Mirari: PowerPC alive in 2025?

It looks like a new, affordable PowerPC mainboard for AmigaOS4 and MorphOS (and Linux) is in development, nearing public release.

The beginning of project "Mirari" dates back to around May 2024. The first tangible news appeared a couple of weeks ago, at the end of April 2025, when "Mirari" specifications were announced on the "Hardware" channel of the Amigans Discord server, which got mentioned on long-running Amiga news website amiga-news.de.

https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2025-04-00129-EN.html

It says that at that point in time, five out of five ordered prototype boards were already working, running Linux, and undergoing "burn-in" testing.

"Mirari" is a MiniATX form-factor mainboard...

...for T10x2 (e5500 cores) and T2081 (e6500 cores) PowerPC processors, at up to 1.8GHz

...with DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM slot

...PCI-express slots (x1, x4, x16), SATA, NVMe, USB 2.0 and 3.2, Gigabit-Ethernet

...192kHz/24bit analog audio, S/PDIF digital audio

...9-pin RS232 port

...and MicroSDCard slot (for booting)

...among a couple of other things. That sounds very good so far, and indeed, on their website (see below) we can find more details, including not only 3D-renderings of the board, but also a round of actual photographs from the development and testing stage of "Mirari".

A couple of days ago, Retro-computing enthusiast and YouTuber TJ Ferreira published a video, in which he takes a look at the information available on Mirari's website. It's a nice watch with some additional commentary about the facts & features - or, if you prefer a little more first-hand expericence, click here for "Mirari" website:

https://mirari.vitasys.nl

Watch TJ Ferreira check out "Mirari" PowerPC mainboard website (2025-05-20):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xOxPA4QPlI

 TJ Ferreira

https://mirari.vitasys.nl

https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2025-04-00129-EN.html

Next-generation 3D rendering performance with "Maggie"

Apollo Team, creators of the Vampire line of FPGA-based Amiga accelerators and compatibles, just published an impressive 3D graphics demo.

"Maggie" is a 3D unit and truecolor hardware texturing engine with zbuffer and shading, that is implemented in the CYCLONE 5 FPGA based models of the Vampire family. After presenting a couple of nice 2D demos of scaling and blending, Apollo Team has now uploaded a 3D demo showing Maggie's 3D features in action, running smoothly in what appears to be a 1280x720px screenmode created by Vampire's SuperAGA video system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rxggxxPzYg
Apollo-Team YouTube channel  

Find out more about Vampire and Maggie on Apollo's website:
http://apollo-core.com

AmigaOS 3.2 released!

There wasn't too much noise surrounding the follow-up to AmigaOS3.1.4, but the patience has paid off, and now they're breaking the silence: It's been less than 24 hours since the completion and release of AmigaOS 3.2 has been announced via facebook, and Hyperion's website!

Great news for AmigaOS users: The next updated version of official classic AmigaOS has been released. Here's a quick rundown of some of the changes and new features:

• ReAction GUI toolkit is included, with lots of bugfixes, and classes backported from AmigaOS4
• "DAControl" and trackfile.device provide near-perfect ADF handling and integration. Amiga disk files can be created, formatted, erased, ejected, etc. and mounted via double-click on Workbench icon.
• New help system and reference manual included
• Improved AIFF, GIF, JPG, WAV, PNG, BMP, CDXL and ANIM datatypes, and new datatypes for icons (.info files) and ACBM images. AmigaGuide datatype can now display inline images, picture.datatype is much faster, sound.datatype supports up to 32 bit resolution, text datatype adds search functionality.
  
• Workbench updates: title bar with date, CPU and tasks information, windows resizable from any border, windows can be iconified, window contents can be sorted increasing/decreasing, wheel mouse support
  
• a partition mounter, and "find" utility
• shell TAB autocompletion, configurable
• a "history" command
• updates to Early Startup Menu, including optional step-by-step execution of Startup-sequence

...and many more! This is really just a short excerpt from the official announcement. (Of course a new iconset is included, too.) See link below for full list.

AmigaOS3.2 is available on CD-ROM, containing ADFs for emulator use, a ready-to-run AmigaOS environment that can be copied to your harddisk, all Amiga models' disks and kickstart ROM images (oh, wow), and printable labels.

