Terriblefire Accelerators

Help & news on accelerators from TF, Amiga, Atari, CD32 etc

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8 Bit Dreams
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Re: Terriblefire Accelerators

Post by 8 Bit Dreams »

I have same vision as You Alen, persons who only want a low end accelerator and IDE Interface to play WHDLoad games - are best served with TF534. Let's say it loud - TF530 with it's 2MB wasnt able to satisfy all needs and was unable to run a lot of games, but TF534 with its 4MB FastRAM can do esily. And TF530 is not so stable as TF534, especially on A2000.. TF530 still need interrupt but TF534 not, without INT2 this card is plug and play - thats great. Isn't it!?
TF534 deserves to live, yes, maybe it will have shorter live than TF530 (it's exactly two years old this month! ). You can't offer something instread, so please do not let people build TF530 having TF534 on the shelf - these are almost same price (well, ok, it's 4-layer, and ram ist slightly more expensive), but who knows how long does it takes till SDRAM FW is up and running? Beside of that You have so much plans.. Just let it go, and people will be happy to build these instread of TF530..
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terriblefire
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Re: Terriblefire Accelerators

Post by terriblefire »

8 Bit Dreams wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 5:15 pm I have same vision as You Alen, persons who only want a low end accelerator and IDE Interface to play WHDLoad games - are best served with TF534. Let's say it loud - TF530 with it's 2MB wasnt able to satisfy all needs and was unable to run a lot of games, but TF534 with its 4MB FastRAM can do esily. And TF530 is not so stable as TF534, especially on A2000.. TF530 still need interrupt but TF534 not, without INT2 this card is plug and play - thats great. Isn't it!?
TF534 deserves to live, yes, maybe it will have shorter live than TF530 (it's exactly two years old this month! ). You can't offer something instread, so please do not let people build TF530 having TF534 on the shelf - these are almost same price (well, ok, it's 4-layer, and ram ist slightly more expensive), but who knows how long does it takes till SDRAM FW is up and running? Beside of that You have so much plans.. Just let it go, and people will be happy to build these instread of TF530..
Yeah i'm coming down this side of the fence. I just need to package up the gerbers and release them.
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AEV80
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Re: Terriblefire Accelerators

Post by AEV80 »

Another vote to release the TF534.

4MB is pretty much perfect for most stuff, that's what I was waiting for, plus the plug and play (no INT2 cable) is cool.

Sounds like the firmware is pretty much done apart from SPI, but for most people that's only a bonus, not a must have.

Most importantly of all for me, I already have most of the parts needed :D
terriblefire
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Re: Terriblefire Accelerators

Post by terriblefire »

Just noticed these seek pin compatible with the TF330 SDRAM

AS4C32M16SA

https://www.alliancememory.com/wp-conte ... BGA%20.pdf

And there may be bigger chips. So there are options to get 128MB-256Mb out of the TF330. Assuming it works at all.
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8 Bit Dreams
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Re: Terriblefire Accelerators

Post by 8 Bit Dreams »

Im totally in, Stephen, let's test all RAMs possible, have now three brands here: Alliance, Winbond and Samsung
Mark was very kind and offered me an adapter so Yeah, waiting on the test pcbs (or gerbers) ;)

Ooops..just noticed Your offered Alliance chips are triple price as mine - 20$ pro chip makes this card very expensive assuming memory price will rise..
What about chips i offered before?
AS4C16M16SA-6TIN, seem to be pin compatible :?
Next candidate where these:
W9825G6KH-6, price also seem very attractive to me
And third candidate is quite affordable:
k4s561632j-uc75
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terriblefire
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Re: Terriblefire Accelerators

Post by terriblefire »

Well the chip I posted was just for example. But that RAM is still coming out cheaper than a TF53x series.

I’ve started on the firmware.
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Re: Terriblefire Accelerators

Post by 8 Bit Dreams »

That's great, You'll have FW to start with as soon as pcbs arrive
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alenppc
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Re: Terriblefire Accelerators

Post by alenppc »

From the logic point of view, how is SDRAM different from regular DRAM? I assume you still have to do all the refresh cycles. So for example, is it possible to reuse routines from the TF328 DRAM design?
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8 Bit Dreams
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Re: Terriblefire Accelerators

Post by 8 Bit Dreams »

Correct,
SRAM doesn't need refresh between each cycle, you can have what you write in it immediately, where SDRAM needs refresh between each cycle, so it needs to be clocked on double speed compared to CPU (100Mhz for RAM @50Mhz CPU)...
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techniplex
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Re: Terriblefire Accelerators

Post by techniplex »

Really excited about the TF534 and look forward to seeing the the parts list as it will probably take longer to source the parts than the PCBs. If the board is available on DirtyPCB I am perfectly willing to go that route rather than sending the gerbers to another PCB manufacturing company. Really appreciate all of your hard work on these accelerators.
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