Say hello to the brand new Amiga A500 accelerator card - the TF530 (Terrible Fire 530

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Have some accelerator cards designed by Stephen Leary:
TF520 (have some units left, hope these will be usable in CDTV's soon)
TF530 are discontinued (still support them, also offering update service)
TF534 (betatesting phase is finished, cards will be available before Christmas, hopefully )
540 is almost fully routed (no working prototype atm)

Also offer some cards from Matze (Matthias Heinrichs)
68000 8MB RAM-IDE AUTOBOOT
68EC020TK will be available thru kryoflux online store
68030TK 4MB are also available
 
Has Stephen published the Gerbers or made PCBs for the TF534 available? I've looked but don't seen them on Github. I have a pair of 530's and all necessary parts I need to assemble but if the 534 is going mainstream I'd rather just grab some new CPLDs and RAM to go that route...
 
Stephen made some pcbs, these was prototypes, wasn't for sale. Got two pcbs to test different RAM types. Also Alen and Mark got prototypes to test. This phase is successfully done, card is running stable on Amiga @50Mhz, Atari ST Firmware will follow soon. We need a serial port driver for Amiga OS before Gerbers are released.
One cpld is different (XC95144XL) also two new component's are on the board, other parts are similar to TF530..
Regards,

Viktor
 

Hello dear Amigans!
TF530 era is slowly going to the end, and i'd like to officially present a successor of this card -
Here it is - TF534:
 20181104_14195.jpg
This card is also using SRAM memory type (55ns), but it has twice as much RAM as TF530 - 4MB
Another difference is that this card uses Zorrolll memory space instread of Zll
this allows You to use it in pair with other Memory cards-
Kipper2k 8MB and Combitec A2000 boards are tested so far and are working excellent
giving You 12MB of Fastram - isn't it great?
IDE connector was also swapped out for 44pin one
also SPI Flash was added
INT2 interrupt signal wire is NOT NEEDED anymore - this card is plug and play!

will offer some assembled cards as soon as Gerber files will be released,
will create separate For Sale thread
Discussions and support thread is HERE


TF530 cards are still supported,
feel free to contact me for repair and firmware updates - will help as soon as i can
Thanks for watching

-​8 Bit Dreams-​
 
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So... I have my 530 up and running in my Amiga 500. Check out the blog-entry/post I did yesterday.

http://to9xct.blogspot.com/2018/12/amiga-500-turbo.html

And I have it installed with my Scandoubler as well. With enough room to spare, for closing up the case.
Yes... I had to buy another CPU, as the one I was using, had a heatsink that was too high.
Also. The CPU relocator has some spacers between it and the motherboard.

Now...
I have this 2-in-1 Kickstart, that I bought from sordan. Because it sits on top of a pcb with the switching circuit, it is too tall.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nuevo-Lice...h=item1cb176ee5d:g:qj8AAOSwBARbP9B3:rk:2:pf:0

The left top corner of the rom-chip will be in the way of the CPU relocator's inner corner.
This will result in bad CPU-contact, so I was actually wondering if there is any PCB, that are just a simple Kickstart relocator?
What I need to source, is something that will relocate the kickstart rom/socket a couple of millimeters left and a couple down.
Yet still be able to close the case with the keyboard installed. Perhaps one that are a kind of cross or something.
 
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Congratulations!
Nice blog, was very interesting to read, really like it.
As about heatsink on the cpu - You can cut it with a carpet knife (just be careful, don't cut Your fingers)
About Kickstart - this wasn't smart, to be fair, sorry, there are much easier and cheaper solutions to get 1.3/3.1 KS, really..You can get an Eprom programmer instread of spending money on these expensive 2 in 1 KS and relocators, and You will be able to burn amy KS rom You want instread of spending 30+€ on each
And did You heard about early boot menu? Hold both mouse buttons and power on Your amiga, You can choose what media do You like to boot from DF0 or DF1 (external)...
 
DjCook said:
Congratulations!
Nice blog, was very interesting to read, really like it.
As about heatsink on the cpu - You can cut it with a carpet knife (just be careful, don't cut Your fingers)
About Kickstart - this wasn't smart, to be fair, sorry, there are much easier and cheaper solutions to get 1.3/3.1 KS, really..You can get an Eprom programmer instread of spending money on these expensive 2 in 1 KS and relocators, and You will be able to burn amy KS rom You want instread of spending 30+€ on each
And did You heard about early boot menu? Hold both mouse buttons and power on Your amiga, You can choose what media do You like to boot from DF0 or DF1 (external)...
Click to expand...

I am not that keen on cutting the heatsink off. I am too afraid to cut my big sausage-fingers. :-D Hehe.
I think I have found a way around the kickstart issue, if the TF let's me boot relokick 1.3, then I will get a OS-3.1.4 pack.
This way I will not get into buying a eprom burner. Cheaper this way. On the other hand I might buy one anyway.
I know the early boot menu. It is quite cool. I have used it a couple of times in the past.