Congratulations to the developers!

Go to Hyperion's website for more details, and AmigaOS3.2 vendors:

https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/index.php/news/1-latest-news/290-amigaos-42-for-all-classic-amigas-released-and-available

AMIGA A1100 - new, awesome Amiga 1000 mainboard!

Awesome news from the hardware scene: After numerous FPGA Amiga implementations, re-imagined Amiga 500 and 1200 mainboards, all sorts of new accelerator designs, and so on, the Amiga 1000 gets a major overhaul with "AMIGA A1100".

Miguel "Estrayk" Fides from Spain has just published information about his "A1100" mainboard, which is designed to fit a Amiga 1000 case. Using modern components along with some original ones, this new mainboard looks quite different from the original Amiga 1000 PCB - and it has a lot of impressive new features:

• CPU Motorola 68020@14Mhz (PGA)
  
• OCS/ECS chipset (original Paula / Agnus / Denise required)
• 2MB ChipRAM
• 64MB FastRAM
• 2.5'' IDE controller
• support for single and dual Kickstart ROMs (three sockets total)
  
• built-in flickerfixer and scandoubler with RGB, cinch and VGA connectors
• A1000 (86pin) and A1200 (150pin) expansion connectors
• A1200 clockport
• ATX power supply connector

According to SysInfo the A1100 is easily twice as fast as a stock Amiga 1200.

It looks as if currently there's no distribution or anything planned, but that doesn't mean it won't happen, the developer is evaluating possible options.

Here's a video showing the A1100 in action (2021-02-10):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP2rrnZsDm8

Very nice, certainly a great piece of Amiga hardware to keep an eye on!

Sources:
http://www.retrowiki.es/viewtopic.php?t=200036585
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2021-02-00016-DE.html
https://www.amigafuture.de/app.php/newsportal/?ulg=de&news_id=38632

 

WARP 1260 accelerator board

Oh this looks and sounds sooo good: a new 68060 accelerator for Amiga 1200 is underway. And it has some awesome features.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DrE0XLFWsAAon3V.jpg

Rise of the undead: AmigaOS 3.1.4 released

In Amigaland, 3.1.4 comes after 3.9: 18 years have passed since the last update of AmigaOS3 - since yesterday you can purchase a new release, AmigaOS 3.1.4!

----- ----- ----- ----- -----
UPDATE 2018-11-06: Software-only distribution of AmigaOS 3.1.4 has stopped, physical media (floppys & ROM) release is available at your Amiga dealer now!
----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Gathering information from various sources (see end of article) it's assumed it has these features:

• Support for large harddisks (HD_SCSI_CMD, TD_64 and/or NSD) and "super floppies"
• Support for long filenames, pipes, softlinks, hardlinks
• "DiskDoctor" program is back, upgraded and matured, recovers data from damaged floppies and harddisks
• Native support for 68000-68060 CPUs, and a more robust auto-configuration process
• many ROM modules and CLI/shell commands bugfixed and updated
• Workbench updated, new Preferences editors in GadTools style, printer drivers and support tools updated
• "edit" and "MagTape" removed
• CrossDOS and CD-ROM filesystem updated, including multithreading and support for Rockridge, Joliet and UDF
• new professionally designed iconsets (multicolor, classic 4-color)
• new intuition.library provides window off-screen dragging (optional)
• workbench.library and icon.library loaded from disk due to increased size

...and more.

No screenshots or reviews have surfaced yet. Judging from AmigaOS 3.1.4's features, it's unlikely it will run on 512K Amigas, but contrary to OS3.5 and OS3.9 the 68000 CPU is still officially supported. Also it looks like this version is meant to replace the OS3.5/OS3.9 branch of AmigaOS, though with a little work it's still possible to keep your existing OS3.5/OS3.9 installation intact, if you prefer.

In other words:

You can buy AmigaOS 3.1.4 from Hyperion as digital download now!

A physical set of 3,5" floppy diskettes and ROMs will be available shortly.



