 Documentation about the Vampire hardware |
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Erik Elsom
Posts 10
12 Sep 2016 05:51
| I'm assuming yes. Someone else will need to confirm for sure, but on an A500 (unless you have an A500+), there's more to it than just replacing the Agnus (which you'll want an 8372A for). You'll need to do this mod- EXTERNAL LINK Fortunately, it's pretty easy though. I've done it myself with no problem.
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Johannes Schäfer
Posts 47
12 Sep 2016 15:42
| With a Vampire II your Amiga 500 will have 128 MB RAM, which will be fully accessable for the RTG graphic and when released, for the SAGA chip. Vampire II will break chip ram limitations. For 1MB Chip Ram you need the Agnus 8372A and an 512K Ram expansion.
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John Heritage
Posts 111
12 Sep 2016 22:32
| Thanks for the replies - I guess that makes sense - in order to enable AGA support on an OCS/ECS board, that RAM has to also be on the Vampire II itself.. Am I reading right that -- AGA on Amiga 500 with Vampire II; the chip RAM is effectively on the Vampire. OCS/ECS software requiring >512KB of chipram, I'll need to upgrade my Amiga 500?. (It's the NTSC Rev 5, definitely not an A500+).
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Henryk Richter
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 128/ 1
19 Sep 2016 19:41
| For 1MB chip on the NTSC Rev.5, you'll need the 8372A Agnus (as stated above), a trapdoor mem expansion (I assume you have one), a cutting knife and a soldering iron. I suggest a trapdoor expansion with a jumper to disable it. This makes the process easier as you don't have to cut a trace leading to the trapdoor slot.
There are plenty of guides how to do the mod. In the NTSC case, you are somewhat lucky that you don't have to isolate a pin on the replacement Agnus.
I upgraded a Rev.5 board to a functional Rev.6a equivalence and the Amiga works great with it.
To clarify the earlier statements concerning ChipRAM: The Vampire will need _less_ chipram when you are using RTG graphics. Programs that demand ChipRAM for their operation will still require it (think DPaint etc.). In my experience, non-gaming (and WHDLoad gaming) machines should have at least 1 MB ChipRAM.
If and/or when AGA could be implemented in the Vampire's FPGA, that mod would still be useful _today_ and wouldn't hurt in the long run, anyway.
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Alan Haynes
Posts 140
20 Sep 2016 07:46
| Johannes Schäfer wrote:
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With a Vampire II your Amiga 500 will have 128 MB RAM, which will be fully accessable for the RTG graphic and when released, for the SAGA chip. Vampire II will break chip ram limitations.
For 1MB Chip Ram you need the Agnus 8372A and an 512K Ram expansion.
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When SAGA is fully implemented you will not require a different Agnus chip or Chip-ram expansion as it will all be in the Cyclone FPGA. This is the beauty of the FPGA. At the start the Amiga is needed to provide the chips that the FPGA does not yet include. However as it is developed, more of the functionality of the custom chips will be placed onto or coded into the FPGA thus reducing the demands on the original Amiga hardware. A great plan to move one step at a time towards a brand new stand alone motherboard with all new hardware but fully compatible with a 68k Amiga Looking forward to getting my Vampire a500 V2 Black edition soon Alan from Downunder
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