GottaGoFaZt3r 256 MB RAM Zorro 3 card for the Amiga
GottaGoFaZt3r is a memory card for Zorro 3 big box Amiga computers that you can build or buy premade. Find out more information about the GottaGoFaZt3r Amiga memory card here.
Amiga with a Zorro 2 bus supports up to 8 MB memory on the Zorro 2 bus, that memory is shared with other devices on the bus so if you have a graphics card with 2 MB you can only have 6 MB additional fast mem on the Zorro 2 bus. With Zorro 3 that is IIRC increased to 1 GB.
Phase 5 Fastlane vs GottaGoFaZt3r
Before this card was released there was not a huge offering of Zorro 3 memory cards, the most famous was probably the Fastlane from Phase 5, a huge full size Zorro 3 memory card that uses rare 30 pin memory and commanded high prices on the second hand market. The Fastlane has 16 30-pin SIMM sockets and can be expanded to 256 MB, but that would require 16 very rare 16 MB 30-pin SIMM memory. Phase 5 made awesome hardware back in the day but time marches on.
While the Fastlane was also a SCSI card the GottaGoFaZt3r is just a memory card. Where the Fastlane is full size the modern card is a mini half size Zorro 3 card. It is autodetected and just does one thing, adding more memory to your Z3 Amiga.
Whats the point of a 256 MB memory card in an Amiga?
The GottaGoFaZt3r can be built to be a 128 MB card or 256 MB card. Off course I went for the 256 MB option. While this could be seen as just bragging rights to be able to pump up your Amiga with a 256 MB memory card, keep in mind that this is actually usable on an Amiga, even with oldschool applications thanks to being able to use the memory card as a huge RAM disk.
Some comments about building the GottaGoFaZt3r Amiga memory card
Memory and CPLD was sourced from China, other than those parts its a very straight forward BOM. The build is also very simple. While the BOM does not mentions a capacitor at C1 I got the recommendations to add one so thats what I did.
My setup
In total there is 660 MB Fast RAM in my Amiga 4000TX
I installed the GottaGoFaZt3r card in my A4000TX. Currently the memory setup looks like this on my Amiga 4000TX which is alsy my primary Amiga.
GottaGoFaZt3r: 256 MB
BFG9060: 128 MB
ZZ9000: 256 MB
I will add 128 MB fast ram to the motherboard (which will be used as 96 MB by the A4000TX), so in the future I will have 736 MB fast mem in my daily driver. Currently the memory is reported as 660 MB as I have a memory stick that is not really supported by the TX so it only partially works.
My Acube Sam440ep motherboard that I have been running AmigaOS4.1 on has been installed in this beautiful Emko case (see picture below) for the last couple of years. I wanted to swap cases with one that had front mounted USB ports since the Amiga Sam440ep motherboard only has two USB ports on the back side (and those are used by the keyboard and mouse).
Here is my Sam440ep mounted in a case made by Emko
Emko is a Czech manufacturer of cases, sadly it does not seem they are making cases for private persons any more, but a couple of years ago they had quite a large offering of small Mini-ITX cases that you could buy. I picked up two of them back then, the one on the picture above and the slightly taller version of the same case. They also had a similar case as the one above available in aluminium, I should have picked that one up when I had the chance, c’est la vie…
Back of the Sam440ep with the steel backplate
Here is the back of the Emko case. As you can see the Sam440ep does not have many ports. There is a serial port, DVI port, S-video port, audio out, two USB ports and two ethernet ports. Not all of these ports are usable in AmigaOS4.1 though. It is possible to hook up more USB ports from the motherboard also. Acube kindly sent the backplate to me for free if I paid for shipping.
The case offers generous ventilation
One of the best things with the Emko case is its well ventilated design, this is a beautiful case for fanless systems such as the 533MHz Sam440ep motherboard.
Migrating the Sam440ep AmigaOS 4.1 motherboard to the Morex 557
Morex 557 mini-ITX case
I have had my eyes on the Morex 557 Mini-ITX case for a while and was happy finding a second hand unit for sale locally. The Morex 557 is a small ITX case, not that much larger than a Mini-ITX motherboard (and actually just a tiny bit smaller than the Emko case). I suspect these type of cases will be much more difficult to find in the future thanks to the popularity of ITX gaming rigs where you need space for a graphics board so if you like small ITX cases, time to hoard up.
