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I'm feeling a little dense - but what's the point of this? I get it's a new board, you can take your chips off your old board and now put them on your new boar

by goldcd 7y ago

I'm feeling a little dense - but what's the point of this? I get it's a new board, you can take your chips off your old board and now put them on your new board (which is broken down into component boards). i.e. My understanding is that you could take your existing A1200 and put a new board in the case, move your chips to the new board... and you'll have something that acts like your A1200... The thing you started with.. My best guess from reading 2-links down is that the selling point is that you now have modularity. Purpose of this project is that subsequent work can replace sub-sections of the A1200 with something more modern (for example HDMI-out as mentioned below) - but if you did this (replaced all the daughterboards with upgraded versions) it wouldn't be an A1200 any more.. just generally confused Wouldn't a FPGA approach be the way to go, if that's what you want?

metroholografix 7y ago
Not necessarily, FPGA cores are not faithful reproductions of the Amiga custom chips. I think the main premise here is that the Amiga custom chips can, with proper care, last for a lifetime or more, but the Amiga PCBs (some of which are 30+ years old now) only get brittle with time. Capacitors leak, traces are damaged/corroded, pins on headers break etc. People attempting repairs with substandard equipment/training also exasperate this issue by damaging the (limited) supply of original PCBs even more. A new PCB solves this issue and also provides modularity for future extensions. At the end, it’s still an Amiga, behaving exactly like an original Amiga would.
- goldcd 7y ago
  Thanks, you're right, I was being dense. My feeble mind can accept that it's just a replacement board, you can host all your existing chips on.
davesmith1983 7y ago
A1200 boards are over 25 years old. A lot of the boards are damaged because of capacitors leaking, just being old. Many of us that still use the Amigas like using "proper hardware". I like the idea of taking a 25 year old computer and hacking the machine to play DOOM or going on IRC or even checking my emails. FPGAs have been used for Amiga Accelerators the fastest accelerator (at present) is the Apollo Vampire V2. Here is a complete rundown of the accelerator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S3B8a8N83k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S3B8a8N83k
rasz 7y ago
The point is fun of pointless tinkering in the shed. As someone mentioned in HAD comments this thing doesnt have decoupling, bypassing, impedance matching, nothing, its just someone playing with electronics in his spare time for fun.

by goldcd 7y ago

metroholografix 7y ago

Not necessarily, FPGA cores are not faithful reproductions of the Amiga custom chips. I think the main premise here is that the Amiga custom chips can, with proper care, last for a lifetime or more, but the Amiga PCBs (some of which are 30+ years old now) only get brittle with time. Capacitors leak, traces are damaged/corroded, pins on headers break etc. People attempting repairs with substandard equipment/training also exasperate this issue by damaging the (limited) supply of original PCBs even more. A new PCB solves this issue and also provides modularity for future extensions. At the end, it’s still an Amiga, behaving exactly like an original Amiga would.

goldcd 7y ago
Thanks, you're right, I was being dense. My feeble mind can accept that it's just a replacement board, you can host all your existing chips on.

davesmith1983 7y ago

A1200 boards are over 25 years old. A lot of the boards are damaged because of capacitors leaking, just being old. Many of us that still use the Amigas like using "proper hardware". I like the idea of taking a 25 year old computer and hacking the machine to play DOOM or going on IRC or even checking my emails. FPGAs have been used for Amiga Accelerators the fastest accelerator (at present) is the Apollo Vampire V2. Here is a complete rundown of the accelerator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S3B8a8N83k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S3B8a8N83k

rasz 7y ago

The point is fun of pointless tinkering in the shed. As someone mentioned in HAD comments this thing doesnt have decoupling, bypassing, impedance matching, nothing, its just someone playing with electronics in his spare time for fun.