First Amiga 600 FPGA accelerator

[ungatonipon]

Everything runs now stable at 100Mhz and with frequency increase and 16 bit SDRAM it could go much much higher.

My question is, What's the potential? With the fastest FPGA available, adding more caches and fast RAM? Can we talk about more than 50, maybe over 100 MIPS? If you concentrated in getting the fastest Amiga possible, how much speed do you estimate could be possible?

Honestly talking, I didn't think you'd make it. But you did. My apologies for that. What you did show an incredible potential. Classic Amigas that can be made faster with a simple firmware update of that PGA Board? Man, that'd be the thing we've been all waiting for. No PPC, no strange concepts or new systems... that is not Amiga. But hey, super-cached emulated MC680X0 cores on directly connected modern cheap hardware? That's exciting. Really exciting

If this works and later you launch one of this for A1200, I can see a real rebirth of the Amiga platform as new FPGA modules appear in the market.

 

[majsta]

Yes no one believed in me but since few tests done in February this year there are so much mails and interviews requests and such things like visiting shows invitations, giving presentations. Few days I realized that Amiga scene is not small it is huge. In just few hours I received so much mails and I just don't have the time to reply. I still don't understand why no one else did this 10 years ago. It could be done then. I received my first Amiga 2 years ago, I only have the privilege to see one for 15 minutes in friends house back in 1996. Never had one, never worked with one but that was always my dream. Everything began to happen when my friend found me one A600 on some second hand market for few euros. I opened it and start reading part numbers. To that point I didn't know what CPU is inside any Amiga.

Answering your question. For now there is no point of changing FPGA with faster or with more LE because simply there is no cores who can use it. Or is it? This accelerator can break some limits again when I start working with another cache. There is cache developed by one person who can double performance but it is not opensourced. You see Amiga community is place where few people start some projects and stop when they hit some problem. I don't understand words give up or can't be done. If you could read that is enough. Everything is on the web. For A500 and A600 I proved that can be done and for A1200 something amazing may happen next year. Let's say something is going on right now, just talking, proposals. Most important thing is that I wanted to give some positive influence to all working on Amiga projects. Just google and see that something is going on everywhere regarding FPGA and Amiga. New days, new era. We will not let Amiga go down !

 

[hsc]

New days, new era. We will not let Amiga go down !

Amazing Job ! Majsta and this last words for a little make me cry. I Gonna send you some stuff for you can try how this beast accelerator can move like a fish in the water king of regards

Amiten.

Enviado desde mi G3

 

[LePiaf]

I still don't understand why no one else did this 10 years ago. It could be done then. I received my first Amiga 2 years ago, I only have the privilege to see one for 15 minutes in friends house back in 1996. Never had one, never worked with one but that was always my dream. Everything began to happen when my friend found me one A600 on some second hand market for few euros. I opened it and start reading part numbers. To that point I didn't know what CPU is inside any Amiga.

Respect for this Majsta, glad that you had enough energy to keep this project running, despite the negative vibes you sometimes received on forums. And answer to "why no one did this so far" is maybe in your words - you didn't know Amiga before, your mind didn't have the burden of the past and known paths (existing solutions) - so you created new and magnificent one. Keep on with good work, we finally have paypal so I can contribute to this

LePiaf

 

[majsta]

@LePiaf
Yes maybe that is explanation. I didn't know anything. When I start reading again it was unclear to me how everything happened and still I don't understand lack of motivation.

Offtopic sorry but I need to
I know about Paypal in Serbia but I have to say I laugh when I watch on TV statements from leading economists from Serbia and some politicians. It was clear to me that they don't know anything about the topic. They said that Paypal is now in Serbia and that first payments from and to Serbia are already taking place. Every fool knows that for proper registration and verification to get everything done regarding Paypal you need at least 25 days. It took me 3 month to solve things regarding Paypal in Bosnia.

 

[Chinners]

Wow, it's great that you've managed get it to this stage. I've been half-following your progress on this great project for a while, and I am really happy for you (and the Amiga community in general) that it is at the stage where you can produce real boards.

 

[majsta]

I just had to prove my point again. Why anyone didn't bet. Here you have A600 MC68K addressing 1GB of FastRam

 

[protek]

You really know how to think outside of the box!

What next, a new RTG card perhaps?

 

[Amiga Forever]

1GB FAST RAM? I dont know much about Fast Ram but would give Aircrafts and F1 Games much faster say 40 to 60FPS?

