chip conceptually though, not a 333, because of its internal design. It gets 610 MIPs in benchmarks.
Would you provide additional information on how one modifies SCSI Manager and puts it into firmware in a way where it can take over the SCSI Manager function? I know FWB did it on their JackHammer, but I have no idea how the did it.
The JackHammer works on 53C80 based machines too. I don't think the 53C96 is really a requirement. If one limits an expansion cards to machines with a 53C96, one eliminates all but the Quadras (and later).
Driverguru: There's a couple of 68060 threads here that discuss issues and possible approaches. They're possibly worth your time to peruse.
I'm curious about this:
I'm curious about this:
Everything I've heard to date says that's impossible, with the exception of Photoshop with the necessary plugins.
traq,
I do not know if your response was in regards to my written words, but my written words precisely were :
"Adding a SCSI Manager 4.3 "XPT layer" (for ancient machines) is not impossible or hard. FWB did it (loaded a clone of a fake SCSI Manager 4.3 on non 4.3 compatible macs).
So many macs allow SCSI Manager 4.3, except for a couple powerc laptops, with system 7.5, that SUCH A "dream nubus card" WOULD NOT BE TOO RESTRICTED if limited to machines that run 7.5 and had a standard NCR 53C96 SCSI controller chip. "
The above sentence takes the time to point out that FWB (jackhammer) adds scsi manager 4.3 on non 4.3 systems, but also that if a system did not have native 4.3, i do not mind so much because many do.
OF COURSE you do not need a host scsi chip or a particular host scsi chip or ANY scsi manager (none) to support installing hand made 4.3 scsi manager on a mac. In fact, the jackhammer by FWB did.
As to how, its not magical. There is a single trap for SCSI manager 4.3 that you must check to see if it is present in all programs written, and a person merely installs the trap when their library is loaded, no modifications to any firmware or code or even old scsi manager is needed. Check_Trap_Available(0xA089) _SCSIAtomic trap = 0xA089
SCSI Manager 4.3 is actually not an apple technology. It is an open standard (SCSI CAM) that , once again, mainly apple used. It is a great new way to do scsi but lacks many critical features allowed in the old SCSI manager, but also provides many more new ones. Missing features include microsecond accurate timeout specification (or millisecond for that matter), and no way to specify a RAID scatter gather span loop in a couple integers, (you had to construct a huge giant list of every scatter gather span for no reason except idiocy on EVERY single large IO even if the striping was uniform and predictable.
FWB installed hacks into their SCSI manager 4.3 to allow scatter gather to not have to be anally specified like that for speed, and FWB also allowed short timeouts, and eventually, I think Apple did too, by honoring top bit as flag for high precision timeout, i think.
SCSI Manager 4.3 is the open standard of "CAM" Common Access Method
described here in a short tutorial for unix
http://www.rcnp.osaka-u.ac.jp/unix/DOCUMENTATION/HTML/AA-PS3GD-TET1_html/camosf2.html
Adaptec bought and CANCELLED all scsi card companies that had CAM and shut CAM down on Windows 100%.
Adaptec bought over 9 competitors.
Writing a SCI Manger 4.3 layer is semi trivial in one regard, it is merely the XPT layer. A thin layer, with lots and lots of apple specific information calls.
Allowing a Macintosh boot device control panel to select a CAM based (Scsi manager 4.3 device) provided early in boot time, is covered briefly in : http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/DeviceManagers/pci_srvcs/pci_cards_drivers/PCI_BOOK.23f.html
SCI Manger 4.3 is way cool in these two properties :
1> it is not polled with any apple hacks, it runs entirely under interrupts, except when interrupt are all turned off, and you are in a low level debugger (Macsbug, T/MON) and the debugger is feeding it using the pool feeder so data can be logged to disk while debugging, similar to the poll feed of a etehrnet card debugger nub
2> Thousands of pending I/Os can be issued at the same time (I have done 7,000) all with callbacks too. I think SCSI callbacks can be provoked to trigger and interrupt the macintosh for high speed honoring completion NO MATTER IF ALL THE USER ACCESSIBLE INTERRUPTS ARE TURNED OFF. It can even interrupt in the MIDDLE of a memory page fault handler already running. It is a breathtaking spectacular design of efficiency, that makes ATA, Firewire, USB, etc all look like sick crap. Mainly on the issuance and transfer side of the operation. (good programmers avoid using completion tasks in any I/O design needs).
