Hi All,

i dont post on line normally here although i troll the threads. I would like to let everyone know Mike Stirling is creating a FPGA Accelerator for the Amigas. It is not like the Vampire as such as it does not take control of custom chips and is based on a 68020 CPU that permits full compatibility to the Amigas, it simply uses the TG68 core in a FPGA to supercharge your Amiga. It's performance is better than all of the ACA line of Accelerators and will eventually be available for all 16 bit and 32 bit Amigas.

The features of the accelerator will be multi featured and the price point will be a lot lower than the other accelerators available. You can check out the info on this thread. Also check out Mikes Blog for more info which has some extra info. The dhrystone score ATM is 15,116 and is expected to get higher once the caches are finished.



EAB Accelerator thread

Last edited by kipper2k on 27-Feb-2020 at 11:13 PM.
Last edited by kipper2k on 27-Feb-2020 at 11:11 PM.
Last edited by kipper2k on 27-Feb-2020 at 11:10 PM.

@kipper2k

Super cool! love all the products you’ve made over the years for our miggies and if you endorse this product I know it will be something that just works with good quality and very good value !

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tg68 is work-in-progress, and has several implementations, not sure one can even speak “unmodified tg68”. Tobias “tobiflex” Gubener (the tg in tg68) has recently become active again and is also working on a new 32bit implementation, as tg68 strictly speaking is 16bit in its nature, with “32bit” implemented as “2 * 16bit at double speed”.

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B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

Just a note: there is no 16bit Amiga. There never was.

All were/are 32bit, some just had 16bit data interface.

Some amiga accelerators delivered 64bit data interface and that did not make Amiga 64bit either.
((+Now some 32bit Amigas even have 128bit processing units.))

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- KimmoK
// For freedom, for honor, for AMIGA
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// Thing that I should find more time for: CC64 - 64bit Community Computer?

Quote:

KimmoK wrote: Just a note: there is no 16bit Amiga. There never was.

A1000, A500 and A2000 have only 16 bit data bus, that's why I would call them 16 bit Amigas.

You can use an accelerator with a 68020 (or better) CPU that has a 32 bit data bus and 32 bit local memory, but the Amiga itself will stay 16 bit.

@kipper2k

I have seen the screenshots posted by you on EAB. They are really promising, most implementations of TG68 and other free cores only had a performance of a 25MHz 68030. Those implementations where used with Minimig in MiST or similar emulation engines.


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I'm a bit surprised seeing you supporting an accelerator that is not supported by the Apollo team. I hope there there ist no problem with them. Didn't you use the TG68 on the first Vampire?

Last edited by OneTimer1 on 28-Feb-2020 at 07:30 PM.

@KimmoK

(and to be precise 32 BIT CPU internal structure, 24 BIT Address Interface and a 16 BIT Data Bus Interface)

Last edited by Raffaele on 28-Feb-2020 at 07:31 PM.

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"When the Amiga came out, everyone [at Apple] was scared as hell." (J.L. Gassée, former CEO of Apple France and chief of devs of Mac II-fx, interviewed by Amazing Computing, Nov 1996).

@OneTimer1

5 year old screenshot of MiST

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MiSTer from September last year

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B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

Good news. I like one for my A1200. Sounds good with 020 clocked fast. I like to be as compatible with Amiga games as possible. I have no interest in RTG and price is a factor.

Quote:

KimmoK wrote: Just a note: there is no 16bit Amiga. There never was. All were/are 32bit, some just had 16bit data interface.

Quote:

Raffaele wrote: (and to be precise 32 BIT CPU internal structure, 24 BIT Address Interface and a 16 BIT Data Bus Interface)

68000
Data bus: 16 bit
Addressing: 32 bit

9-16 bit addressing looks like a 16 bit CPU
17-32 bit addressing looks like a 32 bit CPU *24 bit is this*
33-64 bit addressing looks like a 64 bit CPU

Registers: 32 bit
Instruction max datatype size: 32 bit
Operation size: 32/16/8 bit

Address register operations are 32 bit.
Data register 16 bit operations are often faster than 32 bit operations.
Microcode operations unknown by me but look mostly if not all 16 bit.
Some operations are 8 bit but no faster than 16 bit operations (probably 16 bit with a mask).

Addressing alignment: 16 bit

Odd 16 bit or 32 bit size address accesses causes an exception.
Natural alignment of 32 bit size address accesses are no faster.


