A2386SX – Amiga PC bridgeboard replica

This is an amazing replica of the Commodore A2386SX PC bridgeboard, you can find out more about the project here. There is also a discussion forum about the card on the German A1K forum (just use auto translate in your browser if you dont speak German).

Background

The A2386SX was the best PC bridgeboard Commodore made for the Amiga, it was based on a 386 CPU, could be expanded to 8 MB and enabled you to transform an Amiga in a multi CPU system that could run tasks in parallell on both CPUs, one in Amiga Workbench and the other in MS-DOS on the bridgeboard – at the same time. You could for example hop in to MS-DOS and run your programs and then multitask back to Workbench while programs where running in both environments.

This is a beautiful built replica of the A2386SX PC bridgeboard by Commodore.

I got my PCB late in Q1 after contemplating if it was even possible for me to build this card at all. The main problem was finding all the parts and programming some of the chips. But I quickly came to realization that it was actually possible to locate almost all the parts if I pulled the trigger at the right moment.

My main goal of running the card is to have access to multi channel module players such as Cubic Player and to be able to play PC modules in MS-DOS with a Sound Blaster 16. I would also like to dive into some old MS-DOS applications I used to use 30 years ago and play some old DOS game or two. But the main attraction is PC music without having to get a separate PC for that.

Some notes on parts and building the A2386SX project

There are some very rare parts required for the A2386SX bridgeboard. The rarest chips are the two socketed PLCC84 Commodore chips and the PC chipset in the middle of the card.

The Commodore chips can be taken from 2088 and 2286 Bridgeboards (they are the same), they might pop up on eBay, but consider that a miracle if they show up. I got my chips from a cheap 2088 that I bought second hand last year. Did not know what to do with it at the time, but it was too cheap to pass up on and I am glad about that now.

The PC chipset should in theory be easy to find online, but so far, I have only been able to locate one of the chips. The other chip needs to be ordered in bulk from a specialist in rare chips and is costly (and will probably only go up in price). I thought it was possible to find an old motherboard and desolder them from there, if you find a motherboard that has them – consider that a miracle!

Then we have other obscure chips such as the floppy controller, programmable chips (that needs a special vintage programmer or someone with better skills than me in understanding how to program them with a modern device) – not really a problem to find.

Memory can be found from obscure part specialists (remember you need two types of memory). The CPU is available on eBay, but if you want the faster 486 that is compatible with the card, good luck, as said, miracles can happen!

Bracket was sourced from another enthusiast who ordered a batch. 646 was taken from my donor A3000.

Full socket build

I did a full socket build, thinking it would make it easy to error check or replace chips.

486 chip instead of 386 chip

So while this is a 386 bridgeboard it uses a 486. I did some research earlier this year when I built my card, unfortunately I have forgotten the exact details, but it is possible to use a special 486 CPU on the board as they are the same size. I think what is most important is that the voltage level is the same as the 386 that it is supposed to use and you need to fiidle with the BIOS.

This mod works on the original Commodore A2386SX card also. This is a nobrainer for me since I grew up on 486 PCs.

Failed test run and successful test run!

So after having received more than 10 packages from around the world and a the main passives from Mouser I decided to build it up.

I was super excited to do the first test run after receiving the programmed chips. Bummer – But the first test run failed – the card refused to run!

Most of my projects I build usually run fine, if there are any errors it is usually a bad solder joint on a surface mounted component. In this case I knew I would never figure it out myself, so I sent it off to a friend in the hobby to get it checked.

Turned out that I had used the wrong memory (I had used the memory from my donor Amiga 3000), there was also an error in the BOM that has since been updated where bussed resistor nets where specified instead of isolated (or was it vice versa).

Once I received the card I did another test run and could confirm the card to be fully running!

And then I realized, its going to take a shitload of time setting the card up.

Next steps

I probably did not realise how much work it would be to set this card up so thats why I will do it after summer. But the plan is to get MS-DOS 6.22 up and running with Windows 3.1. I will run an ISA graphics card and an ISA sound card and will also try to run the HDD off a partition on the Amiga HDD.

