CompuServe Thread

#1Meg Agnus on A1000

4 messages in this thread
#57143From: Gregory B. TibbsJul 13, 1989 10:15 PM
For all those doubting thomases out there, I'd like to forever put to rest the argument that it is impossible to adapt the 1 MEG AGNUS to an A1000 as this message was composed on a machine with said configuration 🙂 My prototype took three days and a few PAL mods, but indeed after blowing up a Kickstart ROM, its working fine and I have 936K of chip RAM free!. I am now proceding to make the more elegant features such as my real time clock & video slot work. 🙂 🙂 😉
#57146From: John D. SellJul 13, 1989 10:33 PM
Ok Greg, I'll bite, just what and how did you have to do to get the 1 meggers to run?? I've had my amiga for over 3 years now and really don't want to give it up for a 500 or 2000 if I don't have to.
#57157From: Gregory B. TibbsJul 13, 1989 11:45 PM
Well, to make a long story somewhat short, I realized that the 1 Meg Agnus could not be interfaced to the motherboard chip ram due to design diferences. The Fat Agnus is designed to talk to 256Kx1 or 256Kx4 chips and the old A1000 Agnus was designed to talk only to 16 64Kx4 chips. The trick was to create a new daughterboard, to replace the WCS (Kickstart RAM) daughterboard and extend it to the three custom chip sockets. I put 1 MB of new memory on this PCB, connected to the custom chips (all three are now on the daughterboard). With careful design, the motherboard RAM, formerly CHIP RAM, can be made into 512K of FAST RAM (Not yet done). Other features to be tested are a A1000 video slot (A2000 subset) and OKI real time clock chip, and with some creative PAL design, turn that 512K of motherboard RAM into 256K of Fast RAM and 256K Kickstart RAM (ROMS are currently used). No trace cuts are currently needed on the motherboard as I sychronize the Agnus clocks to the motherboard clocks. only two wires are needed to be run from the daughterboard to the motherboard.
#57891From: Black Belt SystemsJul 19, 1989 4:22 PM
GreG, congratulations. I would like to talk to you about this. 406-367-5509 –Ben-