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tedster

Posted 2021-07-03 12:32 PM (#2230 - in reply to #2229)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Rise MP6

Posts: 263
100

Oh aye. I watched Zeff's thinkpad killer vid on youtube.

That's a nice little machine and still very useable! I don't know if it'd be a thnkpad killer, I've no experience of their machines from that era but I can guess that it'd win hands down on price at least!

Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-03 2:50 PM (#2231 - in reply to #2229)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

tedster - 2021-07-03 12:52 PM

Make sure you video the process!

Not that hard to do. If you know were to look, then it is just a matter of changing three hex numbers. 00 is black and 01 is white. I believe there are 6 or 8 different colours to choose from, and border, background and text can be changed colours on.

tedster

Posted 2021-07-03 6:14 PM (#2232 - in reply to #71)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Rise MP6

Posts: 263
100

No, I meant when you boot it up so we can see the birth!

Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-03 6:36 PM (#2233 - in reply to #2232)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

tedster - 2021-07-03 8:14 PM

No, I meant when you boot it up so we can see the birth!

Oh course I will.

I just found out, that I have forgotten to buy both memory chips, and then the colour ram chip. The worst part is to get the 28c256 chip burned with all the rom's. I dont have any programmer at all, and they are fairly expensive.

tedster

Posted 2021-07-04 12:58 PM (#2234 - in reply to #2233)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Rise MP6

Posts: 263
100

Oh, it's like a never ending drain! Worse than owning a car!

DXZeff

Posted 2021-07-05 1:15 AM (#2235 - in reply to #2234)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

I think that's just electronics in general. Especially old ones, as they tend to break occasionally. Some of them are almost annoyingly reliable, though, usually things that really shouldn't be.

Edited by DXZeff 2021-07-05 1:16 AM

Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-05 10:26 PM (#2236 - in reply to #2235)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

I bought the following stuff for my ATX64

- SRam replacement module.
- TOLB 8701 Pal replacement.

The cool thing about the TOLB, is that it only eats 9mA instead of the original chip that eats around 25 to 30 mA.

Yup. It is strange how some stuff just keep working and working, decades after it was designed to fail.

Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-07 8:46 PM (#2237 - in reply to #2236)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

Recieved the cartridge shell for my C64 DeadTest and the cartridge edge connector for my ATX64. Soldered in the edge connector and found a suitable picture for the cartridge, that I printed out and attached with some clear tape. Not the most beautifull thing. But hey, the DeadTest is just a tool....

(Deadtest-Mori.jpg)

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Deadtest-Mori.jpg (701KB - 322 downloads)

Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-09 9:13 PM (#2238 - in reply to #2237)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

Uploaded a new video on my YouTube channel.... and now I am drinking a Red Ale with notes of liqorice.

Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-12 10:12 PM (#2239 - in reply to #2238)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

Pfeewww.... That was an ale, that multiplied into a quater of a bottle of Whiskey. Room temperature and straight.
I was not worth much the next day. :-D

I recieved two 6526 (C64 CIA) chips and one 8500 CPU today. So I inserted the big 64 pin PLA, a SID and those 3 chips on my ATX64 board.
Still waiting for the TOLB, S-Ram Module and the 6569r5 VIC-II to arive, before I can fire up the DeadTest cartridge and test it all.
Once tests are OK, then I will be purchasing an eeprom programmer and make the AT28c256 Rom chip. (all 3 roms combined)

Then test with actual games and stuff. Then finally I will start making an Ps/2 keyboard adaptor for my ATX64 and install it into the case.
And I need to source a good and new PSU as well.

tedster

Posted 2021-07-13 1:58 AM (#2240 - in reply to #2239)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Rise MP6

Posts: 263
100

Awesome, and I see a Thinkpad up there!

CyrixInstead

Posted 2021-07-14 4:20 PM (#2241 - in reply to #2240)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 85

Location: UK

Hiya folks!