Would also love to build a second card, hopefully there will be an up to date model with chips replaced with CPLDs!

Multifix AGA purple PCB build

Multifix AGA in purple PCB color

Here are five beautiful Multifix AGA purple PCBs. The Multifix AGA is a great Amiga scandoubler and flicker fixer. I will build two of these and sell the remaining cards once the built cards are tested, or do I build them all for myself (lol).

I plan to use them in the upcoming AmigaPCI (I will for sure build one once it is fully developed) and in my A4000T.

Some Amiga activities from the week

Donor Amiga 1200

This Amiga 1200 was painted in an unusual color (and paint).

I won an Amiga 1200 on a local auction website. I put in a max bid but surprisingly it got sold for cheaper than I anticipated. I think it was for a couple of reasons. First the case was painted in a weird cement like textured paint, more on that later, secondly it was sold as-is and not working. I have heard of a new Mini-ITX AGA A1200 clone being developed so this broken A1200 will be the donor for that future project (if the chips works).

The value in this computer (for me) lies in its chips. I am mainly interested in Alice, Lisa, the two CIA chips and the Paula. I am also interested in the memory chips as those can be used on various projects. There is some value in the 23-pin video socket also.

I did some math and took a gamble on both winning the Amiga 1200 and on the chips working. As the CIA chips, the paula and Alice has been socketed, that is a clear sign someone has messed inside this A1200 before. Could both be good news or bad news as sockets can be the reason for the computer not working.

Anyways, here is how I calculated the value:

  • Alice: 100-135 euro
  • Lisa: 20-35 euro
  • CIA (2x): 35-80 euro
  • Paula: 25-35 euro
  • Memory (4x): 10 euro
  • 23-pin D-SUB: 10-20 euro

Total min: 200 euro
Total max: 315 euro

Note, I am not calculating this on Analogic prices!

Lets hope the chips are working, will test them later in the year as the motherboard has been cleaned and is archived in my Amiga hardware stash now.

And the reason why i dont count any value in the case: it was sadly painted in this horrible “paint” that gave me a terrible itch in my fingers for two hours after touching it for a few minutes. I will probably throw it away in the trash since I suspect the paint is toxic.

Changing memory chips on a GottaGoFaZt3r

Removing memory chips from the GottaGoFaZt3r Zorro 3 Amiga memory card

I built two GottaGoFaZt3r Zorro 3 memory cards late last year, only one card worked. The other refused to work, it still showed up as “working” in my Amiga 4000TX but the memory was nowhere to be seen. I got the recommendation to check for errors in the memory chips one by one. Instead of doing that I got four new chips instead from a reliable source.

I removed the memory chips with a hot air station. Then I cleaned the pads and soldered on the new memory chips.

Soldering new memory chips on the GottaGoFaZt3r Zorro 3 Amiga memory card

And once all chips was replaced the card finally worked 100%.

Both cards are built as 256 MB cards. 256 MB might seem like a lot of fast mem in an Amiga but it is actually very usable. I run a bit more buffers on my partition than a stock HDD setup so that consumes some of the fast mem. But the main usage is off course to have a large RAM disk (as there are already 128 MB on the turbo card).

And here is a pic from sunny Stockholm today!

Amiga 3000 daughter card

And finally all parts for my ReAmiga 3000 build is now soldered with the daughter board being finished. It still needs to be flashed, but that will happen another day!

MouSTer 3D printed shell

I have used a MouSTer USB mouse adapter with a wireless mouse on my Amiga for 3-4 years and I have been very happy with the adapter. Only thing I was not happy with was the heat shrink tubing that was used as the shell. It looked so cheap.

I was surprised to find a 3D printable shell for it online. I ordered one to be printed on JLC (in resin). I got a couple of warnings that the walls was too thin and may not be able to be printed. But all worked out better than I anticipated!

It looks so much better with the 3D printed shell.