Sources:
http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/index.php/news/1-latest-news/189-amigaos-314-for-68k-releasedhttp://hyperion-entertainment.biz/index.php/where-to-buy/direct-downloads/188-amigaos-314
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2018-09-00046-DE.html
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2018-03-00061-DE.html
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2017-10-00059-DE.html
https://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=73661.0

The awesomeness: Amiga hardware news - galore! (2/2)

Even more pure awesomeness. The Amiga community is without a doubt the most active and knowledgeable in the retro scene.

Paul Rezendes' Amiga 4000 replica mainboard

We've already reported about this project - and, yeah, it's done, thanks to Paul and the community!

The GoFundMe campaign has reached and even exceeded the amount of money required, and Paul Rezendes was pretty quick at getting the first boards produced and tested. By now the files created have been released to the public, and you can even order a board from Paul.

https://github.com/Acill/A4000RevB/blob/master/Images/20180804_091312.jpg?raw=true

Another fantastic addition to the range of newly available Amiga parts. Now there's no excuse not to resurrect your battery-leakage-damaged Amiga 4000 from the attic!

The fundraising campaign can still be found at:
https://www.gofundme.com/amiga-4000-replica-with-schematics/

The files required to build your A4000 replica mainboard can be found at:
https://github.com/Acill/A4000RevB

Take a look at Paul's website for some pictures of these beauties, and order a board if you like:
http://www.acill.com

...and arananet's Amiga 4000 daughterboard!

With the Amiga 4000 replica mainboard done (see above), and John Hertell's A3660 Amiga 4000 CPU board done, you might be wondering "cool, but I still can't build my Amiga 4000 without a ..."

Daughterboard. Wonder no more.

Eduardo Luis Arana has published the files required to build a updated daughterboard. The ISA ports has been removed, and it now includes a 15KHz VGA display connector to use with a breakout / backplate bracket. And it has some nice fiery design on the backside.

https://github.com/arananet/A4000db/blob/master/img/1.png?raw=true

You can grab the files required build your new Amiga 4000 daughterboard from GitHub at:
https://github.com/arananet/A4000db

Amiga S-video board

The Amiga's video connectivity features, while being highly convenient about 25 years ago, have turned out to be somewhat problematic today, and every update to them is warmly received.

http://electronics.chroma.se/svideo2.jpg

This board connects the any Amiga's 23-pin display output, and has a composite video, an S-video, and a 15KHz VGA output connector. Picture quality is claimed to be higher than Amiga-built-in outputs, especially using the S-video output.

Here we have another little success story regarding teamwork among Amigans: this circuitry is the one being used in John Hertell's ReAmiga 1200 for video output - nice! (see part 1 of this article)

Go to this website for more information about the Chroma Amiga S-video board:
http://electronics.chroma.se/svideo.php

K1208 and A1200 SDE+ 8MB FastRAM, SPI (SD, Ethernet) boards for Amiga 1200

Derived from Stephen Leary's TF328 project by Kipper2k, and further developed by Solidcore and Mike Stirling, these are two similar expansion boards for the Amiga 1200.

The specifications read as follows:

• 4MB/8MB FastRAM jumper (4MB for PCMCIA support)
• microSD card slot, up to 4GB FAT95 (FAT/FAT32) formatted cards (SPI 8MHz)
• Ethernet ENC28J60 SPI module support (SPI 8MHz)
• Real-time clock
• 2800+ dhrystones on stock Amiga 1200 (14MHz 68EC020)

The situation with these boards is a bit unclear, no conclusive information about final development and availability could be found. It looks as if currently only the software for the cards (drivers and firmware) has been released to the public.

If you want to know more, check these links:http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=1212721
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?100275-A1208-8MB-Fastmem-SPI-(SD-Ethernet)-Board-for-A1200
https://www.mike-stirling.com/2018/05/sd-card-and-ethernet-on-the-amiga-1200/
https://github.com/mikestir/k1208-drivers
https://github.com/mikestir/k1208-cpld

(If you can clarify about the situation please leave a comment, thanks!)

Inexpensive A500 hard disk interface

A nice little addition for your quick harddrive needs might be this straightforward Amiga 500 harddisk interface. It requires a floppy disk to boot from and has been successfully tested with Kickstart 1.3 and 2.0.

