stan@teroach.UUCP (Stan Fisher) (10/18/88)
----------------------
First I want to thank Brad Fowles for his dedication to the Lucas
project, that (unfortunately) may never see publication (ala Transactor
issue 3, fingers crossed), although it is still available directly from him.
I ordered the Lucas project from Brad and while waiting for it to arrive,
I made the decision to trade in my 1000 for a 2000, after receiving the
Lucas board and having been advised by Brad that it probably wouldn't work
in the 2000, I proved for myself that, no, it just won't fit. Disappointed
that my inexpensive 020 upgrade would not be imediately realized, I sold it
to a colleague for his 1000.
(minor flames to follow:)
Now to check into the alternatives to turbo my 2000... I called
Ronin Engineering to check on prices for their 2000 '020 board, $1025
with chips (020/881) and $600 without. This board is not available in
a bare board (kit) form, unfortunately. Excuse me, but can there really
be that much more to a 'coprocessor board' for the 2000, than the Lucas
project for the 1000?? I've seen the Lucas board, a nicely done PCB with
4 pals for $65, you build. You add the glue chips, processors and sockets/
connectors, etc.) Now I might believe there's enough hardware to cost $300
sans chips and still leave a handsome profit margin but wow! And tell me why
can I buy a ProRam 2000 board (0K) that'll hold 8 Megs of RAM for only
$179 and these people want $600 additional for a 4 Meg 32bit (0K installed)
messanine board for their 020 board ??? $600 for a BARE MEMORY BOARD!
Now I'm not just pickin' on Ronin, I understand this is around the
going price from Hurricane for their 020 board AND for their 32 bit
memory board option (0K installed), that is, $600 each. There just isn't
that much to these boards! Do we try to get our Engineering costs recovered
in the first run of boards or what?
Does anybody know of an inexpensive 020 board for the 2000 either
without processors or in a kit form with no components?
Would someone please follow in the Lucas board footsteps and produce
a Pub-Domain 020 for the 2000? I'd love to do it, but just dont' have the
resources at hand. Just a form-factor change to the Lucas should do it,
perhaps with a few timing tweeks.
OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!
___________________________________________________________________________
+ Stan Fisher uunet!unisoft!nud!teroach!stan
+ Motorola Microcomputer Division, Tempe, Arizona - (602) 438-3228
+ "...no no, let's wait for the A5000, MC88000 based Amiga with 536 Million
+ colors and 2K square graphics resolution, Yeah, that's the ticket.."cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (10/19/88)
In article <1314@teroach.UUCP> stan@teroach.UUCP (Stan Fisher) writes: > Would someone please follow in the Lucas board footsteps and produce > a Pub-Domain 020 for the 2000? I'd love to do it, but just dont' have the > resources at hand. Just a form-factor change to the Lucas should do it, > perhaps with a few timing tweeks. > OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!! >+ Stan Fisher uunet!unisoft!nud!teroach!stan >+ Motorola Microcomputer Division, Tempe, Arizona - (602) 438-3228 Stan, and others. Your plea, I can sympathize with, but you probably won't get the answer your looking for. Why not? Because there is no "reason" to do it. If you are desperate for a cheap '020 board, work at Motorola no less, and can't squeeze together the resources to make one, what do you suppose it will take to do it? I'm not trying to pick on you, I'm just pointing out the incongruity of your posting. The other thing that makes this unlikely is that there are no less than three makers of '020 boards for the Amiga 2000 (if you count CBM) and *all* of them seem to have gone to great lengths to make them work properly. Problems with noise, timing, etc that seem to indicate that to do the job "right" requires several hundred hours of development time. Everyone I have talked to who hacks part time on the Amiga for "free" spends at most 10 - 15 hours on it a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less but the average is there. That means to develop a "free" board would probably require a year of someone's off-hours. And frankly, I think that is beyond the threshold of the "shareware" phenomena. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
gmg@hcx.uucp (Greg M. Garner) (10/21/88)
In article <73428@sun.uucp>, cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) writes: > In article <1314@teroach.UUCP> stan@teroach.UUCP (Stan Fisher) writes: > > Would someone please follow in the Lucas board footsteps and produce > > a Pub-Domain 020 for the 2000? I'd love to do it, but just dont' have the > > resources at hand. Just a form-factor change to the Lucas should do it, > > perhaps with a few timing tweeks. > > OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!! > >+ Stan Fisher uunet!unisoft!nud!teroach!stan > >+ Motorola Microcomputer Division, Tempe, Arizona - (602) 438-3228 > > Stan, and others. Your plea, I can sympathize with, but you probably > won't get the answer your looking for. <Other stuff deleted.....> I disagree with you, Chuck, on some of your points. First, there are people out here capable and willing to do this job. If the board replaces the 68000 chip, it should be as simple as just relaying out the original lucas board so that it will plug into the A2000 68000 socket. I have all the tools to do the layout (A1000 with 3meg, PRO-BOARD layout software, and a plotter), but I am missing three crucial ingrediants. 1) A lucas board to copy from, and the permission (if it is not pd) to do so. 2) The 350.00 bucks it takes here to get a small production run of double sided plated through holes boards, probably about 30 for this price. 3) An amiga 2000 to test it in. 4) A 68020 to plug into the board and test it with. If anyone is sufficiently interested in doing this, Lets work out a deal! I could probably talk someone around here into letting me try a protype in there A2000. Maybe Stan could send me a 68020 to play with. And finally, I need a lucas board, which I probably would be willing to spend some bucks to get just to get the oppertunity to play with a 68020. Finally, maybe enough of you people out there would want one of these boards, so If enough people were interested, after the protoype worked, we could all pitch in on the 350.00. If anyone is wondering if I have any experience with this wort of thing, I have built a protoype 68000 system from scratch. It was a standalone scale that had a high accuracy A/D and 2X40 LCD display. I have also built several microcontoller boards for various applications using 6803 cpus. Greg Garner Greg Garner gmg@hcx.uucp 481 N. Gregg St. 501-442-4847 Fayetteville Ar. 72701
anakin@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Wolfgang P. Dinger) (10/21/88)
As the designer of the LUCAS Board, I can say that Chuck is almost right. It took about 1 and a half years of my free time to develop LUCAS. If you wish to continue you are most welcome to any and all the documentation, plots, drawings, and whatever I have for the LUCAS Board. Good Luck Brad
deraadt@xenlink.UUCP (Theo A. DeRaadt) (10/26/88)
In article <1314@teroach.UUCP>, stan@teroach.UUCP (Stan Fisher) writes: > Does anybody know of an inexpensive 020 board for the 2000 either > without processors or in a kit form with no components? > Would someone please follow in the Lucas board footsteps and produce > a Pub-Domain 020 for the 2000? I'd love to do it, but just dont' have the > resources at hand. Just a form-factor change to the Lucas should do it, > perhaps with a few timing tweeks. > OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE, OH PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!! Well..., I wonder if the boards that fit in the B2000's coprocessor slot are going to have different stuff on it. Of course, if this rumor about Amiga Unix running on the 68020 at the same time as the 68000 runs AmigaDOS, then by all means, two 68020's. <tdr.