The fit is perfect. I just superglued the two halves together, there are no user servicable parts on the MouSTer so no point in making it possible to open the case again.

I dont remember exactly where I found the files but you should probably be able to find them here if you search for them.

Purple BFG 9060 Amiga 68060 accelerator card

Purple BFG9060 Amiga 060 accelerator card

I just finished building this beautiful purple PCB BFG 9060 accelerator card for the Amiga and thought I would share a picture of it. As it was mostly already finished it just took an hour to solder on the KEL connector, fan header and voltage thing (regulator I think?).

I finally get to use the original spec Motorola 040 CPU heatsink that came from an old 040 C= 3640 CPU card I had 20+ years ago. Just have to get some thermal tape, will also add heatsinks to the CPLDs. This card will not be overclocked as it is fitted with a rev 5 68060.

Updated picture of the BFG9060 with heatsinks added

I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone involved in making this project a reality!

Here are some links related to BFG 9060:

ReAmiga 3000 motherboard is fully built and tested

ReAmiga 1.4 motherboardboard

I had an old Amiga 3000 in my stash that I got in a trade years ago. It was traded to me as fully working but never worked no matter what I did. When the ReAmiga 3000 project became known I wanted to save the broken A3000 by building up a ReAmiga 3000 motherboard with the parts from the broken Amiga 3000.

I did not have the soldering skills 15 years ago to do that, but today is a different time (and maybe I was better off 15 years ago with just one A1200 instead of a fleet of Amiga replicas today lol) – So the broken Amiga 3000, or at least what was left of it has gotten a new lease on its life!

Find out more about the ReAmiga project here.

I have already started soldering in stuff that I should have waited with, as usual it is difficult to wait for the right parts to arrive at the post office before starting the project properly.

So this is how it started out. This time I started off with a motherboard with all passives already mounted which saved a ton of time. Interestingly though, I found one error where the BOM specified a tantal capacitor, a regular ceramic cap was placed instead. It was an easy fix once I found a suitable component to replace it with!

Here is the original Amiga 3000 motherboard which acted as a donor card

The components I used from my broken Amiga 3000 was all the custom chips (more on that later), the special memory chips for the scandoubler and some odd pieces here and there such as the trim pot, power socket, disable switch for the scandoubler and the stacked female 25 pin port.

Most of this stuff can actually be found new. But I usually like to keep some parts from donor Amigas in new builds not just the custom chips for some weird reason.

Believe it or not, I actually used the same KEL connector for the CPU board that was soldered to the broken A3000. It was a painful experience desoldering it as it is soldered with 200 pins to the motherboard.

I also wanted to save the two edge card connectors for the daughterboard, desoldering them was a major hassle since the ground plane is very strong on the A3000. Instead I ordered replacements from AliExpress because they where extremely difficult to desolder.

Chipset gave me a surprise

As is de rigeur when building an Amiga replica, there are always some kind of surprises no matter how much prepping one does.

There are some very expensive chips on the Amiga 3000. First is the Amber chip which is part of the scandoubler/flickerfixer area of the A3000. Then there is the DMAC chip, both chips costs a ton of money to source if replacements are needed.

I did not know if these chips where working before starting the build and I was not prepared to pay 250-450+ euros for replacements if they did not work. Luckily, once I had the board fully built, I can now confirm they are working just fine!

But surprised I was, the Ramsey chip was broken. My ReAmiga 3000 would not start with my original Ramsey chip installed. Luckily I had a NOS Ramsey 07 chip in my stash that worked fine as a replacement.

And as lucky as I was, the same day, I noticed that a Buster 11 was offered for sale on a local website meaning I could skip the Buster 7 I had from the broken A3000. As it was offered on a local trading website I got it muuuch cheaper than from Ebay.

But…. I know what you are thinking, Super DMAC 02 and Ramsey 07, that is a recipe for trouble.