Now this one has a feature that cannot be praised highly enough:
As you can see in the picture below, it has two expansion port connectors, one after another - the front one is an adapter to standard 2.54mm pin grid connector, and the other one is the pin grid connector mounted to the PCB. As the author says in the README file: "[...] future expansions will be developed with pin headers as their main connector." Huge sigh of relief. Finally someone starts to get rid of proprietary, hard-to-obtain connectors, and replaces them with widely available, future-safe solutions. One small step for an expansion board, hopefully one giant leap for Amiga-kind.

https://github.com/AmigaPorts/a500hdd/blob/master/doc/nib.jpg?raw=true

As of now the latest commit to the GitHub repository happened just 11 days ago, so this is apparently under active development.

The projects website is located at:
https://github.com/AmigaPorts/a500hdd




BONUS HARDWARE:

GRETA FastRAM/microSD/ethernet expansion board for Amiga 500

A couple of years ago, Martin "endofexclusive" Åberg from Sweden created GRETA, a Xilinx Spartan FPGA-based expansion board for Amiga 500. It's build to add 8MB SRAM, a microSD slot, and 10/100MBit ethernet controller to the Amiga. The project files have last been updated on August 1st 2016, and hardware programming is still incomplete - currently only RAM expansion is supported.

GRETA seems to be some kind of forgotten gem among Amiga hardware expansions - the specifications look fantastic, it contains all of the features one would like to have on a single PCB. As it seems, there's only some programming required to make things work.

https://github.com/endofexclusive/greta/blob/master/doc/mounted_components2.jpg?raw=true

Wouldn't that be a nice project to pick up and give it some love?

Looking at the other amazing expansion boards that have come out in recent years, probably even an unexperienced programmer would be able to add ethernet and microSD mass storage support to the device, there's plenty of material out there to study and learn from.

If you're interested, go to GitHub, and start building your GRETA:https://github.com/endofexclusive/greta

You may find more information about GRETA in this forum thread on a1k.org:
http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?t=54707
(currently a1k.org doesn't accept new member registrations)

* * *

Thanks for reading!

Support Amiga hardware development!

Donate!

Buy stuff!

* * *

This part 2 of this article - have you read part 1?

Click here to do so!

* * *

If you spot an error please report by leaving a comment below.

If you don't, your comment is still appreciated. ;-)

Sources:
http://www.acill.com
https://github.com/arananet/A4000db 
https://github.com/endofexclusive/greta
http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2016-04-00050-EN.html 
http://www.nemesiz4ever.de/board/thread.php?board=1&thema=11

The awesomeness: Amiga hardware news - galore! (1/2)

It sounds too good to be true, but in these cases it isn't a hoax. There is a lot, and may I repeat, A LOT going on in Amiga hardware world... In fact it's so much I've split this into two parts.

7-bit's SPI controller for the clockport

On April 24th 2018, 7-bit Retro Electronics announced a new product: The "SPI MasterBus CP" controller for the clockport.

SPI is a simple, flexible, fast serial data interface that allows multiple devices to be connected. It's used by numerous types of devices across all computer platforms, e.g. as an interface to memory card readers (SD, SDHC, CompactFlash, ...), ethernet controllers, flash memory, for CPLD programming, and many more applications.

That makes a fantastic addition to the Amiga's capabilities!

Here are some "SPI MasterBus CP" specifications:

Designed for Amiga A1200’s clock port
SPI bus clock speed: 25 to 195 kHz
Full-duplex data transmission
Up to 4 devices with Slave Select lines

Built-in software will allow you to manage several characteristics of the controller.

Here's an early video showing SD-card access in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7HeQqHj56o

Keep an eye on their website for full specifications, project progress, and availability:
https://retro.7-bit.pl/?lang=en&go=projekty&name=SPICP

Jeroen Vandezande's Amiga 1200+ mainboard

With increasing age, Amiga 1200 mainboards (among others) run the risk of taking damage from leaking capacitors, and of course over a timespan of about 30 years there are a lot of other factors that may shorten - or quickly end - a mainboards life.

Wouldn't it be nice to just have the opportunity to purchase or make a new one?

This is one of two projects (see below for the other one) recreating the Amiga 1200 mainboard, Jeroen's "Amiga 1200+" is an updated version with some changes.

The project is covered by Creative Commons license, and you are free to build your own mainboard!

