| Vampire V4 Amiga 600 Compatibility | page 1 2
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Cheater Cheater
Posts 5
04 Oct 2018 23:50
| Hi everyone,
I understand Vampire V2 had a version compatible with the Amiga 600, but the V4 is not compatible. What is the reason for that? I'm pretty interested what differences there are to the 500 and 1200 that make the 600 not compatible with the Vampire V4.Thanks!
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John William
Posts 578
05 Oct 2018 00:19
| cheater cheater wrote:
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Hi everyone,
I understand Vampire V2 had a version compatible with the Amiga 600, but the V4 is not compatible. What is the reason for that? I'm pretty interested what differences there are to the 500 and 1200 that make the 600 not compatible with the Vampire V4.
Thanks!
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Since I represent or is part of the team I cannot be myself one hundred percent and go ..erm....let us say I have baise toward the A....erm...- coughs - Anyways...uh... You know what? Let the team member answer this..... Phew - wipes forehead - that was hard........phew....someone pat me on the back for holding myself...
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Sean Sk
Posts 488
05 Oct 2018 00:29
| I can't recall anyone explicitly stating that the Vampire V4 will not be compatible with the Amiga 600. It would probably be a case of waiting for a version of the V4 that can be placed within the A600. It's possible that it will need to be used with an adapter as briefly mentioned in the FAQ here:
EXTERNAL LINK
John William wrote:
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Phew - wipes forehead - that was hard........phew....someone pat me on the back for holding myself...
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*hands John William a Vampire V4 for Amiga 600 as a reward for his self-control. :)
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Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
05 Oct 2018 02:20
| cheater cheater wrote:
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Hi everyone,
I understand Vampire V2 had a version compatible with the Amiga 600, but the V4 is not compatible.
Thanks!
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Cores cannot be used? Its not exactly same FPGA - v4 has got it "bigger". Cores needs to be adopted and V4 will start where v2 is now + Apollo full precision FPU, larger cache, X14 clock, SAGA chipset, faster and more RAM (512MB) + USB,LAN, mapROM, dual Flash.
Hope it helps.
Software level, both are same 080-MMX CPU and all 68k software works equally.
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Cheater Cheater
Posts 5
05 Oct 2018 07:48
| sean sk wrote:
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I can't recall anyone explicitly stating that the Vampire V4 will not be compatible with the Amiga 600. It would probably be a case of waiting for a version of the V4 that can be placed within the A600. It's possible that it will need to be used with an adapter as briefly mentioned in the FAQ here:
EXTERNAL LINK |
thanks a lot. So is this adapter purely to account for a different chip base? I'm only getting into amiga hardware, so I'm not that well versed yet. Thanks for the info.
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Andy Hearn
Posts 374
05 Oct 2018 11:08
| it's not just a case of a physical adapter. although that is 99% of the problem.
the cpu core on the Vampire - if plugged into the A600, has to do a cpu bus request to the existing 68000 on the mainboard, and when it is granted the cpu bus "master" rights from the 68000, it simply never lets go - until the machine gets rebooted, and then it has to have a little chat for control again.the Vampire500 doesn't have another CPU on the bus - as it plugs into an empty socket, so doesn't have to do the negotiation for system control - so that bus capture logic doesn't exist for the V500 core. Also hence the reason why you have to pull the 68k out of the cpu socket on an A2000 if you plug the V500 into the cpu slot. so when the V4 is released, an A600 specific core will need to be released as well - containing that bus arbitration logic.
or you'll have to physically cut the existing 68k off the mainboard and solder the V4-A600 adapter direct to the board.
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Cheater Cheater
Posts 5
05 Oct 2018 16:16
| Andy Hearn wrote:
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it's not just a case of a physical adapter. although that is 99% of the problem.
the cpu core on the Vampire - if plugged into the A600, has to do a cpu bus request to the existing 68000 on the mainboard, and when it is granted the cpu bus "master" rights from the 68000, it simply never lets go - until the machine gets rebooted, and then it has to have a little chat for control again.
the Vampire500 doesn't have another CPU on the bus - as it plugs into an empty socket, so doesn't have to do the negotiation for system control - so that bus capture logic doesn't exist for the V500 core. Also hence the reason why you have to pull the 68k out of the cpu socket on an A2000 if you plug the V500 into the cpu slot.
so when the V4 is released, an A600 specific core will need to be released as well - containing that bus arbitration logic.
or you'll have to physically cut the existing 68k off the mainboard and solder the V4-A600 adapter direct to the board.
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Thanks, that explains it well. Removing the existing 68000 is not a big issue, as this is a PLCC - so it can be removed even with just a good soldering iron (although hot air is easier of course). Regarding mounting to the required bus, what is the approach on the A600? How do you get a mechanically robust connection - do you tap in on another chip that's on the bus that has a DIP pinout, or do you use some more complicated approach? Thanks a lot for explaining this to me in such detail!
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Andrew Miller
Posts 352
05 Oct 2018 16:51
| The A600 version clips over the 68000 PLCC soldered onto the board.