Lets find out if Ramsey 07 plays well with my revision 02 of the Super DMAC. I will just have to find out once system is fully up and running with Workbench installed. Then I will be able to do some stress testing. If problems occur, I will need to track down a Super DMAC replica.

Next steps….

Now all I am waiting for is a replica A3000D case to be available and I will order one in black ASAP. I am also doing a daughter board for it which I will post about later in the year here.

FlashROM 40 & 42 pin Kickstart Flash EPROM

A weekends work resulted in 17 FlashROMs – this is actually the second batch I have made for myself

There are a couple of different hardware Kickstart solutions for the Amiga. The most proven one seems to be 27C400 chips that you can program in a T48 (with an adapter) and erase with UV light. If you buy a Kickstart from a retailer, that chip is probably an 27C400 EPROM. I dont like the UV light eraser, and the 27C400/27C800 chips are expensive, so I went looking for another solution that had the possibility to scale up in volume fine.

I don’t know what it is about burning Kickstarts for the Amiga but the topic is highly confusing at first. Not only do you have to have the correct byte swapped file (or build the ROM file correct if you want to run a custom ROM) but you need some kind of adapter to be able to program some of the solutions on modern cheap programmers.

This is not a tutorial in how to burn a Kickstart or how to build your own Kickstart, I suggest you schedule a weekend to do a deep dive into that topic. Then it sort of makes sense (I think).

No doubt in the future something like the KickSmash will probably be the defacto standard and I contemplated ordering a batch of PCBs and building a suite of KickSmashes for my fleet of Amigas. Instead I went with the FlashROM, because right here and now, it is possible to run FlashROM on all Amiga models while the KickSmash fits the Amiga 1200, Amiga 3000 and Amiga 4000 (and A4000T).

With new Kickstart ROMs being released fairly regularly these days. And the need to be able to build your own Kickstart so you can f.e. add ehide.device for a TF1260 system or PeterKs Icon library to the Kickstart, an easy way of updating Kickstart is IMHO, a must have, these days!

What is the FlashROM?

The FlashROM is basically a Kickstart replacement that you can program yourself – FlashROM has 1024 KB of space, meaning it can take two Kickstart files. This is great as it is possible to run one Kickstart ROM and one DiagROM rom on the same chip.

You change what bank you want to be active by setting a jumper on the pinouts between GND and A18.

If you do not need dual ROM functionality, just concatenate the same ROM twice and flash it to the EPROM.

Programming a Kickstart to the FlashROM

I use a T48 to program chips, an adapter was needed to be able to flash a Kickstart ROM to the FlashROM. I actually chickened out and just ordered a ready made programmer to reduce the complexity of this project, you can find out more information about the FlashROM adapter on Levo’s website.

Using the adapter is a breeze, just have to connect the wires correct and everything works just like programming any other chip. Erasing the EPROM is no different.

40 pin FlashROM

40 pin FlashROM, I notice it was not cleaned properly as you can see flux residue left at the top left corner

Here is the 40 pin FlashROM, this will go into my Amiga 500, Amiga 2000 and Amiga 4000 and so on.

42 pin FlashROM

42 pin FlashROM for my Amiga computers that can take a 42 pin Kickstart chip (such as Amiga 1200)

Here is the 42 pin FlashROM, this will go into my Amiga Denise clone, Amiga 4000TX and Amiga 1200. One benefit of running it in a ReAmiga 1200 is that the jumper on the motherboard select which bank you want to be active.

Replica A3630 Amiga 4000 030 CPU card build

This is actually the underside of the A3630 030 CPU card

Today I built a replica of the A3630 030 CPU card. The A3630 CPU card came with non CR Amiga 4000D models (the card works on the A4000T and on the A3000D/T also). The CPU card replica PCB is made by Chucky, read more about it here if you are interested in getting one yourself!

Top side of the A3630 contains no parts.

I got an (original Commodore made) A3630 in 2005, mainly for testing purposes. It was placed in storage for 15 years and I failed to check the capacitors on it. Sure enough the capacitors had leaked, the board had a fishy smell to it.