Just been reading through the thread and catching up on everyone's projects, great stuff!
Really enjoyed the video on the Thinkpad killer! And enjoying seeing Brostenen's and Tedster's projects.
I must admit to a liking to Thinkpads, had a ivybridge i5 one a while back and liked it a lot, it was tiny and solid. They were designed and made not far from me in Kanagawa Prefecture. They do have their faults but better than Apple I think. I've only owned two other laptops however, a powerbook 540C and a titanium G4, so I'm really not an expert. I like desktop computers far better than laptops.
I got a few new bit's and bobs since I last posted.
Main thing was another HP workstation, this is slightly newer than my trusty old ML-115 G5 Opteron(that I'm typing from now and owned for many years). A Z200 workstation with Xeon X3450 CPU and Quadro 2000 GPU. It was very cheap, and after a good clean works a treat, I liked the Quadro graphics card so much I decided to find one for my Opteron also. The image quality is just so nice, and being single slot no external power cards they are very easy to handle and cool running.
After a bit of searching I found a Quadro FX 1700 for the price of a cup of coffee, also picked up yet another Radeon HD to add to the stash, this time a HD3650. The FX 1700 is here installed in Opteron now and I'm very pleased with it, full driver support in Mint 20 and Windows 7

(HP Z200.jpg)

(HP z200 rear.jpg)

(quadro FX 1700.jpg)

(HD3670.jpg)

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HD3670.jpg (458KB - 298 downloads)

tedster

Posted 2021-07-15 7:15 PM (#2242 - in reply to #2241)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Rise MP6

Posts: 263
100

More proof that you need not spend a fortune to have a capable pc. Nice one!

Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-15 10:21 PM (#2243 - in reply to #2242)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

Thanks for all the good words.....

That HP is a seriously nice machine. I love those Z-Series machines, and especially the Xeon ones.

As for me, then I recieved this little nifty thingy in the mail today, and ordered a RaspberryPI 3 A+ for it.
I really want to see what all the fuzz is about, and I love the artwork that is on the back of the PCB.
Looks awesomme. Another nice detail, is the standoff's that came attached to the board.
It came with a new SD card and a HDMI cable as well.

(PiStorm-01.jpg)

(PiStorm-02.jpg)

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PiStorm-01.jpg (548KB - 281 downloads)
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PiStorm-02.jpg (601KB - 316 downloads)

CyrixInstead

Posted 2021-07-19 9:48 AM (#2244 - in reply to #2240)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 85

Location: UK

@Brostenen So that's is a CPU replacement for Amiga 500? I assume it's an accelerator? Do you need anything else or is that board it? I'm just wondering if it'd make UFO Enemy Unknown playable on the 500 , also maybe improve Sublogic Flight Simulator 2?

I picked up yet another Radeon, this one was silly cheap, £2.50!

Edited by CyrixInstead 2021-07-19 10:03 AM

(DSC_0522-1280x1280.JPG)

(DSC_0523-1280x1280.JPG)

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Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-19 1:19 PM (#2245 - in reply to #2244)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

CyrixInstead - 2021-07-19 11:48 AM

@Brostenen So that's is a CPU replacement for Amiga 500? I assume it's an accelerator? Do you need anything else or is that board it? I'm just wondering if it'd make UFO Enemy Unknown playable on the 500 , also maybe improve Sublogic Flight Simulator 2?

I picked up yet another Radeon, this one was silly cheap, £2.50!

Nice card... It has a sick heatsink on it. Love it.

Good spotting. It is indeed an Amiga accelerator. But it is more than just that. It is called an PiStorm, and it uses an RaspberryPI 3 A+ that need to sit in the socket on the top. It has GFX acceleration (RTG), virtual kickstart, gives some 256mb Ram, emulates 020 or 030 CPU, virtual SCSI drives on SD card and can update through Wifi. As of now it is under heavy devellopment and can be considered as a Beta stage. However there are weekly devellopment and fixes to the software. It even provides direct access to the PI's Linux system from within Workbench. And there are a tool, that can shut the Linux system safe off, that works from Workbench.

