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   /  Classic Amiga Hardware
      /  Zorro Vs Video Slot
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Trekiej 
Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 24-Aug-2019 14:53:00
#1 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 17-Oct-2006
Posts: 890
From: Unknown

I was wondering what the pros and cons of each slot.

How does the performance compare between each other when doing video?

Is it possible for Zorro 2 to get more speed if it was reworked?
I think the A2000 Main Board would need more layers.

Where there ever any Accelerators or Co-processor for a Z2 slot, instead of the 86 pin CPU slot?

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Trekiej 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 24-Aug-2019 14:59:26
#2 ]
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Joined: 17-Oct-2006
Posts: 890
From: Unknown

@Trekiej

More I think about it.
The Video slot is partially a one way street, except for the parallel port connection.

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Kronos 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 24-Aug-2019 15:43:00
#3 ]
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Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 2553
From: Unknown

@Trekiej

You really need to educate yourself bout the basic HW of the Amiga.

Videoport is just as way to access the onboard-video within the case, all signals can be found on the external video(+parallel and audio) port.

Zorro is the buffered CPU bus just like ISA slots on old PCs.

As for CPUs in the Zorro-slot, all C= and Vortex BridgeBoards could be used in that way and there was the (never released) A2630 based Z2 card.

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Trekiej 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 24-Aug-2019 16:43:28
#4 ]
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Joined: 17-Oct-2006
Posts: 890
From: Unknown

@Kronos

Yes, I understand.
What I was originally thinking was what kind of frame rates the two ports could do.

Sure the Z2 is more flexible and probably has faster data transfer.

Okay, the Video Slot is more specialized.
I will give it that.

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Trekiej 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 24-Aug-2019 16:46:20
#5 ]
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Joined: 17-Oct-2006
Posts: 890
From: Unknown

@Kronos

Ultimately, an Accelerator with built-in video would be the fastest or best.

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jPV 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 24-Aug-2019 17:59:29
#6 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 11-Apr-2005
Posts: 809
From: .fi

@Trekiej

I don't think you completely understood it :) Video slot just gives you the signal that Amiga's chipset produces, it's the same signal you get from the RGB port, composite output, etc. Video slot is just different kind of connector to get that original signal OCS/ECS/AGA produces. It's no faster than you get otherwise from Amiga's standard connectors.

And Zorro II's bandwidth isn't that much, it's actually slower than AGA, for example, but it just allows you to expand the Amiga with other kinds of graphics processors, which are more suitable for higher resolutions, depths, and acceleration than Amiga's original chipsets. That what makes those Z2 graphics cards a bit faster in certain situations. For much better speeds you'll need Zorro III, PCI, or something CPU expansion port as you mentioned (BlizzardVision/CyberVision PPC used this)...

Last edited by jPV on 24-Aug-2019 at 06:00 PM.

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Kronos 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 24-Aug-2019 18:25:51
#7 ]
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Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 2553
From: Unknown

@Trekiej

Quote:

Trekiej wrote:
@Kronos

Ultimately, an Accelerator with built-in video would be the fastest or best.


"built in" wasn't an option back in 198x, but the Phase5 PPC cards + Permedia come really close to that.

Or you could buy the new ZZ9000 a GFX-card with ARM-CPU onboard.

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Trekiej 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 25-Aug-2019 11:01:55
#8 ]
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Joined: 17-Oct-2006
Posts: 890
From: Unknown

@Kronos

zz9000 would be awesome.

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Trekiej 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 25-Aug-2019 11:07:13
#9 ]
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Joined: 17-Oct-2006
Posts: 890
From: Unknown

@jPV

Yes, I do understand that, honestly. :D
It also has a Centronics Parallel Port added to it. That can be bi-directional.
Would a video card that is hooked to the Video Slot be capable of having 3D Acceleration? I think that it could be really slow.

I wish I had an Opal Vision card.

I need to think more about the question before I post. :D

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evilFrog 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 25-Aug-2019 12:07:40
#10 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2004
Posts: 397
From: UK

@Trekiej

Massively slow, parallel ports are 150kbps to about 2Mbps, and the Amiga will be at the low end of that range. Zorro can theoretically give you 42-1200Mbps.

However: re-implementing the Graffiti as an internal card would only need the video slot, that would be interesting.

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Hypex 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 25-Aug-2019 16:26:10
#11 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@Kronos

Quote:
Videoport is just as way to access the onboard-video within the case, all signals can be found on the external video(+parallel and audio) port.