(To specify a general purpose high speed timer callback to be able to do that same trick (interrupt in the MIDDLE of a memory page fault handler already handling a page fault) you do the following undocumented trick using the magic value in a field normally filled with 0 : ) timer_Data.qLink = (QElemPtr) 0x65616461 )
if you search Google for : 65616461 apple … you will get 0 hits (except maybe this page you are reading now), but 65616461 is safe, system wide, legal, and works. I think apple mentioned it in writing eventually once. If not… ooopsie.
Apple uses magic values in their OS for their own engineering uses in other places too. One for PowerPC machines is passing Gary Davidian’s birthday in a register from user-code land sent to the real PowerPC Kernel.
Ohhh, by the way, the reason some engineers (not me) play fast and loose with honoring a millisecond precise timeout in a SCSI CAM call, (SCSI Manager 4.3) is because the design has a glaring defect, and uses SECONDS (yes seconds !!!!!!!!!) as the minimum resolution for bus timing measurements or other events). FWB and Apple both refused to honor that in their own versions of CAM. Proof ? This --> "From the Common Access Method (CAM)
10.1.23 Timeout value
This field contains the maximum period in seconds that an issued SCSI command request can remain outstanding."
Idiocy amazes me sometimes. Polled Firewire and Polled USB do not, though, they are the product of the type of engineers apple hired.
HURRAY FOR CLEAN PURE PERFECT SCSI !
I do not know if your response was in regards to my written words, but my written words precisely were :
"Adding a SCSI Manager 4.3 "XPT layer" (for ancient machines) is not impossible or hard. FWB did it (loaded a clone of a fake SCSI Manager 4.3 on non 4.3 compatible macs).
So many macs allow SCSI Manager 4.3, except for a couple powerc laptops, with system 7.5, that SUCH A "dream nubus card" WOULD NOT BE TOO RESTRICTED if limited to machines that run 7.5 and had a standard NCR 53C96 SCSI controller chip. "
The above sentence takes the time to point out that FWB (jackhammer) adds scsi manager 4.3 on non 4.3 systems, but also that if a system did not have native 4.3, i do not mind so much because many do.
OF COURSE you do not need a host scsi chip or a particular host scsi chip or ANY scsi manager (none) to support installing hand made 4.3 scsi manager on a mac. In fact, the jackhammer by FWB did.
As to how, its not magical. There is a single trap for SCSI manager 4.3 that you must check to see if it is present in all programs written, and a person merely installs the trap when their library is loaded, no modifications to any firmware or code or even old scsi manager is needed. Check_Trap_Available(0xA089) _SCSIAtomic trap = 0xA089
SCSI Manager 4.3 is actually not an apple technology. It is an open standard (SCSI CAM) that , once again, mainly apple used. It is a great new way to do scsi but lacks many critical features allowed in the old SCSI manager, but also provides many more new ones. Missing features include microsecond accurate timeout specification (or millisecond for that matter), and no way to specify a RAID scatter gather span loop in a couple integers, (you had to construct a huge giant list of every scatter gather span for no reason except idiocy on EVERY single large IO even if the striping was uniform and predictable.
FWB installed hacks into their SCSI manager 4.3 to allow scatter gather to not have to be anally specified like that for speed, and FWB also allowed short timeouts, and eventually, I think Apple did too, by honoring top bit as flag for high precision timeout, i think.
SCSI Manager 4.3 is the open standard of "CAM" Common Access Method
described here in a short tutorial for unix
http://www.rcnp.osaka-u.ac.jp/unix/DOCUMENTATION/HTML/AA-PS3GD-TET1_html/camosf2.html
Adaptec bought and CANCELLED all scsi card companies that had CAM and shut CAM down on Windows 100%.
Adaptec bought over 9 competitors.
Writing a SCI Manger 4.3 layer is semi trivial in one regard, it is merely the XPT layer. A thin layer, with lots and lots of apple specific information calls.
