A sneak peek at the ACA1240/1260 cooling system

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • Sorry - this has only been discussed in the German part of this forum: With Peter being the main developer of the FPGA logic for the ACA1260, this project is on a *very* slow pace, as Peter is on long-term sick leave since late June of this year. He just got back on the job, but only for a few hours per week, which is not enough to work on such a complex product. He's currently on product maintenance of previous products (mainly Indivision), and we'll hopefully go back to work on the ACA1260 when the first rush on the ACA1234 is over - I expect this to be in late November or early December.

  • Moin Jens. Just wanted to thank you, Peter and all you nice guys at icomp! Although many many Amiganoids are crazy interested in the ACA1240/60 and further of your products, health is the more important source we have to care about. So my best wishes to Peter for getting completely well. Take you all the time it'ld be necessary.

    Jens, my personal thanks to you for repairing my indivision mk3. Keyboard is working again and the indi is doing a really amazing job. Love that graphics.

    Danke Euch!

    Björn

  • Peter continues to make good progress on his recovery. However, he's not yet back to the normal hours, so it does not make sense to put him back on such a complex project yet.

  • Last week I have published an AIBB module of the current ACA1240 with 40MHz in the German part of this forum. Needless to say that it's by far the fastest 68040 for the Amiga that has ever been built, with some tests being even faster than 50MHz 68060 accelerators from the late 1990s.


    This week, we have ticked off another point on the list: De-bricking. This is usually the part that you don't ever want to see or use, as it is only required when something went wrong during flashing (power failure, wrong file flashed or sth like that). In that case, the card turns into a brick (some say paperweight).


    Our products are used all over the world, and shipping things for service takes long and may involve crossing customs borders twice. This should be avoided whenever possible. Sending a service technician is about as practical as with Apollo 13 - though for different reasons.

    If required, setting the de-brick jumper will deactivate the largest part of the accelerator and let the computer start with it's own un-accelerated processor and chipram only.The interface to the flash chip is minimal, a so-called bit-bang interface which is designed to only use read accesses in our case. This is important, because the card cannot identify itself using Autoconfig, for example. After all, we have to assume the worst case where "nothing" works (not even the safe-start jumper). Only three chips are involved in this interface, and they are not only very robust, but also not programmed, so they won't be affected by such a "brick event".


    Today we have successfully made contact with the flash chip using this interface, and both data directions were verified positive. The requirements for the host computer are as minimal as can be: 68000 CPU and chip ram only, plus a source for the flash file, which will fit on an 880k floppy disk (crunched).


    So the de-brick procedure is your tool to escape from the worst-possible scenario, to pull yourself out of the swamp by your own hair. While we're at movie references, U96 comes to mind: You're sitting on the bottom of the ocean with weak batteries and a defective engine, but with the right tools and knowledge to fix it all. Not as spectacular is in the movie (especially because we'll be here to help through this very support forum), and it's absolutely nothing you ever want to (have to) try, but it's reassuring to know that it will work.

  • YAY! this seems to be progressing again...
    How are things going, have you settled on a prototype that can be cost effectively produced ?
    Still doing unit testing ?

    When do I start putting money aside :) ?

  • You can start putting money aside now. The "release candidate 1" board has passed all hardware tests and one of the boards now made it's way to Timm, who will make the software (he actually started on it today). He already made the ACA1234 software, and I hope I'm not putting too much pressure on him when I say that the success of the ACA1234 is giving me very high expectations :-)

  • You can start putting money aside now. The "release candidate 1" board has passed all hardware tests and one of the boards now made it's way to Timm, who will make the software (he actually started on it today). He already made the ACA1234 software, and I hope I'm not putting too much pressure on him when I say that the success of the ACA1234 is giving me very high expectations :-)

    That‘s amazing news! Will you share more details about the cards capabilities, variants and possible expansion options (there was talk of a graphics card in this thread) before it‘ll be made available for purchase?


    Cheers

    Jens

  • There is *a*lot* of software to be written. While production of the hardware may be quick, it'll be a close call even for beta testers to have this before Xmas. Yes, we'll have a public beta test with 10-15 people (preferrably from Germany, so shipping things back when needed won't be too expensive), so that embarassing experience that we've had with the ACA1234 (where a CPLD update was required in the field) won't happen.


    Even after normal sales have started, not all capabilities of the card will be public. It may take up to one year until we have implemented everything, and the only honest option of handling this is to not advertise them, not even mention what we're planning to do with downloadable upgrades. This way, there is no danger of anyone being disappointed: I always tell people to buy the product for what it is "right now" instead of what they believe it might become in the future.


    Chances of us missing the goal are low, but chances of not being on schedule are high, given the amount of curve balls that this design has thrown us since 2015. If you've paid for the card in anticipation of "feature X" and we don't deliver on time, you'll be frustrated. I don't want that.

  • Okay, ACA1240/60 card money finally put aside.

    Fortunately... there are no other 'Fear Of Missing Out' toys on my radar for now.

    Truthfully, my hands are busy building an A4000TX, so I don't even have time to look at new Amiga toys,

    but the ACA1260 keeps popping back up in my thoughts and I come back to the forum to see if there is any news ?

  • if there was a channel in place to procure an ACA1260 that comes with out the CPU populated for a discount, that's an option I'd personally entertain... even if its sold with the understanding these are to only be used by experienced customers with no implied warranty whatsoever.

  • with out the CPU populated for a discount

    So you want us to put a CPU on, test the card, put extra work in to remove the CPU, still provide warranty and get a discount? Sorry, that won't work.

    even if its sold with the understanding these are to only be used by experienced customers with no implied warranty whatsoever.

    EU customer protection laws don't allow this in B2C business. It would have to be B2B with clear paperwork that shows you own a business, and I would not accept PayPal as payment. Still, you would not save any money in comparison to the 68040-25 version, as you'd have to pay for the time to check and file all that paperwork.


    If you buy the 68040-25 version, you can immediately see that you got a good unit. If you then insert your own 68060 CPU (losing warranty), you don't have any extra cost and can check if the card works, if your CPU is running and really is that the label says.


    Only of you want to run it faster then 25MHz, you'll have to buy the license upgrade that buyers of the 68060 version have from the get-go.


    Jens