When I recapped the genuine C= A3630 board one solder pad lifted off the PCB (very common if capacitor have leaked for a long time). Sure, that is not a big issue, can be fixed quite easy with a bodge wire. But I thought rebuilding the A3630 it with a new ReA3630 PCB was a better option.

I decided to use the CPU and the KEL male edge connector from my current card instead of wasting a new mint in box unobtainium KEL connector from my stash on such a low end card. I removed the CPU from the card by using a hot air rework station. I used a desoldering gun to remove the KEL connector by desoldering each of the 200 solder points for it.

As you can see it is a quite simple card, especially if one do not mount the socket for the FPU. Since my main usage of this card is for testing purposes, the 33MHz FPU and crystal will be used on my ReA3000 instead.

Multifix AGA Amiga scandoubler and flicker fixer

The Multifix scandoubler is another great hardware project by talented Amiga hardware DIYselfer Matze. Read more about the Multifix AGA scandoubler and flicker fixer here.

What is a scandoubler and flicker fixer?

In my humble opinion a scandoubler is a must have for an Amiga. It lets you display native screen modes on a regular PC monitor. A flicker fixer is great to have also, it means you can use higher resolutions screenmodes without nasty flicker. There is however less reason to use flicker fixer modes in Workbench if you have an RTG graphics card since an RTG screen is faster than a flicker fixed screen typically.

Building and testing the Multifix AGA scandoubler and flicker fixer

I have to be honest, the first time I looked at the project page I did not have a clue on how to build it. But after having finished a couple of projects and being more used to projects with less documentation I felt ready to tackle this beautiful scandoubler.

The Multifix integrates well with the GBAP2++ Amiga RTG graphics card, being able to hook up directly to the graphics board. Doing so auto switches output between scandoubled/flickerfixed output and RTG output meaning, you could run the graphics board and scandoubler in one aligned Zorro slot and video slot.

It is difficult for me to say something about the video output since on a CRT the picture quality is probably superb. I do not have a CRT so can only test on modern flat screens. And also, I am using a cheap VGA to HDMI converter that introduces lots of banding on the output. The picture quality on my TFT is not as good as I get from an Indivision or ZZ9000. But even with the cheap VGA to HDMI converter, I have seen worse banding with other VGA scandoublers and with that said, the colors are correct. Overall I am very happy even if the picture quality is not as sharp as those other devices I mentioned. And the picture quality might be even better with another flat screen or a genuine VGA screen.

OKI M5142 and NEC 42101 are also used on the Amiga 3000

Difficult to find chips

There are some chips on the scandoubler that is a bit difficult to find and it is the OKI M5142 and NEC 42101. One card uses six chips of each. As usual, some chips pop up here and there on Ebay and there are the usual places where you can find these chips (Aliexpress). If you do some research you might even find clones of these chips that are fully compatible.

ADV7120KP30 is the same chip the A4000D uses, I got 5 from Aliexpress last year for my A4000D build so had 4 to chose from.

Anyways, building this Amiga scandoubler/flickerfixer is very straight foward.

Ports and switches on the back

The backside of the Multifix AGA is kind a busy, more so than a typical scandoubler that usually only has a 15 pin female VGA port.

You might wonder why it has two USB ports, two switches and an audio port on the back. I did too, and it is not quite obvious why by reading the documentation on Git-lab. Turns out, the USB ports provides power only, meaning, you can use these for devices that uses USB power such as VGA to HDMI converters. There is a pinout on the Multifix PCB so you can hook up the USB ports to your USB card saving one bracket space. The switches disables the flicker fixer functionality and the scandoubler functionality (useful if you just want to pass through video output). And what about the audio output? I think the card picks up audio from the video slot so you might be able to get sound from here (I am not sure though, will need to test that sometime).

Oh, and that bracket, it was not made by me, I found a guy on a1k.org who could sell me two (I plan to build another), I could never make one that good looking myself.

GottaGoFaZt3r 256 MB Zorro 3 memory card

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.