For Sale Apollo SHAPESHIFTER - Turbo Card for AMIGA1000 with 68080 CPU 1000 MB RAM

[Apollo]

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Apollo SHAPESHIFTER- NEW LIMITED Rare Accelerator Card for Amiga 1000 with >1000 MB Fast Memory and 6MB ChipMemory

This card allows you to finally play AGA Amiga Games on your Amiga 1000!

It comes with
* Super AGA Chipset, RTG, TrueColor 32 Bit
* Integrated FlickerFixer and ScanDoubler for Amiga PAL/NTSC
* 16 bit Audio, 56 kHz, 24 Bit mixing
* Maggie 3D Unit
* FastKick
* 2 FastIDE/DVD/Compact flash Controller
* SD Card Slot
* 2 USB-1 Ports for Mouse/ Joypad
* Network Card with DMA
* 100Mbit Ethernet

Export price for US and UK market is 679USD plus shipping

Or you can also get the smaller version with only 512 MB Fastmemory for 589USD plus shipping

The Shapeshifter assembly kit is designed for the installation in the Amiga 1000,
It was tested with both Amiga 1000 mainboard verisons (with and without piggyback daugtherboard)
The Kit comes ready to use with:
-3 high precision CPU Sockets for extra clearance
-Floppy cable
-IDE/CF Adapter
-CF Flashdrive preinstalled with ApolloOS
So you only need to plug the card in your Amiga 1000 machine and you can use it immediate,
program, play AGA Games, watch videos , browse the Internet and alot more ....
So finally the original Amiga is able to play AGA !

Edit:

Just in case you missed my question, can you please tell us what the price in Euro's is?
Thank you.

Hello Jseuters,

we officially sell the product also in the European Union including European VAT/Sales tax.

The complete price for the Kit and the CPU card with 512 MB DDR3 memory is EUR 659,00 including EU VAT taxes. The complete price for the 1024 MB version is EUR 759,00.
Of course we can also provide you the system without VAT (e.g. saving ~19%) if you are having a business or are otherwise able to do purchase without EU VAT. Please give me a PM.

Cheers
Gunnar

 

[screemo]

Hello, please remember according to rules that you cannot include copyrighted software (kickstarts, games etc.), unless it is licensed as part of the card itself.

 

[SilkWorm]

* Integrated FlickerFixer and ScanDoubler for Amiga PAL/NTSC

How does it work, what is the source of Amiga PAL/NTSC signal?

 

[Apollo]

Hello, please remember according to rules that you cannot include copyrighted software (kickstarts, games etc.), unless it is licensed as part of the card itself.

Hello screemo,

The Kickstart and the OS that are included are known as ApolloRom and ApolloOS.
If you want to learn more about Apollo-OS then you can read more here:
http://www.apollo-computer.com/apolloos.php

ApolloOS and Apollo-Rom are free alternative Amiga Operating Systems.
They are both based on the development work of Aros and are further developed and maintainer by us and provide better Amiga game compatibility than Aros.

Our goal is to revive Amiga.
To revive the Amiga we develop a range of Accelerator for old Amiga models, we have develop complete New Amiga models (Called Standalone). We have develop our improved Super-AGA chipset that is AGA compatible but also included all the features that the original Amiga dev team wanted to do but did net get to market, as truecolor, 16bit audio, Ethernet, 3D acceleration. And last but not leats we also developed a number Amiga games and our free alternative Amiga OS.

 

[screemo]

Oh yes, of course - thats a whole separate OS, sorry !

 

[Apollo]

Oh yes, of course - thats a whole separate OS, sorry !

Yes we ship our product including our ApolloOS and our games.


The OS that we include in this offer is meant to give people a complete working system that runs out of the box.
With all drivers installed so that they turn the machine on and have workbench in nice resolution and truecolor,
and can immediately play music/mp3 in 16bit quality, and have web browser installed with which they can go immediately online, have a working video player, PDF viewer ... and so on and so forth.

But people are of course free to run any Amiga OS version the want.
If they prefer to run an old OS install this is fine. Or they can also reinstall any other Amiga OS version.

 

[SilkWorm]

So now when we know all the software is legal, please reply to my question about Integrated FlickerFixer and ScanDoubler for Amiga PAL/NTSC, thank you in advance.

