ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

[Harrison]

Does anyone have any information on the A600 A603 1MB chip ram expansion, and the ECS Flickerfixer/scandoubler?

I've noticed the A603 is in stock at Amigakit for a quite expensive sum of £35. However it does come with a RTC and more importantly a clockport! Something many A600 owners have wanted in the past.

Combine this with the A608 8MB fast ram board and you would have quite a nice A600 setup with up to 10MB of ram. More than enough to run any non AGA WHDLoad games!

Then there is the Indivision ECS Flickerfixer/Scandoubler. From what I've looked at it should work with all OSC and ECS machines. Is that correct? But for the A600 it needs the A603 ram expansion to be installed as well for the flickerfixer to plug into. Is that correct? And is this because the A600 has surface mounted chips? I noticed in some pictures of the development flickerfixer installed in other Amigas that it looks like it replaces the chip on the motherboard, and the chip then goes into the flickerfixer's board. Is that correct?

This really interests me. I would love to build a fully specced out A600 with 2MB Chip, 8MB Fast, internal CD-Rom and CF card adapter, and maybe utilise the clockport for something as well. Would be great. Will cost close to £200 to do though, which is the only issue.

 

[TheCorfiot]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

@Harrison

It is indeed a nice A600 solution, if you want VGA output on your A600 using the flicker fixer then you must fit the A603 too, but beware you will have to lose the Floppy drive when fitting the Flicker Fixer Module.
Now the Shocking bit..... :shock:

The Indivision ECS Flicker Fixer is actually a Cloned Denise recontructed within an FPGA which is the main reason it attaches on the RAM Board (the DIL socket helps too LOL) and not on top of the original Denise in the A600...
The FPGA implementation is part of IC's Clone A project, the other point is that the A603 contains an awfull lot of RAM chips (and hopefully Zetr0 can shed some light here) and I wonder if the ECS Flicker fixer will also be able to perform some wizardry regarding ChipRAM !!!!

We have to wait and see.


Oh by the way, did I not mention that the Indivision AGA Flicker fixer is a cloned LISA and actually replaces the onboard LISA when plugged on top the real chip inside an AGA machine too :mrgreen:


Best Wishes
TC

 

[rkauer]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

Wut TC said.

And a word of advice: drop the internal CD/DVD for now. Use a CF over the PCMCIA port so you can replace it easily and move the CF to WinUAE for downloads.

Remember the space inside the A600 with the A608 + A603 + Indivision ECS will be tight.

 

[tonyyeb]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

So much so there isn't room for the floppy drive i've heard.

 

[Harrison]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

I'm sure there much be a way to squeeze it all in! If an A1200 fits into an A600 case there is always a way!

 

[RedDaemonFox]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

Yeah, I agree with Harrison, I'm pretty sure He won't need to drop the internal CD, but he may have to improvise on cooling

 

[Zetr0]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

for some shots guys...

alas these are the last as my Camera is now dead... the lens motor has burnt out

Click Images for FULL size (caution large images)








Hope that helps guys

 

[Nathanieltolbert]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

I know this is a weird question, but here goes. Looking at the pictures that were taken by Zetr0, there appears to be some space open near the front left side of the A600 case. I know there isn't a lot of head room there, but if the ECS scandoubler/flickerfixer isn't super tall, what's to stop someone from using wires and routing the SD/FF down into that area? If the ECS SD/FF is as thin as say the A4000/CD32 model, I could be possible, right?

 

[rkauer]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

Noise on the lines will ruin the output quality.

I think it's just a matter of make a "shift adaptor" to move the new Indivision ECS a bit to the left. The area over the PCMCIA port must be reserved for a CF adaptor. :!:

 

[Nathanieltolbert]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

Judging from where the port is on the A603 wouldn't we need something that shifts the SD/FF not only to the left, but also down? I doesn't really matter much for me at the moment as my original Floppy drive for my A600 went to the electornics junkpile in the sky, but I have fitted it with a modified HD drive until I can source a replacement. I would like to keep a floppy drive in my A600. I cannot be the only one thinking like this.

 

[PhilipMcD]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

For moving the flickerfixer it's kinda out the question, to do with the signals not being made for that kind of noise, as evidenced by Red's IndyAGA CD32 attempt.

Theoretically with 8mb fast ram you wouldn't even need a floppy - just terminate it and use a CF card adapter and find a place to mount it externally. You wouldn't be able to hot-swap it though.

For the record: I've mentioned it before but the Apollo A630 will NOT fit with the flickerfixer (it barely fits with the A603). Which is a shame for me, but I've recently decided against buying the flickerfixer anyway, so not as much of an issue.

 

[Nathanieltolbert]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

I guess this means that I won't be getting rid of all of my 1084 Monitors after all. The question I have to pose is why did they have to put the SD/FF port on the top of the card rather than the bottom? If it was on the bottom it would overlay the memory and not block the floppy drive at all. I'm guessing it had something to do with the traces on the PCB? Oh well. You can't always get what you want.

Nathan

 

[PhilipMcD]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

Tbh I suspect a mod isn't completely out the question. But what do you mod?

The A603?
The IndyECS?
The Floppy Drive?
The Apollo 630?

The pictures I posted here show the nuisance.

The IndyECS is also very much a part of the CloneA, so depending on the final CloneA price (assuming it is released) maybe going that route would be better?

Well it's up to the hobbyists' retro heart I guess.

 

[Harrison]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

In CloneA still being developed? I remember reading about that project a couple of years ago. Do you have any links?

 

[Nathanieltolbert]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

As far as I understand, yes. These SD/FF are a apparently an implementation of the Amiga Graphics chip in an FPGA. From what I have gathered by reading around is that these are the actual implementation of the softcore custom chipsets that will be in the Clone A someday. I can't be 100% on that because people say Jens is very tight lipped about projects he's working on. We can only wait and see.

Nathan

 

[PhilipMcD]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

Since the original announcement, it's mainly just been hearsay really. Though Jens does make the odd comment, for the most part he's keeping hush.

There does seem to be a noticeable amount of enthusiasm towards a potential release spanning the main Amiga sites on the web, this even coming from some of the more pessimistic known Amigans.

According to this page, the actual project (FPGA implementation part, I'm guessing) was finished in 2008. It is also evident for the Indivision SD/FF projects that research used for CloneA has gone into them. According to Jens, IndyECS even contains part of CloneA itself!

That, coupled with the fact that everyone just seems to trust Jens, has kept long-term interest in the CloneA project alive, I guess.

 

[Photon]

Re: ECS Flicker Fixer and A603 Chip ram expansion.

for some shots guys...

alas these are the last as my Camera is now dead... the lens motor has burnt out

So it's TRUE that too much porn causes a burnout! :ROTFLOL2: