A314 co-processor cards

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Robban

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18/11
Updating queue. Will try to send emails to those interested that has not responded yet.

3/11
I finally completed a few more cards (V1.1). I have sent PM to those interested
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Hello!

I have assembled 4 A314 co-processor cards for Amiga 500(+). These will let you connect an Raspberry Pi to the Amiga via the trapdoor expansion slot and use it as a co-processor. Please see https://github.com/niklasekstrom/a314 and the official EAB thread http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=97171 for information.
Please note that they are hand soldered by me, so there might be small imperfections here and there. But I have tested them all using Diagrom to check every block of memory, then using all available modules from the github repo to see that everything works.
These include:
-"picmd" to open a RPI bash shell directly from the Workbench CLI
-"piaudio" together with mpg123 to play an mp3-file on the raspberry and stream the audio directly to the Amiga soundchip
-"pidisk" gives the ability to mount a shared folder on the RPI directly in workbench, making data transfer to the Amiga easy
-"remotewb" captures the video data directly from Denise and duplicates it to a socket in the RPI. This can then be displayed using a web server on the RPI. Mouse/keyboard input is also captured and forwarded from the browsers window to the Amiga, making this functionally a complete VNC solution for Workbench using almost no resources of the 68k.
-"videoplayer" does the opposite and streams video from the RPI to a framebuffer on the Amiga. It is mostly a proof of concept, but works quite well technically

Also note that any module that relies on writing and reading data to the Amiga chipset (piaudio, remotewb and videoplayer) will require the trapdoor memory to be identified as chipram, so a chipram mod might be advised on regular 500 (the 500+ is setup from factory to use the trapdoor as chipram). Picmd and Pidisk still works properly if the trapdoor is treated as slow-ram.
The card contains an RTC and 1MB of memory that can be used as normal trapdoor memory. Some Linux knowledge is advised for setting up the RPI, though most things are written up in the github repo's wiki. I can provide some support as well if you need it, either here or on the EfNet IRC-channel #A314.

These are PCB ver 1.1, so you can change compatibility with Amiga 500 <-> 500+ using the jumper JMP3. If closed it works in 500+, if open it works in regular 500.

Any questions just ask :)

I'm looking to sell them all separately for 120€ + postage a piece. Postage should be 15€ worldwide for registered air-mail. Payment via PayPal is preferred
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Edit:
queue for the cards:

-Puppetmaster - Payment received, item sent
-gebes - Payment received, Item sent
-arnjot - Payment received, Item sent
-deetsay - payment received, Item sent
-PRS -Payment received, item sent
-0001agima -Payment received, item sent
-gdunlapsd -Payment received, item sent
-michaeljk -Payment received, item sent
-B_G_L -Payment received, item sent
-Magic -Payment received, item sent
-Alainneke -PM sent, payment received, item sent, was lost in transit to Belgium, refunded payment
-MoRetro-PM sent, payment received, item sent, was lost in transit to Belgium, refunded payment
-Nowee -PM sent, payment received, item sent
-PorkLip -PM sent, payment received, item sent
-Mattup -PM sent, payment received, item sent
-Trixster -PM sent, payment received, item sent
-Lizard -PM sent, payment received, item sent


-Sim085 -PM sent, payment received, postal office could not send items to Malta right now, still waiting on them as Nov 18 :/

-Fastdruid - PM sent, email sent
-eStorm - PM sent, email sent
-Ruemhart - PM sent, email sent
-Simonfromsomewhere - PM sent, recieved answer, waiting for payment
-Electroblaster - PM sent, email sent
-AngryInca - PM sent, email sent
-shad - PM sent, email sent
-xamfear - PM sent, no email available
-Logik -PM sent again, email sent again
-BuzzBrain -PM sent again, email sent again
-Mkopack73 -PM sent, email sent again

-JohnnySlick - PM sent, payment received, item sent
-barracuda00 - payment received, item sent
-gmcn - payment received, item sent
-XLV2K - payment received, item sent
-chiark - PM sent, payment received, item sent

-Rakeim132 - If i do a red one, have two red pcbs so will solder them up in the future and see if still interested then
-Keiko -PM sent, prefers to wait until I maybe produce some 1.2 boards in the future
-StrongArm - interested in V1.2
-Corum - interested in V1.2
 
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Interested, will send PM. Will any Raspberry Pi work, or is there a preferred one to use ?
I have only tried RPI2B and RPI3B(+), but there should not be any problems using any version of the pi except the "A" versions. They might not physically fit without removing the bottom EMI-shield of the Amiga.

IMG_20190908_214521.jpg
The very first model Pi 1 has a different pinout for the GPIO also, so care must be taken to match the pins on the board. The only ones used are 5V power, ground, and the SPI pins.

Do note that the RPI4 has a significantly higher power draw than previous models also. This might put extra strain on your PSU.
I have tested the cards with a RPI3B and a TF534 accelerator on an A500+ with a stock lightweight 4.5A@5V power supply and that works no problems. The same setup causes some noise in the video signal with a stock lightweight 2.5A PSU. If it is a concern, then maybe a Raspberry Pi Zero (W) is the best choice, since they have much lower power reqirements.

I'd say that the RPI3B is the sweet spot, decent power requirements, quite fast (for interacting with the Amiga even the rpi1 is plenty fast enough), and has built in WiFi. The internet part is quite a big plus, since you can do stuff like SSH from your Amiga, wget things directly from aminet to the shared folder from workbench, or share the pidisk-folder via samba, giving you the ability to just drag and drop files from Windows to the Amiga. All while still running a stock 68000 on WB 1.3 if you so wish :)
 
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Thanks for the detailed response, I've got a modern meanwell PSU I'd use rather than a stock one. I have pm'd you
 
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I'd also be interested should more become available.
 
I've bought this board from Robban on ebay, probably the first or one of the first boards he made. Despite he's newly registered and does not have feedback yet, buy without hesitation, he's a great seller and very helpful in setting the thing up.
 
Thank you for the kind words philip930! It was indeed the first one I sold. Did you get it to work?

It seems there is quite some interest in these cards, so I'll try to make another small batch of them (I have components for an additional 6 pcs if I do not screw anything up). I can not give an estimate of when they are ready unfortunately, as I seem to have precious little time for hobbies right now. When they are ready I'll contact the users in this thread in the order they have expressed interest.
Should I perhaps change the thread status to "Sold" until then?
 
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