 

[Apollo]

How does it work, what is the source of Amiga PAL/NTSC signal

Hi Silkworm,

The card come with a new Amiga chipset that we have developed.
We call this chipset "Super-AGA".
Super-AGA is fully compatible to original Amiga OCS/ECS/AGA chipset
in addition it includes all the features that Amiga engineers wanted to do but were unfortunately not able to bring to market.
256bit Amiga DMA channels, with improved Sprites, Improved Blitter, enhanced Copper, truecolor display, picture in picture, 3D acceleration, 16 Amiga audio voices each 16bit, ... basically all what Amiga engineers ever wanted.

This means with this upgrade your Amiga has 2 Amiga chipsets then inside.
Of course the card comes with its own video output, which is on HDMI.
Over this HDMI are going both signals, the "old" Amiga PAL/NTSC signal and also new resolutions.
You can connect a new Monitor/TV to this one HDMI port and you will get both old Amiga games and Workbench in high resolution displayed. The signal will autoswitch for you. No manual switching is needed.

Interlaced Amiga Screens are automatically de-interlaced and non interlaced screen are automatically doublescanned for display over HDMI. In addition to this you as user can choose to enable "scanline/crt"-filter.
Modern LCD have a different look than the original CRT Amiga monitor,
to make the old games look like they used to look - you can enable this CRT look-like feature.

Of course you can also use your original 1084 Monitor over the old Amiga video out- if you prefer to do this.
And can use the HDMI output for Workbench and new stuff - and continue to play game on the old school monitor.
This is your choice.

I hope this answer your question? If not please tell me

 

[CodePoet]

@SilkWorm my understanding is that there's no connectivity to the actual OCS chip sockets directly (like an RGB2HDMI or Indivision would do with Denise), because this board has an FPGA which has its own OCS/ECS/AGA implementation. So RTG and Amiga screen-modes all come out of a single HDMI port.

 

[jseuters]

What are the Euro prices for the 2 versions?

 

[SilkWorm]

Over this HDMI are going both signals, the "old" Amiga PAL/NTSC signal and also new resolutions.

Thank you for very detailed reply, the part with both signals (quoted above) is still not clear to me - how Apollo Shapeshifter is able to get the signal from original Amiga 1000 chipset without any additional cabling to the source of legacy video, which is the Denise chip?

 

[SilkWorm]

@SilkWorm my understanding is that there's no connectivity to the actual OCS chip sockets directly (like an RGB2HDMI or Indivision would do with Denise), because this board has an FPGA which has its own OCS/ECS/AGA implementation. So RTG and Amiga screen-modes all come out of a single HDMI port.

If that's the case, it would mean chipset on Apollo Shapeshifter would be able to take over all the request being sent to the OCS on Amiga mainboard - is that correct @Apollo ?

 

[Apollo]

If that's the case, it would mean chipset on Apollo Shapeshifter would be able to take over all the request being sent to the OCS on Amiga mainboard - is that correct @Apollo ?

Let me try to explain.
On the Apollo card is our new CPU the 68080.
The 68080 is a very much improved 68060.
Its internal structure is very like on 060, but it has all missing instructions added, and also supports 64bit operations. Making it a lot more powerful.

On the card is also our Super-AGA chipset.
The Super-AGA chipset is a true Amiga chipset, with Copper, Amiga Sprites, Amiga Blitter, Amiga DMA audio channels. Super-AGA is basically Amiga AGA plus all the features that the Amiga engineers did plan. It support truecolor, it supports chunky, it has Monique the rowbuffer of the AAA chipset, it has basically all features that Commodore did plan for AAA and Hombre.

In your Amiga you have now both the "mainboard" chipset and the Chipset on the Apollo card both running in parallel.

You can think of it like having a band where 2 guitars play the same tune at the same time. Both create the same signal in parallel.

This means the card does not need to have a wire to the old Denise chip, as it includes a complete copy the Denise and Paula and Agnus chips in itself it can directly de-interlace their output.

I hope I could answer the question.

 

[SilkWorm]

Let me try to ask the question in another, more descriptive way:

- if I boot my Amiga using a floppy drive, to play a non-DOS game, will I see the picture on my LCD over HDMI output provided by Apollo Shapeshifter, or I still do need to plug a second monitor to see what's going on on the RGB output?
- if I am using Workbench over HDMI output provided by Apollo Shapeshifter and I start an old software (like for example SysInfo), will I see the picture from SysInfo over HDMI, or I still do need to plug a second monitor to see what's going on on the RGB output?