Step 1 – Dismounting the old case
There are a lot of screws to unscrew to open up the Emko case
I have set up the Sam440ep with two drives, one 256GB SSD for the Workbench and Work partition and one old 2.5″ 500GB HDD as a data drive. I had this idea to get a larger drive and migrate all Amiga stuff I have to the HDD. That way I would have a backup of all my Amiga hoard of files. That proved difficult though as the FTP program crashed no matter what I tried. Will give it another try in the future but I will definitely retire the slow mechanical HDD sometime in the future.
Step 2 – Prepare installation in new case
Close up of the Sam440ep Next generation Amiga motherboard
The motherboard is a bit dirty, I did not have enough IPA to clean it though, so next time maybe. If I remember correctly, the upper heatsink sits over the CPU and the bottom heatsink sits over the GPU. The 533MHz Acube Sam440ep can run fanless. Believe it or not, for regular Amiga stuff, 533MHz is fast enough. AmigaOS4.1 definiely does not feel slow on this modest next generation Amiga.
Step 3 – Installation in Morex case
The Morex 557 case was a really tight case, the front had to be removed to get the motherboard into the case. Also note the USB headers on the motherboard, they where not keyed so I had to look up pinouts.
Step 4 – Adding SSD and harddrive to the Sam440ep
It was not obvious where to put the storage drives at first – There was holes on the side of the case for 2.5″ units. Here is the SSD mounted to the side with two screws only, it was a tight fit but it aint going anywhere now.
And here is the 500GB harddrive mounted. I will run this until I find a good replacement. This drive has a bad habbit of spinning down which makes it slow whenever you need to access it again, no idea how to disable that and a good reason to get rid of it in the future.
As you see, with both drives mounted there is still space between the for heat to rise and escape the case.
Some words about AmigaOS 4.1 before closing this post…
AmigaOS 4.1 Final edition
So the reason for all this is to run AmigaOS4. The Sam440ep motherboard came out in 2008 (or was it 2009), even back then it was obsolete by PC standards. That it cost as much as a much high perfoming PC of its day made it a hard sell for those outside of the Amiga community.
But the future was bright back then, because of legal problems, there had been no new next generation Amiga hardware for quite some years untill the Sam was released making it difficult to hop on the AmigaOS4 train (as there was no new hardware for sale).
The Sam440ep was the first batch of AmigaOS 4 compatible hardware released by Acube that lead to renewed interest in the next generation Amiga platform. Unfortunately as we look back today, PPC was probably not the right way to go.
The future of Amiga is probably ARM and Workbench 3.*. Thanks to PiStorm, anyone can have a high performance Amiga with ”full” compatibility with 68k applications, so IMHO the future of AmigaOS 4 is bleak. But that does not and should not stop anyone from using it.
AmigaOS 4.1 showing Prefs
One of the advantages of a next generation Amiga is that its a much more updated version of Amiga, both from a software and hardware point of view. There is a TCP/IP stack included, AHI is standard and fonts look amazing on Workbench for example.
At the same time, configuring AmigaOS to your liking from the first installation is a reminder of how far computing has gotten in comparison with the ”modern” AmigaOS.
There is a lot of clicking and editing files to get it custom tuned to your liking. Prepare to sit off a couple of days to get it to your liking. And Prefs is unfortunately just a mess by modern standards. But when it is fine tuned to your liking, it is perfect – And most of the stuff is as it used to be. And that is the huge selling point of AmigaOS4!
Someone said that AmigaOS4 is for hardcore Workbench users – I can not agree more! This is what everyone was dreaming of back in 1995, and best is, you can get it today!
Closing off, my primary use of my Sam440ep next gen Amiga is for PPaint, there is a PPC port of it that runs beautifully on the Sam. If there was a modern browser capable of the modern web available I would not mind running a higher performance next gen Amiga as a daily driver.
