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Apollo Team Activity Report (May 2018)

Renaud Schweingruber
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 378
12 May 2018 13:49


Here is it again! Last one was in February so I can only blame myself for being so lazy, because lot of things have been worked on in the meanwhile. This time, this one will be shorter as current tasks are very time consuming and some focus is requested.
     
Vampire V4
As said in previous activity report, team is late with the Vampire V4. We want it to be perfect and have been very busy on it during past months to bring a super product to the Amiga community. To be fully transparent, we have been busy scratching our heads because of a single *ç&%&ç%&”*ç bug. Really. Hundreds of hours have been spent on it to determine why the heck the Vampire V4 does work well on some Amiga 500 boards and not on others (despite same chips revisions).
Team measured everything that could be measured (if you mind, majsta has the biggest thing we could measure) and crosschecked with all Altera manuals, and could not find a single hardware issue.
     
Finally, decision had to be taken to rewrite some important part of the core to figure out what the problem was, and believe us, the Amiga 500 is a real timing inferno. Most of us agrees that understanding women is easier than talking to an Amiga 500 chipset.
     
So nothing is canceled, plans have just shifted a bit in time. Team will soon show more about the Vampire V4.
     
GOLD3
Work on GOLD3 has been resumed and it works better and better with every new core revision. We still need to polish it a bit by dumping copper lists and fix what should be then start work on the AGA/RTG switch mechanism. YouTube and forums will pretty soon be flooded with new videos of AGA games running on our beloved OCS/ECS Amigas.
     
Vampire 600 V2.1
Majsta resumed production on Vampire 600 and users are receiving that legendary card again. Some details of it have been improved since the original version to make sure users get the best V600 experience ever (better power circuitry, better caps, better socket, better cigarette smell, etc.).
     
Support Philippe Lang’s campaign
Apollo Team fully supports Philippe Lang’s A500 case campaign and we are very proud to be one of his partner. As of today, 63% of its objective has been achieved and the campaign will end in 19 days. This campaign needs your support so the Amiga 500 molds will come back to life again for next decades.
     
More info on its dedicated Indiegogo page :
 
EXTERNAL LINK


John William

Posts 563
12 May 2018 16:10


Let the party begin!!!! Water for everyone weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!


Roman S.

Posts 149
12 May 2018 17:43


Renaud Schweingruber wrote:
To be fully transparent, we have been busy scratching our heads because of a single *ç&%&ç%&”*ç bug. Really. Hundreds of hours have been spent on it to determine why the heck the Vampire V4 does work well on some Amiga 500 boards and not on others (despite same chips revisions).
(...) Most of us agrees that understanding women is easier than talking to an Amiga 500 chipset.

Why to stick to 'A500 accelerator' model then? If AGA support is in good condition, maybe it would be easier to go the 'standalone' way?




M Rickan

Posts 177
12 May 2018 17:55


Roman S. wrote:

Why to stick to 'A500 accelerator' model then? If AGA support is in good condition, maybe it would be easier to go the 'standalone' way?

That thought occurred to me as well.

For many of us, the standalone has the most compelling interest and there are no existing options.


Mr-Z EdgeOfPanic

Posts 189
12 May 2018 19:59


Roman S. wrote:

 
Renaud Schweingruber wrote:
To be fully transparent, we have been busy scratching our heads because of a single *ç&%&ç%&”*ç bug. Really. Hundreds of hours have been spent on it to determine why the heck the Vampire V4 does work well on some Amiga 500 boards and not on others (despite same chips revisions).
    (...) Most of us agrees that understanding women is easier than talking to an Amiga 500 chipset.

   
    Why to stick to 'A500 accelerator' model then? If AGA support is in good condition, maybe it would be easier to go the 'standalone' way?
   
   
 

 
Well to do this also other logic has to be developed/implemented.
So it's logical to start with it as an accelerator card and one by one implement and test functions until the point the A500 is no more then a power supply and a keyboard.
 


Mo Retro

Posts 241
13 May 2018 11:59


Thanks for the report guys and the hard work you put in this project. :)

A couple of thoughts and questions that crossed my mind.