It is extremely cheap for what it is. And in time, it might become a Vampire killer. If Buffee does not turn out to be that. Another accelerator that I wish to get my hands on.

CyrixInstead

Posted 2021-07-19 7:11 PM (#2246 - in reply to #2245)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 85

Location: UK

Brostenen - 2021-07-19 1:19 PM

Nice card... It has a sick heatsink on it. Love it.

OK, so will that all fit inside a standard A500 or is this kind of thing only really suitable for something like your beautifully modified 500 Desktop machine? Where does the SD card go, does that become a hard disk? Assuming it does fit, will it still run all my floppy disk games like Lotus and Jaguar XJ220 at playable(as in not too fast) speeds. Despite having owned this very same Amiga 500 since 1987 I've honestly only ever used it like a game console, stick disk in, switch on, play the game. Heck, several keys died over a decade ago and I never bothered to fix it as, well game console! LOL. Does RTG and the 020/030 mean that I could play Amiga AGA games? It sounds really interesting but I just don't have the knowledge or terminology to know if it's something I might enjoy or make work.

Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-19 10:14 PM (#2247 - in reply to #2246)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

CyrixInstead - 2021-07-19 9:11 PM
OK, so will that all fit inside a standard A500 or is this kind of thing only really suitable for something like your beautifully modified 500 Desktop machine?

It will fit inside an original Amiga500 case. You can get CPU relocators as well, that have cutouts on the PCB, in order to not having to bend any capacitors on the motherboard it self.

CyrixInstead - 2021-07-19 9:11 PM
Where does the SD card go, does that become a hard disk?

The PiStorm software have a SCSI HDD emulator software build in. That can use HDD-Images. Kind of the same way as Win-UAE does it. It all runs on top of the cut down RaspberryPI Linux distro. The light edition of Pi-OS that is, wich do not contain any GUI and are stripped down to gain speed.

CyrixInstead - 2021-07-19 9:11 PM
Assuming it does fit, will it still run all my floppy disk games like Lotus and Jaguar XJ220 at playable(as in not too fast) speeds.

I have no idea about the Floppy disk based games and speed issues. However you can load games from floppy as if it was a stock CPU. Most people reviewing the PiStorm, are using this WHD-Loader software, that makes you able to load images of floppy disks, from a menu. Personally I am not a fan, as I want real floppy disks. However I will use the PiStorm in my 500-Desktop, to load tools and programs. Use it for ADF to Floppy Disk writing for my other Amiga500 in original case.

CyrixInstead - 2021-07-19 9:11 PM
Despite having owned this very same Amiga 500 since 1987 I've honestly only ever used it like a game console, stick disk in, switch on, play the game. Heck, several keys died over a decade ago and I never bothered to fix it as, well game console! LOL.

You can get new membranes for the keyboard. You can get the plastic ones that are "soft" or you can get a hard PCB solution. There are also a modern replacement keyboard, that uses mechanical keys. I think they are CherryMX switches. However that can only be bought from Amiga On The Lake, wich is a North American Amiga shop. I think it is located inside USA and not Canada.

CyrixInstead - 2021-07-19 9:11 PM
Does RTG and the 020/030 mean that I could play Amiga AGA games?

Nope... AGA is a chipset. Were as RTG are more a kind of accelerator solution. Think of it as OCS/ECS/AGA being somewhat kind of CGA/EGA/VGA and RTG being features added and speed added to it. Plus you get the GFX being routed away from the ChipRam. And then again, it is something else at the same time. You can always read up on Retargetable Graphics on various forums or Wikipedia. And other Amiga resource sites.

CyrixInstead - 2021-07-19 9:11 PM
It sounds really interesting but I just don't have the knowledge or terminology to know if it's something I might enjoy or make work.