I got the opportunity last year during fall to purchase a GBAPII++ mini graphics card with all passives already mounted. Only thing it did not have was the Cirrus Logic chip, memory chp and the CPLD (and some small components). The mini version of the GBAPII++ is the same card functionality wise as the regular one. You can read about the regular GBAPII++ here, you can read about the mini version of the card here.
As I was going to build the regular version of the graphics card in parallell I got lazy when I put together the BOM and assumed that the voltage regulator was the same for both of the cards. I was wrong, the GBAPII++ mini uses another voltage regulator, which explains why I could not program the CPLD and why the voltage regulator was running very hot on the card once I had built it.
Having received another shipment of components from Mouser late last year in December with the correct voltage regulator, I was anxious to find out if I had fried the card or if it was going to work. Happy to tell you the card in the picture is working fine after I swapped the voltage regulator to the correct one!
Whats the point of such a small Amiga graphics card?
I use my other GBAP2++ mini card in my Mini-ITX Amiga Denise but I think I will use this one in another big box Amiga. As you can see the Denise is installed in a very low profile case – The tiny card makes it possible to use a small case. If anyone is wondering what case I am running, it is a Chieftec IX-01B Mini-ITX case but it has the CD/DVD addition stacked on top of it to make room for the graphics card (Chieftec MK-35DV).
This Amiga is based on the Denise Mini-ITX A500+ clone motherboard. It has a TF356 68030 turbo card with 64MB memory, a 4 GB CF card and an Indivision ECS MK3, it also has a GBAP2++ mini graphics card. The video output from the VGA connector is beautifully switched from native ECS to P96 output (and vice versa).
Here is another closeup of the card running fine in my Denise Amiga clone.
The final Amiga hardware project of the year for me is this nice mini hardware kit for the Amiga 1200, the OpenA1200RTC. A real time clock that you can hook up to an Amiga that has a clock port. Find out more about the OpenA1200RTC here. The real time clock makes the Amiga 1200 keep track of time.
Building the OpenA1200RTC
This was a very simple 20 minute build containing only 13 parts. The only moderately difficult to find part is probably the RTC chip which can be found on Ebay or AliExpress.
What is the clock port in an Amiga?
The Amiga 1200 has a port fameously dubbed the ”clock port”. The clock port is a 2 mm double row 22 pin header close to the CPU slot. It was rarely used for its intended purpose, to host a real time clock, since hardware engineers figured out how to hook up sound cards, serial ports and other things to it.
There are some Zorro cards that also has clock ports. That means it is possible to run clock port hardware on a big box Amiga that can carry Zorro cards.
So what do you use an RTC for anyways on an Amiga?
The main purpose of having an RTC such as the OpenA1200RTC is for the Amiga to not lose time when it is powered off. Having your computer keep track on time is not only usable for having a clock on the desktop. If the computer keeps track of time, that means all files will have timestamps whjen they where created or last edited. While it is possible to sync date and time with a server over the internet it could be handy to have an internal RTC on an Amiga that is not hooked up to the internet a majority of time. Also, it could be nice to finally use the clock port for its intended application once.
BFG9060 with rev 1 68060 under testing in my A4000TX
I built a BFG9060 060 turbo card last year that I could clock at 100Mhz, this is the second BFG9060 I have built and it is in a cool red PCB color. Thanks to the Xilinx programmer I got I could finally program the CPLDs on it but did not have time testing it fully. Now that I have tested it I can finally confirm that it is working 100%.
Actually, I just ran Quake for an hour with it mounted in my primary Amiga, my A4000TX daily driver, and the card performed just fine. Once I have it permanently installed in one of my big box Amigas I will do a proper 24h POVRay fish render test. But as it is now, I am happy with how it performed!
Mystery 68060 CPU
I got this 68060 chip from Vesalia years ago (probably 12+ years ago), and for a really good price too. It was a deal too good to pass on even though I did not know what to do with it. Well I am happy that I kept it but for all these years I wondered three things:
Did it work?
What kind of 060 was it?
Is it a fake? Why did it have these strange markings and not the typical Motorola markings?
The answer to those questions are:
Yes the 68060 works fine! And it does not get that hot either (though I have a heatsink/fan on it).