1) Will gold core 3.0 eventually implement besides AGA also the AAA functionalities that we never got from Commodore?
2) Can we hope for an A600 V2+?
    a) to bring it on par with the the A500 V2+
    b) to ease the pain around the uncertainty of the A600 V4 adapter.




Sean Sk

Posts 488
13 May 2018 15:31


Mo Retro wrote:

  2) Can we hope for an A600 V2+?
      a) to bring it on par with the the A500 V2+
 

 
  Huh? How so? They already are pretty much on par aren’t they? Plus the Vampire 600 v2.1 has been released as has already been mentioned in the first post.


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
13 May 2018 17:12


Mo Retro wrote:

  1) Will gold core 3.0 eventually implement besides AGA also the AAA functionalities that we never got from Commodore?

Yes, they are:
- Unified DIGITAL-VIDEO Video/Audio Outpout
- 16-bit Sound Chip
- Faster Blitter
- Up to 4MB Chip (FAST RAM Mapped)
- Fast SAGA Picasso 96 Modes

This is quite an par 1993 Goals
EXTERNAL LINK 
This is even far better

+ A bit tuned up 080 (Cache, DDR5 RAM, frequency)
+ Full OCS/ECS/AGA compatibility

That Sounds quite AAA+


Mo Retro

Posts 241
13 May 2018 17:25


sean sk wrote:

 
Mo Retro wrote:

    2) Can we hope for an A600 V2+?
        a) to bring it on par with the the A500 V2+
   

   
    Huh? How so? They already are pretty much on par aren’t they? Plus the Vampire 600 v2.1 has been released as has already been mentioned in the first post.
 

 
  What I mean Sean is that the A600 V2.1 doesn't have an expansion port like the A500 V2+. And with the eventuality that we won't see a V4 adapter for the A600.
  This would allow A600 Vampire users to benefit also from future expansion offerings. That's all what I meant in my post.
  Don't understand me wrong, I'm very grateful for what The Team is doing. :)
 


Mo Retro

Posts 241
13 May 2018 17:32


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

Mo Retro wrote:

  1) Will gold core 3.0 eventually implement besides AGA also the AAA functionalities that we never got from Commodore?
 

 
  Yes, they are:
  - Unified DIGITAL-VIDEO Video/Audio Outpout
  - 16-bit Sound Chip
  - Faster Blitter
  - Up to 4MB Chip (FAST RAM Mapped)
  - Fast SAGA Picasso 96 Modes
 
  This is quite an par 1993 Goals
  EXTERNAL LINK 
  This is even far better
 
  + A bit tuned up 080 (Cache, DDR5 RAM, frequency)
  + Full OCS/ECS/AGA compatibility
 
  That Sounds quite AAA+

Thanks Vojin for reminding me of this and summing this up.
I'm very thankful to The Team's effort in this.
Thanks to all who's involved :)


Andy Hearn

Posts 374
14 May 2018 13:42


Yes, agreed, thanks again all involved! I can't imagine the hours upon hours you guys have burnt getting this all nailed together. especially debugging timing wobbles in 30year old hardware!

I think Majsta has the legendary status of being the only guy that blows the magic smoke *INTO* the chips. I've only let the smoke out a couple of times... fortunately just x86's :D


Sascha Wintz

Posts 19
14 May 2018 17:37


Thanks for the update Renaud!


Michael Borrmann

Posts 140
14 May 2018 22:08


Yeah, thanks for the update...
And for all of your great work..

I hope for this board working in 1000, 600 and 500... :)


Gerardo G.

Posts 54
15 May 2018 07:20


Regarding V600 V2.1 I only received an email from apollo-accelerators asking for my interest on April´s 12th. How and where to buy it?


Marlon Beijer

Posts 182
15 May 2018 10:42


Gerardo González-Trejo wrote:

Regarding V600 V2.1 I only received an email from apollo-accelerators asking for my interest on April´s 12th. How and where to buy it?

Respond to the email?


Gerardo G.

Posts 54
15 May 2018 17:15


@Marlon,

Reading your comment I´m sure you didn´t know what I´m talking about :)

Because it has a button to click, open a webpage, and then confirm.

It´s what I did when received and no more news. Let´s keep waiting then...



posts 16