Is that all? I would have expected the video slot to have the digital lines for all RGB. That would mean there's no difference between an analogue scan doubler on the external RGB port and an internal scan doubler except for the neatless factor. Rather pointless it seems not to have access to perfect digital RGB on the inside lnes.

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OneTimer1 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 25-Aug-2019 16:26:37
#12 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 3-Aug-2015
Posts: 962
From: Unknown

@evilFrog

Quote:


However: re-implementing the Graffiti as an internal card would only need the video slot, that would be interesting.


AFAIK some parts of the Grafitti are build into the last Indivision Flicker Fixers. Once I asked Jens about a Flicker Fixer / Indivision Version for the video slot, because it is a so much better place than all this on chip adapters.

Well, Jens was not interested ...

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Akiko 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 25-Aug-2019 16:41:40
#13 ]
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Joined: 26-Mar-2004
Posts: 781
From: UK

Quote:
Ultimately, an Accelerator with built-in video would be the fastest or best.


In a recent video on his YouTube channel Stephen Leary who designs the Terrible Fire line of accelerators says he has some ideas on how to do just that.

After he completes his TF360 accelerator which will be for most Amiga's including big box, he hopes within a couple of years to have developed a version of the TF360 which will have something like a raspberry pi compute module fully integrated onto it's bus. My limited understanding is that it would enable High resolution HDMI graphics, with ARM acceleration something similar to the ZZ9000 board.

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evilFrog 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 25-Aug-2019 19:34:02
#14 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2004
Posts: 397
From: UK

@OneTimer1

Quote:

OneTimer1 wrote:

AFAIK some parts of the Grafitti are build into the last Indivision Flicker Fixers. Once I asked Jens about a Flicker Fixer / Indivision Version for the video slot, because it is a so much better place than all this on chip adapters.

Well, Jens was not interested ...


That’s a real shame. From where I’m sat it seems like it’d be such an obvious win to do it. Perhaps those teenty little 'clip over the chip' boards are easier/better, but you need to make more of them to take account of the physical limitations...

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Trekiej 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 25-Aug-2019 21:19:55
#15 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 17-Oct-2006
Posts: 890
From: Unknown

@evilFrog

I wish icomp would make an internal Graffiti box.

edit:

The zz9000 would work too.

Last edited by Trekiej on 25-Aug-2019 at 09:28 PM.

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kolla 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 27-Aug-2019 11:18:43
#16 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 20-Aug-2003
Posts: 2859
From: Trondheim, Norway

Next week - 23pin video port vs. PCMCIA.

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evilFrog 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 27-Aug-2019 15:17:23
#17 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 20-Jan-2004
Posts: 397
From: UK

@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote:
Next week - 23pin video port vs. PCMCIA.


You jest, but I’m pretty sure they did gfx cards for that sucker. Wouldn’t be the worst accessory in the world for your A600, assuming you could get drivers.

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Rose 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 27-Aug-2019 20:29:08
#18 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 5-Nov-2009
Posts: 982
From: Unknown

@evilFrog

Quote:

evilFrog wrote:
@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote:
Next week - 23pin video port vs. PCMCIA.


You jest, but I’m pretty sure they did gfx cards for that sucker. Wouldn’t be the worst accessory in the world for your A600, assuming you could get drivers.


Saw one once many many moons ago. Boy it was slow, but that shouldnt be surprise considering bandwidth that on Amiga's PCMCIA is pretty close to 16bit ISA.

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Kronos 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 28-Aug-2019 20:19:24
#19 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 2553
From: Unknown

@Rose

No surprise cos thats just what it is.......

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AmigaHope 
Re: Zorro Vs Video Slot
Posted on 31-Aug-2019 22:42:02
#20 ]
Member
Joined: 23-Jan-2007
Posts: 20
From: Unknown

@Trekiej

Theoretically using both slots could give you more bandwidth than Z2 alone, since the video slot effectively gives you data transfer equivalent to Denise's DMA time, independent of the CPU bus (ONE WAY though)... You could make some weird hybrid video driver where part of the updates are CPU-driven over Z2 and the rest are Copper-driven through Denise.

The question is what useful task could you possibly accomplish with this? Anything you can do with the Copper would be better done internally with the chipset on the card itself. The only card that could potentially benefit from this would be one that didn't have any meaningful coprocessor on it,.

Last edited by AmigaHope on 31-Aug-2019 at 10:43 PM.

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