It is a rev 1 68060.
It is not a fake 060 – It came from a Phase 5 turbo card – Phase 5 used to add this text to the 060s on the turbo cards.
While the CPU works, it is a little bit of a bummer that it is a rev 1 as that revision has bugs. But there are work arounds for that so it does not really matter. Unfortunately, as its rev 1, that means no 100Mhz overclock. But to be honest with you, I am glad just having another full (MMU/FPU) 060 on a big box Amiga turbo card.
68060 low profile 5v cooler
I was afraid that the CPU I had was going to run too hot so I went into my stash of heatsinks to look for a suitable cooler for it. I found this thin 5v laptop cooler that I must have kept in my stash for more than 15 years. I got it from an old Acer Celeron laptop I found in the trash at a job I had and I was glad I finally found a use for it.
It is a thin radial fan that sits on an aluminium bottom plate that acts as a heatsink. I have not found modern alternatives in this size for a good price so I guess they have become rare these days.
I used thermal adhesive tape (also called ”frag tape” BITD) to secure the heatsink to the CPU. Believe me, this thermal double sided adhesive tape has insane stickiness, there is no chance of the heatsink falling of the CPU if mounted vertically.
I can confirm, according to tests done with my finger, that the CPU does not run hot at all with the heatsink/fan on it. I am starting to wonder that maybe it was overkill, but if I end up using it in an A3000D case it might come in handy as that case has poor cooling performance.
I built a ReAmiga 1200 late last year using a black PCB. Once finished with that I knew I wanted a backup A1200. I usually buy systems in pairs, one for usage and one for backup or testing purposes and I always have a purpose for stuff I get since I do not believe in hoarding up stuff for hoarding purposes only. The first ReAmiga 1200 I built had a black PCB and is mounted in a black A1200.net case so I decided to go for another color. The only color I found, since I did not want to order PCBs myself, was white so thats what I got.
Closeup of the white ReAmiga 1200 motherboard
As with the last ReAmiga 1200 PCB I built this build went really smooth. I used components from a broken A1200 PCB that I desoldered with an hot air rework station. I also got connectors from that donor board. Other stuff like the PCMCIA connector and the odd chip here and there was ordered from AliExpress, Sordan and from ebay.de. Off course the majority of passives and some chips came from Mouser. This time I used the same color for all LEDs for all LEDs -green- unlike my last one that looks like a christmas tree when powered on. I sort of wish I ran all red LEDs, perhaps if I build a third one.
The motherboard is inserted into the original Commodore A1200 case
I was thinking of keeping this PCB in storage or getting a white A1200.net case but then I remembered that I had a genuine Amiga 1200 case in storage. Most A1200 cases are in bad shape these days but this one was actually in relatively fine shape. Notice the Centurion tech backplate that I used instead of the metal shield. It looks professional but I think it fit the replica cases better.
Even the floppy drive and cables was original (not the screws though)
As a bonus, that case had all the parts to make it a full A1200. The floppy drive, cables, LED lights for HDD, floppy and power and the keyboard.
Here is the ReAmiga 1200 fully built in the Commdore A1200 case with orginal keys.
And believe it or not, the threads of the case was not stripped or cracked, the keyboard was relatively white too and had not gone too yellow over the years. Testing the system (there is no HDD inside it) it works fine and I actually did have a plan for this system, sometimes in the future when the scandoubler arrives for the PiStorm32 I will try PiStorm32 on it. But as it stands right now its going in storage.
Programming the Prometheus on my A4000T motherboard, in order to program the chips they have to be powered up, thats why the Amiga is powered up
A lot of Amiga hardware projects uses programmable Xilinx chips, also called CPLDs, (Complex Programmable Logic Device). These chips are supposed to be programmed with logic. Previously I have used a RaspberryPI as a programmer following the excellent guide Linux Jedi set up for programming a CPLD with an RPI. This has worked well, but I got stuck on a few projects where the RPI could not handle the CPLDs.
Disadvantages and advantages of programming Xilinx CPLD with Raspberry Pi
The advantage of programming a Xilinx CPLD with a Raspberry Pi is that its a cheap programming solution that is fine for the occasional project that needs a CPLD programmed.