Here's a list of changes compared to the original Amiga 1200 1D4 mainboard, taken from the project website:

• Gayle, Budgie and the DRAM have been removed and the functionality has been moved to a daughterboard. This board can also contain a CPU.
• Video output has been moved to a seperate output board. This board get all Lisa output signals and also all the typical Zorro signals. This means that an RTG card can be developed.
• The PCMCIA slot has been removed and in the free space a power switch, boot selector switch (DF0:/DF1:) and a uSD card slot have been added. 
• A single supply universal power input has been added. (15V - 36V)
  From this the following voltages are created:
  * 5 Volts: main power rail 5 Amp capable
  * 12 Volts: 1 Amp capable
  * 3.3 Volts: 0.5 Amp capable (for daughter boards)* 1.2 Volts: 0.5 Amp capable (for daughter boards)
• Two PC standard 3 Pin fan headers are added to the board. 
• Terrible Fire compatible SPI port for network chip 
• Extension board connector for mouse/joystick. (One is in development that has USB Mouse and two classic DB-9 connectors and autoswitches when fire button is pressed.)

The "Terrible Fire compatible SPI port" is an especially nice addition: it shows that Amigans work together - way to go!

Now head over to Jeroen's website, and start building your enhanced Amiga 1200:
https://bitbucket.org/jvandezande/amiga-1200

John Hertell's Amiga 1200 replica and ReAmiga 1200 mainboards

The other project recreating the Amiga 1200 mainboard comes from John "Chucky" Hertell, well known Amiga hardware guru.

He had already created the A3660 Amiga 4000 replacement CPU module (see http://wordpress.hertell.nu/?p=537 and http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=89200 if you want to know more), and asked the community for his next reverse-engineering project, which turned out to be the Amiga 1200 mainboard. Well, about two months later, and with the help of other members of the Amiga community, Mr. Hertell had a clone of the original 1D4 version mainboard in Gerber file format!

But he didn't stop there, adding some modifications to the board - here's a list of changes:

• Supports round and square powerconnector
• New reworked composite video logic, with additional S-Video support
• RF-Modulator removed and replaced with optional buffered VGA connector
• Selectable SEL signals for floppy
• Optional NMI (IRQ7) possibility
• Resetheader
• A500 compatible keyboard connector (currently untested)
• Support for the Ratteswitch with solderoles for required signals so no need of a socket on CIA
• Extra powerconnectors for +12 and +5V fans, and extra powerconnector close to CPU slot
• PCMCIA reset fix
• Optional onboard LEDs where LED and +5V are separated also optional “opt” led, with jumperwire for PCMCIA activity LED

 

http://wordpress.hertell.nu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/A1200pcb.jpg

Well, what can you say - another awesome job by Mr. Hertell.

Check his website for complete first-hand information, and files required to build your own Amiga 1200 or ReAmiga 1200 mainboard:
http://wordpress.hertell.nu/?p=587

Note that you can also buy ReAmiga 1200 PCBs from Mr. Hertell - income from these sales will partly be donated to Swedish children cancer fund. See link above.

 

Commodore Amiga AA3000 / A3000+ recreated

Both Matthias 'Matze' Heinrichs' and Christian 'Scrat' Euler have recreated a legend: an AGA-chipset equipped Amiga 3000!

Sadly, there's no open source re-creation (yet?) of the mainboard, probably due to technical difficulties (8-layer board) - but nontheless, this is another great example of the capabilities of the Amiga community. Who would've thought we'd see these ultra-rare machines outside of Commodore's laboratories one day?

Read the full story with pictures and files over at amiga-news.de:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2018-08-00030-EN.html

* * *

That's it for today - 

click here to read part 2 with more amazing Amiga hardware news!

* * *

If you spot an error please report by leaving a comment below.

If you don't, your comment is still appreciated. ;-)

Sources:
https://retro.7-bit.pl/?lang=en&go=projekty&name=SPICP
https://retro.7-bit.pl/?lang=en&go=aktualnosci&view=132
https://bitbucket.org/jvandezande/amiga-1200
http://wordpress.hertell.nu/?p=587
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=93015
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2018-08-00030-DE.html
http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=23

Another success story: New cases for Amiga 500!