In 2nd example I am assuming, no software for mode promotion is in use, which would force SysInfo to be displayed on RTG screen instead of PAL/NTSC output.

 

[Apollo]

Let me try to ask the question in another, more descriptive way:

- if I boot my Amiga using a floppy drive, to play a non-DOS game, will I see the picture on my LCD over HDMI output provided by Apollo Shapeshifter, or I still do need to plug a second monitor to see what's going on on the RGB output?
- if I am using Workbench over HDMI output provided by Apollo Shapeshifter and I start an old software (like for example SysInfo), will I see the picture from SysInfo over HDMI, or I still do need to plug a second monitor to see what's going on on the RGB output?

In 2nd example I am assuming, no software for mode promotion is in use, which would force SysInfo to be displayed on RTG screen instead of PAL/NTSC output.

Hi Silkworm,

yes when you start an Amiga game, e.g. Bubble Bobble or Gianasister - the display will automatically be visible over the HDMI. Same for programs like Sysinfo, Aibb or Dpaint, they will automatically show on the HDMI. Over HDMI you will also see the Workbench.
It does not matter whether the Workbench is PAL/NTSC or in high resolution and in truecolor it show the same way over HDMI.

This means 1 monitor is fully enough to play old games and to use Workbench in truecolor. And the switching of the display is automatic. If you boot Amiga workbench in highres and launch then an old game the display will automatically switch to show the game and if the game supports quitting the display will automatically go back to Workbench. This works very good.

There is no software for promotion needed for this.
The Amiga chipset hardware will do this automatically

 

[SilkWorm]

That is an awesome feature, which deserves much more advertising in my opinion.

 

[jseuters]

Just in case you missed my question, can you please tell us what the price in Euro's is?
Thank you.

 

[CodePoet]

@Apollo any wifi (networking) or bt (controller) support? And is the USB usable for more than mass-storage?

really nice piece of hardware for an A1000

 

[Apollo]

@Apollo any wifi (networking) or bt (controller) support? And is the USB usable for more than mass-storage?

really nice piece of hardware for an A1000

Hello Codepoet!
how are you?

Regarding networking, the Apollo V4 includes a Ethernet RJ45 port with 100MBit Network support. This network is fully DMA enabled - which makes it very fast and low on CPU usage. To my knowledge this network it todays fastest on Amiga.
This device is not wireless but its very easy to go wireless with it.
I go wireless with it myself when I visit Amiga meetings with my Amiga.
I use a Wireless-hub connected to it - which allows me with the Amiga to go online wireless very easily. You can get this hub for low price at amazon.

The two build USB controllers/ports are directly connected to the DB9 ports in hardware.
The idea behind this is to allow you to plug in USB Joypads, and USB mice.
These controllers are hardware connected - this means they work without any software USB drivers. Which means any old Amiga game works with them directly and also the mouse is useable in any Game - also games disabling the OS - and they are fully useable in the Early BootMenu before OS is loaded.

Having the USB ports being done 100% as part of the Amiga chipset.
Has both advantage and disadvantage.
The disadvantage is that not all mice on joypads on the world will work out - so its limited to some hundreds of mice and joypads models. We have long list of tested mice .. So for me this is not a problem as the choice is really huge still.

The big advantage of doing this in Hardware without Software driver is that this solution is 100% compatible with all Amiga games and Amiga demos. And this was important for me.


The USBpad is recognised and mapped in the System like an Original Amiga CD32 pad.
This means you can play CD32 AGA games on your Amiga using a very affordable USB pad acting like a CD32 pad (these CD32 are hard to get and are costly)

As USB mouse I use a Logitech Wireless mice on my Amiga with it.
There is a number of very good wireless mice from Logitech which have very good battery life, good ergonomic and real product quality.

 

[Apollo]

Just in case you missed my question, can you please tell us what the price in Euro's is?
Thank you.

Hello Jseuters,

we officially sell the product also in the European Union including European VAT/Sales tax.

The complete price for the Kit and the CPU card with 512 MB DDR3 memory is EUR 659,00 including EU VAT taxes. The complete price for the 1024 MB version is EUR 759,00.
Of course we can also provide you the system without VAT (e.g. saving ~19%) if you are having a business or are otherwise able to do purchase without EU VAT. Please give me a PM.

Cheers
Gunnar