The disadvantage is that a Raspberry PI can not program a CPLD that has been write protected. Many Xilinx CPLDs on eBay and AliExpress has been previously used or are unused but already preprogrammed chips. It has happened to me that the chips I got from Chinese sources has been write protected which is a problem since you can not write to a write protected CPLD with an RPI. Another disadvantage of programming CPLDs with a RPI is that there might be cases where the RPI can not handle the programming. I have seen that happen on projects that uses CPLDs in a chain from different makers for example.
Using a Xilinx programmer instead
I got this DLC10 Xilinx programmer from AliExpress, as with most stuff there, this is probably just a fake or clone of the genuine thing. But it works fine. As with most programmers there is a little learning curve in how to set up the software for the programmer. In this case the programmer was in a virtual Linux installation that had to be run with VirtualBox. I highly suggest googling for a tutorial on YouTube for learning how to program CPLDs with a Xilinx programmer to minimize confusion. Once done a couple of times it becomes second nature.
Amiga projects with CPLDs that I programmed with my new Xilinx programmer
Firebird A4000D is now fully programmed, should add all PCI slots to it and try out some PCI cards on my A4000D!
I had a couple of projects in my stash that was stalled because they refused to be programmed with a RPI. These where the Prometheus PCI board (had a CPLD that was write protected).
BFG9060 fully programmed and confirmed working in my Amiga 4000D
The second BFG9060 I built (also had a CPLD that was write protected) and the Firebird A4000D that used Altera and Xilinx chips on the same chain. All projects where programmed fine and it was very satisfying the be able to move on and closing projects thats been in a state of limbo for close to a year!
This is the second GBAPII++ Amiga graphics card I have built. I finished the last bit of the build two weeks ago. Today I tested it in my Denise Amiga clone and could confirm that it was working fine. If you are interesting in building one yourself, check out more information about the graphics card here. There are some details about the background of the card there too.
Hardware specs
The GBAPII++ is a Zorro 2 based Amiga graphics card based around the Cirrus Logic GD5434 chip. It has 2 MB memory and is a relatively affordable Amiga graphics card. Occasionally you see users referring to the card as an open Picasso 2 card as you can order empty PCBs yourself and build it. But if you know Amiga hardware well this card is based on another chip. The similarities are close though, both cards has only 2 MB and is probably likewise in performance as they are both Zorro 2.
The VGA adapter plate has both output and input so its possible to run scandoubler output through one VGA output, very handy and a must have these days IMHO. I use mine with a Indivision MK3 and it works perfectly out of box. Or run it with the Multivision-AGA scandoubler.
It is possible to use the card on an Amiga 500 by soldering an 86 pin 2.54mm edge card slot to the side of the card, thats probably why the graphics card goes by the name A500-GraKa.
Components
The graphics card is based on the Cirrus Logic GD5434 chip
If you are thinking about building one I suggest you go looking for a GD5434 chip first. These chips are not impossible to find but can be pricey. I have paid between 20 to 40 euro each for Cirrus Logic GD5434 chips (currently have built four cards based on this chip). Finding an old VGA card and desoldering a chip with hot air is also a possibility.
The memory used is the same type of memory that is used in an Amiga 1200 1.4d revision. The typical SOJ40 2MB memory chips in the quantity of 4 chips.
I had difficulty finding the correct voltage crystal but eventually found the right one on AliExpress (and it worked too).
Building the graphics card
For some reason I thought building this card was incredibly confusing. I think the main reason is that I somehow got the build instructions for a previous revision of the A500GraKa card, once I got the correct file everything worked out fine! IIRC there are some solder pads marked as ferrite beads that should take resistors (or it was the other way). To find out what components go where one can look into the designer files, also study the BOM.
Performance
The graphics card works especially fine in lower resolutions and fewer colors like this 800×600 8 color Workbench
I have not tested performance yet and will probably never do, but make no mistake, this is no competition for a ZZ9000 graphics card. It is a fine card to use on a 030 based Amiga with a Zorro 2 bus as long as one do not go crazy on the amount of colors or resolution used. It is much better than using hires laced. I stick to 800×600 in 8 colors and it works fine.
