User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:19 am

Hi,

could there be a better name as "Phoenix" for an old computer system that just has risen again to fill your heart with joy to bring some fond memories of the past?

My "phoenix" is such system, and conveniently based on the mainboard of the same name. Actually, after some time, the name of the complete system swithced to "Paladin". After chasing after my dream, my idea of an Amiga this actually appeared to make more sense. It's a dream - for me :).

The overall "build" time, or, rather, "project time" took like 14 years. This is counting from the very first Board that I acquired to the final setup. Talk about chasing a dream ...

Let's have a quick overview of the system hardware-wise:

- Phoenixboard with 2MB Chip, ECS-Chip, SCSI, SCSI-Hack
- KS 1.3, 2.1, 3.1, 3.5 (3.1-Exec-Patch von Piru) selectable via extenal switch
- Dell HD-Floppy-Drive
- Switch to switch ( :D) internel/external DF0/DF1, in case of a reboot will disable internal drive
- SCSI2SD v5 / 128GB µSD
- Pioneer Slot-In DVD-RW
- Derringer 030 @ 50 Mhz / 32MB RAM
- Indivision ECS FlickerFixer
- A1k / Kryoflux A500-Graphics Board
- VarIO Serial&Parallel High Speed Interface (Frontslot)
- iComp 68k-Clockport-Adapter
- SVideo-Adapter for the Videoslot (A1k)
- SimpleIDE / Dual CF2IDE-Adapter
- 2 RapidRoad USB-Hostadapter
- Melody 1200Pro CP-Soundadapter
- USB2Eth / Internet via Poseidon
- 3 USB-Ports (2 at the back, 1 behind front door)
- Other: Zorro-Bus can be completely disabled for compatibility to old Floppy-games
- Black paint by an a1k.org fellow (Ernie76)

Its a nice system that gives up to 7700 Dhrystones. With lots of options to attach mass storage its nice to have all WHDLoad archives available. I every once in a while fill some 128GB CF-card on my PC and whatever I want to play on the original hardware is available.
Only AGA games evade me but hey, I honetsly never played them back then anyways.

One word of warning: the Phoenix is a diva. It will drive you crazy. You can not expect things to work. They may work, but dont take it for granted! In case you're interested I kept track of things I tried, like putting a Deneb in the Zorro-Slot... *sigh*.

So here come some pics.
Hope youre interested.

Cheers,
McT
Attachments
SysInfo_804.JPG
DSC04303.JPG
IMG_2403.JPG

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:20 am

Three more pics :)
Attachments
DSC00067.JPG
IMG_2401.JPG
DSC03760.JPG

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:21 am

... and three more.
Attachments
DSC03754.JPG
DSC03756.JPG
DSC03741.JPG

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sat Jan 27, 2018 11:18 am

Simply stunning! I have an 030 Derringer, too, but the only way I could get it to fit would be to cut some metal off the back of the floppy bracket...

Which I think I need to do anyway if I ever want to put a mild accelerator in mine. The strange default location of the CPU is just slightly under the back of my original A1000 floppy bracket.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sat Jan 27, 2018 11:20 am

What is that thing you've plugged into the front expansion port? This? "VarIO Serial&Parallel High Speed Interface"

In what ways do you use it?

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Sat Jan 27, 2018 1:30 pm

Right, it's the VarIO. A second RapidRoad is attached to its Clockport. I use it for AmigaExplorer and a HighSpeed serial PC-Amiga connect.
I'll try to dig out a pic of the connector of the Derringer to the 68k.

User avatar
Bulletdust

Posted Sat Jan 27, 2018 2:32 pm

Someone makes an offset adapter to make up for this issue running the TF520 on the A1000, I've seen it before. Might have been one of the members in my local user group, it's a nice tidy PCB that completely overcomes this issue.

User avatar
Bulletdust

Posted Sun Jan 28, 2018 5:55 am

How do you find the accelerator with games and more specifically demo's that hit the chipset directly McTrinsic? I have to say I encountered a number of scenario's where an '030 accelerator actually made my A500 (a 16 bit machine just like the A1000) actually run considerably slower under titles that hit the chipset directly due to the fact that the '030 is a 32 bit processor and the A500/1000 have a 16 bit bus - Therefore extra 'wait states' have to be inserted in order to interface the chip with the bus.

As soon as the same accelerator was fitted to my A1200, being a 32bit machine with a 32bit bus there was no issue - All the titles that ran slower on the A500 actually ran faster on the A1200 - It's one of the reasons why the A1200 is now my Amiga of choice.

What is interesting is that my A500 at 42Mhz actually benchmarked faster than your A1000 at 51.8Mhz, both running an '030, what's also interesting is that you have 2Meg of chip ram?

Image

Image

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Sun Jan 28, 2018 11:27 am

Well, MHz isn't everything.
42 sounds like an ACA- they are very optimized for speed.
I am still finishing my Workbench-installs 3.'1' and 3.9.
Every once in a while I listen to Demos, tracks or play WHDLOAD games. So far no major issues that couldn't be solved e.g. with some tooltypes.

User avatar
Bulletdust

Posted Sun Jan 28, 2018 2:14 pm

McTrinsic wrote:Well, MHz isn't everything.
42 sounds like an ACA- they are very optimized for speed.
I am still finishing my Workbench-installs 3.'1' and 3.9.
Every once in a while I listen to Demos, tracks or play WHDLOAD games. So far no major issues that couldn't be solved e.g. with some tooltypes.
I wasn't the only one that noticed the issue in relation to speed, it was blatantly obvious, especially in certain demo's - The speed would slow so much that music would play slowly. WHDload games wern't affected so much.

In the end another member of the forums I was frequenting got in touch with Jens who (fairly arrogantly) stated that the A500/A1000 has a 16 bit bus and wait states are necessary to interface a 32bit processor to a 16bit bus and certain software that hits the chipset directly is going to be affected.

It tended to stand to reason the second I got my A1200, as the problem totally vanished when running the exact same HDD/AmigaOS 3.1 install.

Here's the setup (I ended up swapping that monitor with a Dell as it didn't scale correctly):

Image

Image





Return to “Hardware”