Philippe Lang and A1200NET, who already created new Amiga 1200 cases and keycaps are going to create professional molds for new compatible Amiga 500 cases.

It's another amazing success story from the self organizing, crowd-funding Amiga-scene: According to the Indiegogo project page, as of today $186,734 USD have been raised, and the project was 112% funded on May 31, 2018!

 

These new cases feature a number of improvements over the original ones, apart from being brand-new:

- screwholes with metal threads
- immune to UV-light
- prepared to house a Vampire 500 V2 or Raspberry Pi 3 mainboard
- or of course an original Amiga 500 mainboard
- Vampire ports extender, allows routing of internal LAN / USB / HDMI / SDcard connections to proper outlets (e.g. disk drive opening)
- different colors available: white, black, light blue, orange, and more
- signatures by Amiga celebrities like Dave Haynie and David Pleasance, among others
- metal case badge, floppy buttons, rubber feet, and trapdoor covers included

The whole thing seems to be well on it's way, and mass production of cases is planned towards the end of 2018, to be shipped in April 2019.

Of course if you want to support the project you still can, there are numerous packages available for you to claim - from "Unique Solo" - one case - to "Quad damage" - four cases - or silver and gold metal coated editions, or a beautiful "Scourge Of The Underkind" collector's edition.

Oh, and there's even more: if the project reaches it's "stretch goal" of $189,000USD, project backers will receive new Amiga "tank"-mouse cases, too!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/new-compatible-case-for-amiga-500-plus#/

https://c1.iggcdn.com/indiegogo-media-prod-cld/image/upload/c_limit,w_695/v1520575661/cy6t8kk6e2hqsxx1vx2c.png

Source:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/new-compatible-case-for-amiga-500-plus-computers#/

Amiga 4000 opensource mainboard: alive and well

Paul Rezendes' Amiga 4000 mainboard replica is moving along quite nicely. 

Paul Rezendes from California, USA, has started a funding campaign to have PCB data files recreated professionally from an Amiga 4000 mainboard, and publish these under open-source license. A couple of weeks ago the goal of 5000$ was reached, and meanwhile has even been exceeded.

A few days ago, Paul posted another update on his project page, now showing first screenshots of the actual PCB files that have been created. When done checking for errors, the files should probably be released to the public via the project's GitHub page around next week!

https://d2kw0licpa1moo.cloudfront.net/28730374_1527979674.9891_updates.jpg

Amazing stuff - becoming reality.

Here's Paul's GoFundMe campaign page, see there for more information and latest updates - and you can still make a donation:

https://www.gofundme.com/amiga-4000-replica-with-schematics/

Note that GoFundMe does not accept PayPal - if you want to donate using PayPal, the guys from Amiga On The Lake are watching this campaign, too, and are happy to receive your donation and forward it to Paul Rezendes' GoFundMe account!

http://amigaonthelake.com/aotl-donations/

Thanks Paul, AmigaOnTheLake, and the rest of the bunch!

Amiga 4000 mainboard goes opensource!

Amiga 4000 mainboards are becoming rare these days, and are difficult to repair. But there's hope in sight. A lot of hope. In fact so much hope that you can almost grab a new one! Yes, we can make this happen!

Paul Rezendes from California, USA, has started a funding campaign to have PCB data files professionally recreated from an Amiga 4000 mainboard, and publish these under open-source license.

(This does not include any boards actually being produced - it's only about the data files required to do so.)

Now let's think about this for a second. First thing that comes to mind is that some hardcore Amigans will produce a few new mainboard from the data files, for repairs, or maybe build an A4000. But the really exciting stuff starts when people start modifying the PCB. Just imagine the possibilities... PCI onboard, a new low-cost CPU card connector, streamlined design getting rid of old/unused components, scandoubler onboard, (Mini)ATX formfactor, ...this has the potential to become a quantum-leap forward in Amiga hardware development like the Vampire boards are!

Here's Paul's GoFundMe campaign page:

https://www.gofundme.com/amiga-4000-replica-with-schematics/

Note that GoFundMe does not accept PayPal - if you want to donate using PayPal, the guys from Amiga On The Lake are watching this campaign, too, and are happy to receive your donation and forward it to Paul Rezendes' GoFundMe account!

http://amigaonthelake.com/aotl-donations/

Now head over to GoFundMe or Amiga On The Lake, and make your donation!