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Cheater Cheater
Posts 5
05 Oct 2018 16:53
| Based on your comment I quickly compared the Amiga 500 and 600 schematics, and it seems like the 500 carries the BR (bus request) signal out to an expansion port, whereas the 600 doesn't do that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but bus management pins on the 600 are just pulled up so that the 68000 always owns the bus. Is this what you were talking about? If so, it seems like removing the pull-ups and connecting the Vampire instead - or just pulling BR down to ground and pulling up BGACK could make sense here, but I am probably missing some implementation detail with the 68000 that makes it less easy than it would seem at first. The A and D buses are carried out to the IDE and memory expansion ports. However, the direct communication of the 68000 with the Paula, Angus, and Gayle chips is not broken out anywhere. Are those chips utilized by the Vampire, or does it re-implement them on the FPGA? Are those signals something you would have to carry out to the Vampire board? Again thanks a lot for the info, it's pretty fun to think about how this stuff could work. I'm only intermediate with digital electronics so it's great that there's someone to talk to about this. There wasn't any information like what you posted that I could find on the forum or via Google, so I hope this will also help others who have similar questions.
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Cheater Cheater
Posts 5
05 Oct 2018 16:56
| Andrew Miller wrote:
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The A600 version clips over the 68000 PLCC soldered onto the board.
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Gotcha! But if one wanted to use the A500 version (when there's no A600 support), then on the A600 one could remove the 68000, use the expansion ports, and carry out the other buses, right? It's much less elegant, of course..
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Andrew Miller
Posts 352
05 Oct 2018 18:00
| Im no expert but id assume that as long as all the same lines are connected it should work.
However that said the a500 and a600 may have different timings that the v500 and v600 take into account so even if all the correct lines are connected there might still be issues.
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Andrew Miller
Posts 352
05 Oct 2018 18:03
| Just thought, the ability to supply the correct current may also be different as both the v500 and v600 are designed for those specific boards.
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Andrew Miller
Posts 352
05 Oct 2018 18:27
| In fact it may be better to just get the V4 standalone rather than going to the trouble of modding your A600, as when it comes out it will be Gold core 3 with the chipset on the FPGA. you might then be able to use a keyrah v2 to use your A600/A500 keyboard with the V4 usb port. Though I'm not sure about the FDD/Gotek compatibility.
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Andy Hearn
Posts 374
05 Oct 2018 18:29
| I would imagine the v4 would get a separate A600 compatible core with the bus request logic embedded. Saves all that cutting and soldering. Also the A1200 version would need something similar because of the onboard 68020. Maybe the A600 core and A1200 cores would be the same? I hope there are no power problems as the A600 vamp2 runs fine off of the cpu feeds. Maybe the v4 adapter would be able to take a 5v feed off the floppy power port if needed.... If you wanted to use a V500 in a 600 with an adapter, you still need that his arbitration logic, so probably a separate specific core to do that would need to be flashed. Which ide controller has priority? The vamp or the one on the a600 mainboard? My understanding is that they would both occupy the same address and register space and generate the same interrupts?
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Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
06 Oct 2018 10:20
| Andy Hearn wrote:
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If you wanted to use a V500 in a 600 with an adapter, you still need that his arbitration logic, so probably a separate specific core to do that would need to be flashed. Which ide controller has priority? The vamp or the one on the a600 mainboard? My understanding is that they would both occupy the same address and register space and generate the same interrupts?
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Well wait and see, there will be V4 600, how connector will be handled remains to be seen (I did not get from initial post its a connector story).
On EIDE: Vamp one has advantage due to speed increase. There might be option to use onboard one, but that has a limits and liabilities and past experiments to increase transfer speed on it were unstable and A600 model dependent. Also note that V4 will start with GOLD3 cores for public thus all logic will be inside Vampire and less and less onboard components will be used including ports.
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John William
Posts 578
07 Oct 2018 02:51
| Wouldn't you prefer V4 to be a standalone instead of an accelerator? :)
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Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
07 Oct 2018 07:29
| John William wrote:
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Wouldn't you prefer V4 to be a standalone instead of an accelerator? :)
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By any means necessary! While its cute to reVamp Amiga, reliability issues can always arise, so longevity should be guaranteed by standalones. By-product is 100% bypassing any remaining Classic design and speed gaps :-)
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John William
Posts 578
08 Oct 2018 02:50
| Vojin Vidanovic wrote:
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John William wrote:
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Wouldn't you prefer V4 to be a standalone instead of an accelerator? :)
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By any means necessary! While its cute to reVamp Amiga, reliability issues can always arise, so longevity should be guaranteed by standalones. By-product is 100% bypassing any remaining Classic design and speed gaps :-)
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I agree. Honestly...I want to be honest with you. I would prefer that my Amiga 500 with Vampire 500 V2 be the original chipset paula, original chipset OCS/ECS from the actual Amiga's motherboard, the original 2 MB CHIP RAM from the original Amiga's motherboard and add on top of it the Apollo 68080 CPU and RTG.....- SMACK - Perfect!!! I want AGA....I get a new Amiga!! BWAHAHA That Amiga is called Vampire V4. I put it in a new case shell, I install new hardware such as hard drive and optical drive and power supply and keyboard and mouse and I will be set. That is my perfect setting. By the way, if you have an Amiga 500 then I would recommend you get Z-500 from eab forum - grin - With it you can use x-surf and browse the internet with high speed internet :D Every owner of Amiga 500 should own Z-500. That is my believe and thinking.
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Andy Hearn
Posts 374
08 Oct 2018 09:52
| holy moly that's my cup of tea right there! thanks John William for that Z-500 pointer, going to check it out now!
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Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
08 Oct 2018 10:35
| Andy Hearn wrote:
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holy moly that's my cup of tea right there!
thanks John William for that Z-500 pointer, going to check it out now!
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Nice one,I see its Zorro II/III big Amiga bus for A500 Prototype
EXTERNAL LINK
Test: adding a gfx card to a500
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Information about the Apollo CPU and FPU.