The 68000 would probably be correctly called a 16/32 bit hybrid CPU. It looks to me like the 68000 has a 32 bit ISA for a 16 bit CPU. The 32 bit ISA allowed easy upgrade to a 32 bit CPU starting with the 68020.

Last edited by matthey on 29-Feb-2020 at 02:34 PM.

@OneTimer1

hi, it is over 2 years since i left the apollo team. Majsta created the very first Vampire 1 a few years ago, it had a dhrystones score of about 2600 i believe. TG68 core has come a long way since then and Mike who is actually building this FPGA accelerator is a Guru with fpga's and works with embedded systems and much more in his full time job. We are hoping to increase the speed by a further 25% (but no guarantees one way or the other. This Accelerator will have a lot of features (sorry, i am not allowed to reveal). There will be constant updates as we progress and i am blown away at some of the things on the list that are going to be included.

The expected cost should be roughly 200 euros and will be built in the UK. As mentioned by Mike in his blog the physical size of this board will be significantly smaller than the Dev board he is using to create the board with. If you get the timee, check out his blog, well worth the read

@kolla

Quote:

@OneTimer1 5 year old screenshot of MiST

So the TG68 is better than I thought.

@kipper2k

Quote:

kipper2k wrote: Majsta created the very first Vampire 1 a few years ago, ...

Sorry, please excuse me for mixing this up.

Quote:

We are hoping to increase the speed by a further 25% (but no guarantees one way or the other. This Accelerator will have a lot of features. ... The expected cost should be roughly 200 euros and will be built in the UK.

Sounds good, for a A500 accelerator the 68000 compatibility might be enough, but please remind 68020 compatibility because many software was never compiled for the 68000, if developers thought it might not run on unextended Amigas.

I don't know if an accelerator for a A500 would be a good idea, there are plenty of them around. Have you ever thought about an accelerator for the CD32?

@OneTimer1

The 16 bit accelerator will be designed to work with the A500, A600, a1000, a2000 and CDTV. There may be accelerators already in existence for these but it will have 68k and 68020 compatibility and will have more features and faster

the 32bit version for the A1200 should also fit in the CD32. You can see in the EAB thread my plans to enable the A600 to accept a 64pin DIP accelerator and also the CD32 accept the accelerator that we are designing for the A1200

The a3000 and a4000 will also be seriously looked at.

@kipper2k

Good to see you around!

I got your V600 kipperboard happily working away in my A600. I also ordered the V4.

THAT said, Ive been pondering what to do with my Checkmate A1500 box and A1200.

Im not inclined to add a V1200 (on the Vampire side I will stick to standalone), so this board might be a good fit.

Currently added on my A1200 is Blizzard 030/50 with 2+16megs of memory.
Prisma Music card and Indivision Mk2.

I guess the Blizzard card will be history, but how will this new card live alongside the Prisma and Indivision?

@Overflow

Hi,

Nice to hear everything ticking along for you. The Blizzard will be something that has served you well but will be time for it to put its feet up. I would love to tell you how Mikes board is going to improve your Amiga but we don't want to tip our hand and we want to do everything we want to and then throw it out in the wild, It is not expected to take too long, there are computer shows in the summer that we would like to show this off if not already released. If you take a look at the EAB thread you should be able to get a hint of at least one of the features. Mike should hopefully have it done this weekend almost. To me, what he is working on now is the hardest part of the project and the rest should be a lot more easier (to him). BTW, the world is a very small place, we both went to the same Grammar school in the UK and he lives about 2 miles from where i grew up. Having said that i went there quite a few years before him (how many is none of your business lol)

I am being very baised and also very honest in my feelings when i say that this will replace the ACA boards and also the real CPU's on the TF boards. We have been discussing this board for a year now ever since we released the a1200SDE and then when we finished the Romulator this project fell into place. I really believe that people will want this board in at least 1 of their Amigas.


p.s. it wont interfere with indivision or prisma

Last edited by kipper2k on 29-Feb-2020 at 02:53 AM.
Last edited by kipper2k on 29-Feb-2020 at 02:50 AM.

@kipper2k

Thanks for the reply!

Yeah, I just skimmed thru all the 10 pages of your thread, and currently watching Chucky's 060 prototype video.

Its intresting times on the classic front, with even new games and a updated Ibrowse to boot.

I will follow the EAB thread with intrest :)

@kipper2k

Nice!

@Overflow

Cheaper and more powerful FPGAs have indeed revolutionized the retro scene including the amiga community...