Conclusion
The graphics card is hooked up to the VGA adapter plate that is fitted to a3D printed bracket
Many thanks for the creators of this card and previous cards it is based on. I think this card is a no brainer, just get one if you have an empty Zorro slot and no graphics card. I will list the good things first and negative later, these are strictly my personal opinions.
Positive
Half size card
Has a hole cut out for your finger so you can remove it easely
Autoswitch between scandoubler/VGA
Open card, PCBs can be ordered by yourself. There is also commercial version of it
There is a thread on a1k.org where you can ask questions about the card
Supported in P96 (so you can install the card with the P96 installer)
Negative
Somewhat confusing build instructions
Only has 2 MB
Is a Zorro 2 card so its slow (but still perfectly fine for lower resolutions/fewer colors)
Here is Doom running on the GBAPII++ Amiga Graphics Card
I finished building the Prometheus-Resurrector PCI Amiga daughter board. If you where around 20 years ago you might remember PCI slots being the latest thing to add to your Amiga computer. It was as de-rigueur upgrading your Amiga to PCI slots as hacking your Amiga 1200 into a tower as tall as a kitchen table.
What is the Prometheus-Resurrector?
Prometheus-Resurrector is based on the Prometheus PCI daughter board from 20 years ago. If you are familiar you might know about the Firebird PCI daughter board for Amiga 4000 and Amiga 3000, they are sort of related. One difference between Prometheus-Resurrector and the original Prometheus is that this one is using Xilinx chips for CPLDs instead of rare, hard to find, Altera chips. Also, you can order PCBs yourself and build it.
The Prometheus slots into a Zorro 3 slot, then you have to be creative in how you mount the PCI cards as the cards sits 90 degrees from Zorro cards. Either you use PCI extenders or 90 degree PCI angle converters or just run them as is with extension cables to the backside of the Amiga chassi. No matter what option you chose, your Amiga, decked out with PCI cards, will look refreshingly hacked together just like all those towers-hacks looked like back in the day. How nostalgic.
Programing the Prometheus-Resurrector
Unfortunately the story, for this time, ends here as I got the wrong programmer from AliExpress. I failed to program both CPLDs with my trusty Raspberry Pi so I got this nice Xilinx programmer, totally offical (not), from China. However that did not help me program the chips, I think I got the wrong one. So until I get the other Xilinx programmer I ordered, the story ends here.
Today I got a fully built replica A4091 Zorro 3 SCSI card delivered. The A4091 was a SCSI 2 controller for the Zorro 3 slot, it was made by Commodore. This is a reverse enginered version that you can find prebuilt on the internet or build yourself. Find out more about the original C= 4091 card here and the new replica A4091 SCSI card here.
I watched the presentation of this card on an Amiwest stream a couple of years ago so its exciting to have the real card in my hands.
Advantages of SCSI in an Amiga
The advantage of using a SCSI harddrive and a A4091 in a Zorro 3 Amiga is that it will have faster transfer speeds than IDE. SCSI is also less heavy on the system as the card has its own brain to process file transfers taking up less CPU time than IDE. This is good as Amiga is limited in CPU power (at least with a real CPU).
Zorro 3 only!
This card only works on the Zorro 3 slot. That is good news since it means better performance than a Zorro 2 card/slot. But it also means it will only work on the A4000(T) and the A3000(T). The Amiga 3000 already has SCSI on the motherboard, but if that does not work well, this card could be the solution.
Hardware setup
This card will probably end up in my A4000TX or in my A4000D. The A4000T already has SCSI2 and is basically the A4091 card implemented on the motherboard (well, the main chip is the same). As my main systems already got 060s, graphics cards and plenty of memory this is a welcome addition in squeezing out the last performance before I go into the world of PiStorms.
I will run a ZuluSCSI card on mine as I have banished mechanical harddrives from all my computers. The ZuluSCSI can emulate multiple harddrives (and CDs) stored as files on an SD card.
Purple Amiga A4091 SCSI 2 card
And I actually lied a little when I said that it was exciting to finally have the card in my hands as I already built a purple A4091 SCSI 2 card last year.