Allowing a Macintosh boot device control panel to select a CAM based (Scsi manager 4.3 device) provided early in boot time, is covered briefly in : http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/DeviceManagers/pci_srvcs/pci_cards_drivers/PCI_BOOK.23f.html
SCI Manger 4.3 is way cool in these two properties :
1> it is not polled with any apple hacks, it runs entirely under interrupts, except when interrupt are all turned off, and you are in a low level debugger (Macsbug, T/MON) and the debugger is feeding it using the pool feeder so data can be logged to disk while debugging, similar to the poll feed of a etehrnet card debugger nub
2> Thousands of pending I/Os can be issued at the same time (I have done 7,000) all with callbacks too. I think SCSI callbacks can be provoked to trigger and interrupt the macintosh for high speed honoring completion NO MATTER IF ALL THE USER ACCESSIBLE INTERRUPTS ARE TURNED OFF. It can even interrupt in the MIDDLE of a memory page fault handler already running. It is a breathtaking spectacular design of efficiency, that makes ATA, Firewire, USB, etc all look like sick crap. Mainly on the issuance and transfer side of the operation. (good programmers avoid using completion tasks in any I/O design needs).
(To specify a general purpose high speed timer callback to be able to do that same trick (interrupt in the MIDDLE of a memory page fault handler already handling a page fault) you do the following undocumented trick using the magic value in a field normally filled with 0 : ) timer_Data.qLink = (QElemPtr) 0x65616461 )
if you search Google for : 65616461 apple … you will get 0 hits (except maybe this page you are reading now), but 65616461 is safe, system wide, legal, and works. I think apple mentioned it in writing eventually once. If not… ooopsie.
Apple uses magic values in their OS for their own engineering uses in other places too. One for PowerPC machines is passing Gary Davidian’s birthday in a register from user-code land sent to the real PowerPC Kernel.
Ohhh, by the way, the reason some engineers (not me) play fast and loose with honoring a millisecond precise timeout in a SCSI CAM call, (SCSI Manager 4.3) is because the design has a glaring defect, and uses SECONDS (yes seconds !!!!!!!!!) as the minimum resolution for bus timing measurements or other events). FWB and Apple both refused to honor that in their own versions of CAM. Proof ? This --> "From the Common Access Method (CAM)
10.1.23 Timeout value
This field contains the maximum period in seconds that an issued SCSI command request can remain outstanding."
Idiocy amazes me sometimes. Polled Firewire and Polled USB do not, though, they are the product of the type of engineers apple hired.
HURRAY FOR CLEAN PURE PERFECT SCSI !
Not true,
There was a MP version of the 9500 in the 1990's!
Umax made a MP 3rd party model too! (I wrote a driver they sold with each Umax))
Apple has had various official MP (multiprocessor) libraries for years for people writing vertical market solutions to PROPERLY share multiple cpus on a mac. Even mass market software uses MP under os 9 :
Premiere, DeBabelizer, iMovie2 and SoundJam MP Plus 2.5.1, Adobe Photoshop 6.0.1(Gaussian Blur, Unsharp, Resize, Rotate Canvas, Render Lighting effects, etc etc)
Parts of QuickTime are MP-aware
"Impossible" is a powerful and absolute word. Luckily it has a concrete meaning. In this case the it is shown that IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE.
Unless you are referring to my brand of card somehow being defective under OS 9's MP library from apple. I did not remove Apple's MP plugins and assume it is working fine.
The c't journal has a column c't-lab. It provides the complete know how to make a computer controllable multi purpose instrument for measuring and signal generation, a programmable source/sink and other components that are required for research and development of electronic hardware hacks. Communication is possible using a port and software/system of your choice (RS232/USB/Ethernet, use just HyperCard, LabVIEW or even a simple terminal programme).The required PCBs and microcontrollers can be obtained separately (I would strongly recommend the kit-supplier Segor in Berlin), if you do not want to etch the PCBs and to program the controllers to customize them for the given purpose. The author Carsten Meyer sometimes tends to design things a little better than required. In the issue #16/2008 he provides blueprints for some module announced as a frequency counter. In fact it turns out to be a full fledged FPGA module to make anything you can think of using 400000 gates at a rate of 50 MHz or more (Xilinx XC3S400). With help of some knowledgeable fellow of the 68kMLA even strange things might be possible, like this Asteroids emulator with an old oscilloscope tube as a display The c't lab project might be a good start to learn anything you would need to make your personal dream peripheral. Any of the c't-lab modules can be used stand alone, no need to manufacture a multimeter, when you already have one.