That is fully OK. I am still learning about Amiga, CGI and other platforms. Amiga of course being a really beautifull engineered architecture.

You can read up on the PiStorm on the official Github page HERE
As I mentioned, then there are still major issues with it. The ChipRam access speed have recently being raised from around 75% of original to around 97/99% of original speed. You also have issues with Kickstart 1.3 and HDD access, however they have enabled 128mb Ram on Kickstart 1.3. There were also issues with a certain Workbench enhancer and the new AmigaOS 3.2 that was released this year. Yup. Brand new version of AmigaOS. The last release was around 2018 or 2019 with AmigaOS 3.1.4.1

Again. The PiStorm is considered a product in Beta stage. All the setup have to be done manually. Mmmm... Tinkering... By installing PiOS lite on an SD card, insert it into the RaspberryPI, connect the PI to the PiStorm, attach keyboard and monitor, boot and install the PiStorm software through the internet. Then power it down, and replace the 68000 CPU with the PiStorm. You also have to enable the emulator service in the Rasbian-Config in order for it to boot the Amiga.

Coldboot takes a bit extra time, because you it needs to fire up Linux and then the PiStorm software. But when the PiStorm software is running, it will load Workbench in 3 seconds. HDD speed is insane with this solution. Some software may have incompatibility, and a few people have seen it. The majority however do not see or experience any severe issues. But weekly devellopment and bug fixes are done. And they plan on making one for the Amiga1200 next year. So the rumours will tell. Who knows??!

There will be networking enabled in the future as well. Giving the Amiga500/2000/1000 networking as well. And there is even a CPU adaptor, that will allow you to install the PiStorm inside an Amiga600. I can not recommend to buy it, because I have not read any reviews of that solution.

It is just insane how much the RaspberryPI have done for the Amiga community, within the last 12 month's. I have this RGBtoHDMI solution in both my 500 stock case, and then in my 500-Desktop. They are way better than any scandoubler that I have tried. Well... I have only tried two IndivisionECS-V2 and then one ScanPlus-ECS. The ScanPlusECS delivers the best picture quality, however you NEED to use a 50hz monitor for it. It only outputs 50hz refresh rate. Basically I only have an Indivision-ECS-V2 in my Amiga600 and the other plus the ScanPlusECS are packed in boxes for possible future Amiga500's. RGBtoHDMI just delivers a better result at a much lower price. It cost the price of an RaspberryPI-Zero and then around 28 Euro for the adaptor. Plus of course SD card and HDMI cable. But the result are double as good as the IndivisionECS-V2. Look at it as the ScanPlusECS with tons of extra features in a kind of HUD menu.

There is actually a proof of concept, were someone had installed a RaspberryPI Compute module 4 onto a PiStorm. The speedtest gave some insane results. However the hackaday article (older and speed now faster) tested with the PI3 A+ board. They got around 49550 drystones. That is more than 93 times faster than a stock Amiga500/600 and just under 3 times faster than an Amiga4000 with 040 CPU.

You can read the article here

EDIT:
Uhhh.... And they are working on getting it to run on Classic 68k mac's as well.....

Edited by Brostenen 2021-07-19 10:43 PM

CyrixInstead

Posted 2021-07-21 7:05 AM (#2248 - in reply to #2240)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 85

Location: UK

@Brostenen

Thanks for taking the time to explain

Very helpful indeed.
It obviously something that would need a ton of research, I'll do some reading from your provided links.

Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-22 10:57 PM (#2249 - in reply to #2248)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

CyrixInstead - 2021-07-21 9:05 AM

@Brostenen

Thanks for taking the time to explain

Very helpful indeed.
It obviously something that would need a ton of research, I'll do some reading from your provided links.