We're almost there! Yes, we CAN make this happen!

https://d2g8igdw686xgo.cloudfront.net/28730374_15223301610_r.jpeg

Apollo Team Activity Report: GOLD 2.7 core, GOLD 3 core, Vampire V4

Apollo team has released an activity report on their forum website, addressing some current issues, like the halted Vampire V2 600 production, as well as ongoing new developments.

Some highlights from their report:

- GOLD 2.7 includes faster IDE, hardware sprites, optimized rewrite of RTG graphics driver, MapROM functionality, hybrid software/hardware FPU, HyperThreading, and more

- GOLD 2.7 core will be available for Vampire V2 500, V2 600, and V4

- GOLD 3 will bring AGA support to OCS/ECS Amigas, and seems to be routing Paula-audio to the HDMI output

- a list of non-Amiga website reports about the Vampire V4, which boldly shows that the outside world does take notice

Judging from the list of new features of the GOLD 2.7 core users can expect a major overall increase in performance.


Especially the Apollo core's current lack of an FPU is a crucial difference to "real" M68k based accelerators (with an FPU), but it looks as these days will soon be gone. It'll be interesting how the other manufacturers of accelerator boards will react to this - namely: phase 5 - as they now have some serious competition when it comes to floating-point number crunching.

Again, Apollo team has given us some spectacular report on their progress. Together with the latest phase 5 announcements this makes 2017 probably the most exciting Amiga year since the turn of the millenium!

Sources:
forum.apollo-accelerators.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1822

BANG! There it is: Vampire V4 standalone & Vampire V4 Amiga 1200

And this is how things happen. You have an Apollo team, and a Vampire team, and Kipper2k and Majsta and all the others, and they just go the way, all the way.

Today has been announced Vampire V4, and what a beast it is: it comes in different flavours, including an Amiga 1200 version, and a standalone version.

Among it's features are the Altera Cyclone V A5 FPGA, 512MB DDR3 RAM, FastIDE with two connectors (40 and 44-pin), HDMI* video out, dual Kickstart-flashrom, USB, ethernet, and MicroSD storage. Additionally, the standalone version will feature two DB9 mouse/joystick ports.

From the official announcement: "The Vampire V4 standalone system will be a complete new Amiga system powered by the 68080 CPU core and the complete SAGA chipset (AGA compatible)."

Probably most interesting are three I/O ports on the new Vampire V4. Currently we have no information about these, but could this be the basis for a new standard of Amiga expansion devices? Will this be what people build upon, and make the Vampire V4 the new Amiga?

It has to be said, though, that there's some sort of question mark regarding the Amiga 600 version of the Vampire boards. The announcement of the V4 says "Amiga 600 with kippa’s adapter (if produced)", and assuming that "kippa" is "kipper2k", things don't look too well: recently, kipper2k left a note on his website (see sources, below) that he doesn't intend to continue making the Vampire 600 boards. Let's just hope this doesn't affect the overall roadmap of the Vampire boards, and that someone will build the adapter for the V4 600.

Anyway, exciting times we live in!

Congratulations!

  

http://www.apollo-accelerators.com/images/v4.jpg

*) probably, see sources below

Sources: 
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2017-08-00003-DE.html
http://www.apollo-accelerators.com/files/V4_announcement_v1_5.pdf
http://forum.apollo-accelerators.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1804
http://kipper2k.com

A new Amiga...?!

With the Vampire accelerator boards out and in mass production, and AROS gaining momentum on m68k, it has been announced that the Apollo/Vampire team will open-source their S-AGA enhanced Amiga-compatible chipset!

This means that other companies can reuse and build upon this new, compatible Amiga chipset implementation without worrying about license fees, copyright holders, or future safety.

AROS is already open-source, and AROS amiga-m68k is running on the Vampire boards, providing a free operating system. (It still needs optimization for the S-AGA chipset, though.)

Yes, it looks like it's finally happening: a new, open-source 68k-Amiga.

AROS-m68k running on Amiga Vampire 500

Sources:
http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=1&note=5768
http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=1&note=5580