Vampire 600 V2 - Amiga 600 FPGA accelerator Pre-order

[CraigsBar]

K im confused... can someone please explain this KS situation simply pls. What's needed.. what's it for etc.

Vampire carries tons of flash and RAM (not that much compared to modern smartphones but huge amount for Amiga).

And that flash and/or RAM is FAST. Much faster than access to the original Amiga ROM. Now, you have a choice:
1. You could use Kickstart from original ROMs in sockets on the motherboard.
2. It could use copy of Kickstart stored in the memory of Vampire itself.
But for that to work these versions must match! Technically it's possible to use different versions of ROMs there, but this is risky, could lead to unstable system, and, may be more importantly, questionable from legal POV. Thus you need copy of THE ROM. Not some abstract ROMs, but specially the version from your Amiga.

Now the big question noone have asked: what if your Amiga have two ROMs? I've bought nice Amiga 600 with two ROMs and nice switch to pick one of these. Will I still be able to do that? Could I leave the old Kickstart alone (and use it without Vampire) or is it just impossible to do? Or maybe I could just embed two ROMs into the Vampire and they would be selected by the very same switch? Questions, questions, question... and majsta is too busy to answer them...

OK, thanks so my a600 ROM is the official cloanto 3.X release with the large drive fixes etc.... I dump this one right, even though it is not 3.1.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[demolition]

I hope (and assume) that the flashed KS will be re-programmable by the user. Perhaps not in the silver release, but eventually. Perhaps the shipped version only comes in one flavour, with the standard 40.63 KS 3.1 preflashed, thus why they need buyers to prove ownership of this specific version (not 3.0 or 3.x etc., even if they're official) before they can get their boards.

Using custom KS roms is almost mandatory for modern Amiga setups since 3.1 has many shortcomings.

 

[majsta]

Hi, yes I m so busy lately and can't answer all questions. Point is that complete system will be much faster and more controllable from modern flash than from old ROM. Key here is that you need to prove that you own your own kickstart and just upload it to FTP. Also in future releases of the core who knows what can happen. Load core from amiga, select kickstart whatever. We are at the point that we want to test something and how it will work. Remember, all of those additional stuff are not planned initially so maybe later you get it as a bonus. Crucial thing now is to prove your ownership of the kickstart and about details we discuss later. Once more, this is FPGA, once all set we can change whatever...

 

[Amon_RA]

Why do you need to prove that you own kickstart? All other accelerator cards out there (Blizzard, ACA,...) allow you to load your own kickstart ROM into the card's fast memory without having to prove anything. I don't think it's up to the card vendor to verify that. Uploading a kickstart dump to an ftp isn't that legal too imo...

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[Walter01]

I hope every person who preordered have a 3.1 Kickstart.

 

[majsta]

IMHO this is not violating any licenses and I have sent few mails to confirm that. I would like also to not start discussion here about that matter. After I get an answer I ll report what is going on. For benefit of this project it is important to have kick in faster place than it is now.

 

[RetroRoby]

How can i do a pre-order please?

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[Walter01]

Read post nr.1

 

[CraigsBar]

IMHO this is not violating any licenses and I have sent few mails to confirm that. I would like also to not start discussion here about that matter. After I get an answer I ll report what is going on. For benefit of this project it is important to have kick in faster place than it is now.

So if, like me we are using a newer official kickstart (cloanto 3.X) do I image that? Or swap it back to my (again cloanto release) 3.1 and image that? Fortunately I own both but opening the machine *again* :'(

 

[demolition]

If you keep your roms and disk images in zip files like I do, it is easy to see the checksum directly since programs like WinRAR show the CRC-32 checksum in the listing. Just match it to the value above and you are set.

 

[RetroRoby]

Is it realy to late now? I wanth 1 to ? i saw this only today

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[khimru]

Why do you need to prove that you own kickstart? All other accelerator cards out there (Blizzard, ACA,...) allow you to load your own kickstart ROM into the card's fast memory without having to prove anything.

That's because these accelerator cards just load your Kickstart from slow "ROM" memory and store it in fast "RAM" memory. I have no idea why Vampire couldn't do that but apparently right now it either could use Kickstart from ROM or Kickstart (preflashed!) from RAM.

My guess is that nobody wanted to spend time programming this [mostly useless but still time-consuming] functionality... Blizzard, ACA and others needed to do that because their legal departments demanded it and they had a budget for such work, but Vampire is [still] a hobbyst product...

 

[trydowave]

I was originally just an Amiga gamer back in the day so all of this is a bit beyond me. I hope once the Vampire is released that help will be available to set the thing up. My A600 does not currently boot. I have OS3.9 installed on the CF flash and it needs an 020 to run. I have 3.1 KS roms from Amigakit installed.

 

[gump]

I was originally just an Amiga gamer back in the day so all of this is a bit beyond me. I hope once the Vampire is released that help will be available to set the thing up. My A600 does not currently boot. I have OS3.9 installed on the CF flash and it needs an 020 to run. I have 3.1 KS roms from Amigakit installed.

Aos3.9 need some memory. It could be shrinked a bit. But default setup is kind of 3-4 mb ram
And maybe your right about 020. I run my a600 on aca620. I drained my 11.x mb fastram + 2 mb chip today. Opening ibrowse and amitradecenter

Edit: my setup
Aca620
A604n
Indivision ecs
Subway usb

AOS 3.9

 

[kubatyszko]

Majsta, for some reason this thread still says the preorders are closed but many other sources claim the preorders for v2 start today.

If you do accept preorders for v2 - please count me in. I would follow up with payment as soon as you confirm.

Thanks


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[gump]

I can explain that. this thread/Majsta has closed the pre-order.

I think kipper2k has open a new "pre-order"
Google kippers website for information.

 

[kubatyszko]

I can explain that. this thread/Majsta has closed the pre-order.

I think kipper2k has open a new "pre-order"
Google kippers website for information.

Makes sense, thanks for clarification.


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[DocSnyder]

@ timmie
Maybe it is possible to implement PPC in FPGA and there already FPGA with PPC included from the manufacturer. But the Vampire II is now not only an "68020 @25Mhz or something" accelarator, but it is the new Apollo Core. You do not need a PPC anymore. No need to port everything from 68k to PPC. Apollo Core is an new 68K CPU. Check performance at apollo-core.com

- - - Updated - - -

@majsta

For your demand about the Kickstart Rom:

I need clarification:

Do you need my KS 3.1 file to program it into the Vampire II, so that I can use KS 3.X instead (for upload - i prefer 3.x)?
Or are you already flashing every Vampire II with the KS 3.1 ROM and you need the upload to check if I legally own KS 3.1 ?

My A600 still has 2.05 Roms and some days ago I was about to order the 3.X Roms, because I already own OS 3.9 CD legal (but cancelled the order for the Roms)

My A600 is now away for 2 weeks because of exchange of capacitors.

I own a legal copy of Amiga Forever plus edition, there are all KS ROMs included, also KS 3.1 and 3.X Is it possible and legal to use this version for upload?
If you want, i can try to contact Cloanto for a solution in this, because i dont think, everyone has already KS 3.1 (perhaps I am the only one?)

At last, I would prefer KS 3.X because of the patches for Harddisk Volumes bigger than 4GB+ ....

Thank you

 

[OoZic]

Just to be clear on this: do we need to upload a clean basic A600 rom, or can we upload a Remus modified rom?

 

[CraigsBar]

@ timmie
....
At last, I would prefer KS 3.X because of the patches for Harddisk Volumes bigger than 4GB+ ....

Thank you

Ditto!