No problemo.... :-)
I am in the process of testing out the PiStorm. I have it working, but I have found a 16gb pre made HDD image, so I need a bigger SD card. Right now it is running with an 8gb Kingston. It is one of them images like the ones you see on that PI-Miga that people are using with a RaspberryPI-400 machine.

Initial thought of this, is a giant speed boost. The bad part, is that it is not possible to use a PATA controller, like the ones that traditionally sandwich between the CPU and motherboard. But it might be possible to use a USB/PATA adaptor to attach extra storage. If it is possible, then it really does not matter. A person on youtube, have gotten between 250/300 megabyte a second on write and read speed. Warm boot is aprox 3 seconds to get into workbench and cold boot is somewhat the same speed as we saw in the 1980's. Around some 25 to 30 seconds.

DXZeff

Posted 2021-07-23 10:30 PM (#2250 - in reply to #2249)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

Oh no, I remember those cards with that dumb two-sided heatpipe setup Anything to save on aluminum.

Repairing Prophet-5 because 1981 tantalum capacitors weren't in a good way and were making the computer go wonky;

I was going to replace the PSU, as the original ones are quite poor due to what is basically 70s technology. Unfortunately, none of the places that sell modern replacements will so much as respond to my attempts to order one. Unfortunately this means I'm having to modify the original PSU and it's going to be a bit ugly.

Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-23 11:53 PM (#2251 - in reply to #2250)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

I...... Am..... AMAZED!!!!

This PiStorm thingy are FAST. And it only runs with 68020 CPU setting and default Ram settings.
Just look at that HDD speed. And they have finally gotten ChipRam speed working. A month ago, it was 0.97 of stock A500 speed.
My poor Amiga500 in PC Case, now have musclepower, faster than an Amiga4000. And nearly 43 times faster than stock a500.

Edited by Brostenen 2021-07-23 11:57 PM

(PiStorm-Speed-01.jpg)

(PiStorm-Speed-02.jpg)

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tedster

Posted 2021-07-25 10:56 PM (#2252 - in reply to #2251)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Rise MP6

Posts: 263
100

Awesome stuff guys!

Today I ran an overhead LAN cable from my house to an outbuilding. Only a 15 M span but with the stainless steel stringer cable, it was plenty of work. I used outdoor grade cat 6 for the span.

This goes into my outbuilding and into an 8 port switch. Then a length of cat 5e runs to my workshop, 150 ft away. It's like an L shaped pair of buildings. The cat 5e run terminates in another switch and a host of devices plug into this. Security cams, my workshop laptop and a TP-Link WiFi access point.

I've been wanting to do this for ages. So now I've got gigabit lan everywhere, I already did the whole of my house. So now that shitty WiFi is only used for things that don't matter, phones and shit like that.

I'm knackered but happy!

Brostenen

Posted 2021-07-26 10:33 PM (#2253 - in reply to #2252)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 671
500

#Tedster
Sounds like you were in the need of a cold brew

As for me, I have finally gotten the PiStorm up and running with everything. I renamed the hostname of the Linux subsystem to "1234usmc" (One, two, three, four, united states marine corp". (just for the laugh of it)

I have enabled SSH on it, so I can SSH into the PI with Midnight Commander and move HDD files or kickstart roms directly. There are also an A314 library in the system, that will allow me to transfer files to a folder that Workbench can see. Making file transfer easy. And it will give Linux command line in a window on Workbench. I will keep away from RTG setup, as I will still need 15khz for gaming. That is what the RGBtoHDMI adaptor is for. So far I am really happy with this setup, running with 128mb of FastRam.

Next step, is to test the compatibility with this solution. And that is what the ready made HDF file with WHD-Loader ready made that I downloaded is for. I plan on returning to my ATX64 machine in the next week or so.

tedster

Posted 2021-07-27 5:00 PM (#2254 - in reply to #2253)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Rise MP6

Posts: 263
100

I did have a few beers that night, they went down well too.

That'll certainly be a kick arse "Miggy", well suited to being in the Marines!

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