Caveats: you will need some basic knowledge of German language, soldering gear for electronics, a few bucks and plenty of time.
The c't lab project might be a good start to learn anything you would need to make your personal dream peripheral. Any of the c't-lab modules can be used stand alone, no need to manufacture a multimeter, when you already have one.Caveats: you will need some basic knowledge of German language, soldering gear for electronics, a few bucks and plenty of time.
What do people think of the Natami project ?
http://www.natami.net
Its an Amiga clone, but could it be modified for Mac ?
The new developer boards will be available end September 08.
Motorola 68060 cpu @ 90 MHZ
16 MB, 5ns SRAM
256 MB RAM
FPGA based gfx, SuperAGA @ 150 MHZ, 24bit (PS2 performance)
FPGA based Audio
2x PCI,VGA,IDE
The new N68070 cpu is designed from scratch and will be like a 68040 @ 200 MHZ. With highly optimized instruction set, it will replace the hardware cpu and put into FPGA.
http://www.natami.net/68070.htm
I believe, without too much work, a good machine can be built and being FPGA based, can be upgraded at will.
What do people think ?
Just thought you should know, before these high demand boards go into production.
http://www.natami.net
Its an Amiga clone, but could it be modified for Mac ?
The new developer boards will be available end September 08.
Motorola 68060 cpu @ 90 MHZ
16 MB, 5ns SRAM
256 MB RAM
FPGA based gfx, SuperAGA @ 150 MHZ, 24bit (PS2 performance)
FPGA based Audio
2x PCI,VGA,IDE
The new N68070 cpu is designed from scratch and will be like a 68040 @ 200 MHZ. With highly optimized instruction set, it will replace the hardware cpu and put into FPGA.
http://www.natami.net/68070.htm
I believe, without too much work, a good machine can be built and being FPGA based, can be upgraded at will.
What do people think ?
Just thought you should know, before these high demand boards go into production.
IMO FPGA is almost as bad as an emulator - plus it has no "culture" to it. The clone-a is the only thing that will come close in the amiga world IMO (no certainty that it will ever be released though)
Georg's amiga a1000 project just blows my mind with the craftsmanship that went into it - and with the original chipset very little can go wrong.
Some info:
http://www.amiga.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=45531&forum=8&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&start=0
http://www.gba1000.info/
Some pretty cool expansions for it there too.
Georg's amiga a1000 project just blows my mind with the craftsmanship that went into it - and with the original chipset very little can go wrong.
Some info:
http://www.amiga.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=45531&forum=8&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&start=0
http://www.gba1000.info/
Some pretty cool expansions for it there too.
If Apple died in the transition to PPC all the cheap 68K systems we take for granted would cost an arm and a leg to get.
Amiga gear gets pricey to collect and repair. I have not added anything to my Amiga collection in ages (except for some 6.6 ROMS for my 2091 SCSI card).Then again I have pretty much most of I want anyway.
Amiga gear gets pricey to collect and repair. I have not added anything to my Amiga collection in ages (except for some 6.6 ROMS for my 2091 SCSI card).Then again I have pretty much most of I want anyway.
bunsen: WinUAE is an easy option if you want to get amiga stuff running. There is no reason why you must use amiga hardware..
But given you want actual hardware, this is way better than most existing 50mhz amigas. . It benches almost as fast as an a4000 while retaining 030 compatibility. IMO you get the best of both worlds (faster more reliable tech, perfect compatibility).
The fact that it is done from scratch & the design is open means everything can be improved also.
unknown k: Hence why making new hardware like the above is the go. Most of the custom chips are scavenged from an 500. Shame nobody is populating the boards for a fee.
But given you want actual hardware, this is way better than most existing 50mhz amigas. . It benches almost as fast as an a4000 while retaining 030 compatibility. IMO you get the best of both worlds (faster more reliable tech, perfect compatibility).
The fact that it is done from scratch & the design is open means everything can be improved also.
unknown k: Hence why making new hardware like the above is the go. Most of the custom chips are scavenged from an 500. Shame nobody is populating the boards for a fee.