Sorry, I just guessing on what I say

 

[ad-rs1600i]

14mips on a A600 that is truly staggering - absolutely stunning work

I look forward to getting one of these

Just continue to take your time and enjoy the journey - and thank you so much for having the courage to take on and succeed with such a project - stunning

@majsta - I am sure you know what you are doing but just in case, get someone to deal with the orders side for you - that's a lot of work in itself to be honest, and I'm sure you probably prefer 'tinkering' to 'sales'. Maybe speak with a distributor like Amigakit. It could be impossible to try and do it all..............

 

[zerec]

@majstra

Very nice project!!!
I would love to pre-order one Turbo.

Question: Do you allready have an
Amiga1200?

Kind Regards
z!Erec

 

[Rakeim132]

Yes no one believed in me but since few tests done in February this year there are so much mails and interviews requests and such things like visiting shows invitations, giving presentations. Few days I realized that Amiga scene is not small it is huge. In just few hours I received so much mails and I just don't have the time to reply. I still don't understand why no one else did this 10 years ago. It could be done then. I received my first Amiga 2 years ago, I only have the privilege to see one for 15 minutes in friends house back in 1996. Never had one, never worked with one but that was always my dream. Everything began to happen when my friend found me one A600 on some second hand market for few euros. I opened it and start reading part numbers. To that point I didn't know what CPU is inside any Amiga.

We will not let Amiga go down !

Amazing... Some people really have talent. Thanks mate. We need to contribute to your work...

 

[ungatonipon]

I just had to prove my point again. Why anyone didn't bet. Here you have A600 MC68K addressing 1GB of FastRam

Many people might think a MC68K can't address that much memory and they are right, but this is not a MC68K; it's a programmed MC68K with modifications in its program/software that allow it to have more caches or address more memory like this.

Supercharged Motorolas FTW! Can't wait to see if someone comes up with the program for a 68060, a 1GB A600 is nuts!

Wasn't this excited on an Amiga project for a long time.

 

[rkauer]

From the 68020 onwards every Motorola have the capability of addressing up to 4Gb of memory space, so that's an invalid argument.

Now, a 000/010 with this addressing capability is awesome!

@Majsta: any chance to user upgradable design to have more memory than currently?

That 1Gb RAM make me drool!

 

[ungatonipon]

From the 68020 onwards every Motorola have the capability of addressing up to 4Gb of memory space, so that's an invalid argument.

With MC68K I actually meant 000/010. Also, an 680EC20 can only address 16MB.

 

[majsta]

@ rkauer
Hi
It is possible to do whatever you imagine. I just wanted to prove that it can be done. But, maybe best thing I have done here is compatibility with cheap arduino modules so on this accelerator card you can add amazing additions from arduino like wireless,RTC, more memory, radio tuner, various sensors. Their modules are cheap because mass production about 2 USD per each module so only thing we need to do is to modify opensourced drivers. I have already made some contacts and they give me permission to use their codes. So adding memory is simple, i could add any size but I didn't see point of doing that because I have never seen that something on A600 needs more than 40MB for proper work.

 

[ShK]

So adding memory is simple, i could add any size but I didn't see point of doing that because I have never seen that something on A600 needs more than 40MB for proper work.

What about memory slot?

 

[majsta]

No there is no point of doing that because back in the days SDRAM memory was small and you had to have bunch of them to get 32MB so it was easier to add a slot. Those days you have 64MB in one chip or in BGA you can get 512MB or more. But, more than 64MB is not needed on A600 and on A500 so I didn't bother attaching bigger. Even Zeewolf 2 test I performed wanted only 4MB. Rest of the memory is nice to have for printing, maybe simple surfing the web or working with images,videos,music but it should be plenty.

Anyway now I added 32MB autoconfig no more 16MB like I announced. So maybe I will get all 64MB autoconfig. But I will decide that later.
Where is the problem. I noticed that few games, programs, old ones search for FastRam at $200000 and if there is nothing they will not start. So in order to get maximum compatibility I need to add 4MB to that space. So CPU will be properly detected by kickstart because kickstart does not expect that MC68K can address more memory. Then there is a problem because in ZorroIII autoconfig space you must autoconfig fix values 32MB,64MB,128MB... So if I add 4MB to $200000 I can't add more than 32MB into ZorroIII space to be used as autoconfig. Then we would have 36MB of autoconfig and rest used with addmem or something. We can't use 8MB in $200000 space because this will block PCMCIA card. So we will see ...

 

[johey]

Would it be a big deal to make an A500/2000 version? I would think your market would increase quite a bit. (A500 and A2000 would likely be the exact same board, provided it is fitted in the CPU socket).

(Sorry if this has already been discussed somewhere where I haven't looked.)

 

[majsta]

@johey please visit my site and there you will find pictures of Vampire 500 prototype(last test was about 8Mips but I didn't finish IDE controller yet,didn't have the time due to Vampire 600).