I have had it crashing today. Sad... So I ran systest and began testing. It turns out that my card has develloped
an ram error. So I took it out and tried with the old 68000 cpu. And it ram a complete ram test without issues.
Anyway... I have send you a personal message, regarding what my options are for further testing of this.
Just want to hear your thoughts on what I might do with this.
 
Thanks for the information regarding the TF-530 that you gave me through private message.
It made me troubleshoot on the issue, and the card is not defect. It is working as intended.

Now...
I bought it to have extra speed, a bit more ram and the most important of all, an internal HDD solution.
The Ram expansion (chipmem solution and slowmem) are something that I am not happy to change if I can avoid it.
So I will be looking for other solutions. Shure faster CPU speed will be nice, yet specific CPU power are not priority 1.
I will be looking for a different internal solution, and keep my TF-530 for a future machine.
Or worst case scenario. Then I will be sourcing a Plus board instead.

- - - Updated - - -

SukkoPera said:
Brostenen said:
The left top corner of the rom-chip will be in the way of the CPU relocator's inner corner.
Click to expand...

I have forked and modified AwesomeInferno's relocator to workaround this issue.

You can find my job here, but PLEASE BE AWARE THAT IT HASN'T BEEN TESTED YET:

https://github.com/SukkoPera/Open68000Relocator

AGAIN: UNTESTED, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Click to expand...

Cool... :-P I think that I will be using what I have, because of an Ram conflict between the parts in my 500.
It is the trapdoor expansion that I have used for ChipMem as well, that are conflicting with my TF-530.
I need to figure out what to do now. Get a Plus board or do the Plus conversion or something else.

Good work. Perhaps it will be used for other people's TF-530 setup, if they want to use the same kickrom solution as I have.
 
@SUkkopera
My dear friend, I have the same problem: TF530 and your kickstart rom switch.
If I have undrestood well the relocator mentioned below is made that to allow your switch to fit with the 530?
If so how can I buy it?
I am sorry for the "off topic" but I really need a solution.

SukkoPera said:
Brostenen said:
The left top corner of the rom-chip will be in the way of the CPU relocator's inner corner.
Click to expand...

I have forked and modified AwesomeInferno's relocator to workaround this issue.

You can find my job here, but PLEASE BE AWARE THAT IT HASN'T BEEN TESTED YET:

https://github.com/SukkoPera/Open68000Relocator

AGAIN: UNTESTED, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Click to expand...
 
SukkoPera said:
What trapdoor expansion are you using? It shouldn't affect the TF AFAIK.
Click to expand...

I am using the boobib expansion. Were I am using 512k of the 2mb as extra chipmem. A bit of conversation with djcook made me realise that when upgrading chipmem this way, then the TF-530 will conflict.
 
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The problem behind it is that TF has issue with 1.5mb slow ram, and boobips expansion doesn't allow to limit it to 1MB while PeteAu's expansion let's do it
So there are following options:
1. Use PeteAU's expansion (limited to 1MB slow ram)
2. Do a firmware rollback and use full 1.5MB slow
3. Upgrade your A500+ to 2MB chipRAM (with PeteAU expansion )
 
DjCook said:
The problem behind it is that TF has issue with 1.5mb slow ram, and boobips expansion doesn't allow to limit it to 1MB while PeteAu's expansion let's do it
So there are following options:
1. Use PeteAU's expansion (limited to 1MB slow ram)
2. Do a firmware rollback and use full 1.5MB slow
3. Upgrade your A500+ to 2MB chipRAM (with PeteAU expansion )
Click to expand...

I think that my best option so far, and the cheapest, will be to convert/upgrade my mainboard to full Plus spec's. Well.... Nearly full spec's, as I am not going to install the clock circuit. I have no need or use for such a feature in my machine. If I need to do it, then it will be because of wrong date stamps on files. Yet if I can run the machine without clock, then there is no need for that.
 
I don't understand the issue here.

I have a BooBip on my A500+. I modded the A500+ so it can have 2MB chip RAM (from BooBip board) and 1 MB slow RAM (the internal RAM turned into slow RAM) with a RTC running on BooBip.

So it should work with a TF530 if the only limitation is not exceeding 1MB of *slow* RAM.

Brostenen said:
DjCook said:
The problem behind it is that TF has issue with 1.5mb slow ram, and boobips expansion doesn't allow to limit it to 1MB while PeteAu's expansion let's do it
So there are following options:
1. Use PeteAU's expansion (limited to 1MB slow ram)
2. Do a firmware rollback and use full 1.5MB slow
3. Upgrade your A500+ to 2MB chipRAM (with PeteAU expansion )
Click to expand...

I think that my best option so far, and the cheapest, will be to convert/upgrade my mainboard to full Plus spec's. Well.... Nearly full spec's, as I am not going to install the clock circuit. I have no need or use for such a feature in my machine. If I need to do it, then it will be because of wrong date stamps on files. Yet if I can run the machine without clock, then there is no need for that.
Click to expand...
 
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