Monday 28 November 2016

What do you want for christmas - New Atari Hardware??

ProductPriceAvailableCompatibleShop link?
Atari Falcon£800RareMany fixed gamesst freakz
Firebee€643YesNo: Good for apps.firebee.org
Suska III-C€526Yes Yes: Incomplete 68030MMU and DSPshop.inventronik.de
Vampire 500 V2+$500+Not sureYes: disable it for full compatibility.apollo-accelerators.com
MIST FPGA computer€199YesYeslotharek.pl
Amiga A1200 Built To Order£159.95LimitedNo: Needs rom developmentamigakit.leamancomputing.com

9 comments:

  1. Just some obvious comments..

    1. the a1200 option really is a dream by me to get some of the power of a faster Atari and better graphics that the mega ste doesn't have, without the insane cost of the Falcon. At the moment what is needed is either a more customised rom [emutos], or as a minimum a graphics driver (ie; gdos or other similar) that will enable this. Plus there's lots still to support eg; sound, ports.. all sorts of unknown.

    2. The vampire doesn't sound like its ready for mainstream installation just yet -- and although it will make your machine insanely fast, there are no graphics mode advantages.

    3. So there are then 2 fpga based boards that don't advertise better graphics, one of them does advertise ability to be many many (other 8 bit retro) machines, so that's the one I'd get, plus its available with a transparent case!

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    Replies
    1. mist does mention an extra screen modes now that I've looked: "SM194/Viking compatible 1280x1024 high rez video mode" and says other modes are planned like 640x480 in 16 colours, 1024x768 in 4

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    2. The vampire v2+ is now available for pre order, and at 300 euros is one of the cheaper 'very very fast' options: http://orders.apollo-accelerators.com

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  2. Notes: (sorry the table columns ought to have been much clearer)
    Vampire needs a computer. Price is very approximate as it looks like they're selling them one at a time via ebay auction. Final ST specific one is not yet out. They sound like the A1200 version may come out first.
    Suska III-C doesn't appear to come with a case, but definitely worth checking out if you need all the ports and inputs. (I imagine musicians who need something midi compatible or for doing direct to disk recording).
    Prices: 2nd hand things like the Falcon and Amiga 1200 might be available cheaper than I've listed there, but generally the Falcon sells for the same price as it did when it first released (adjusted for inflation).

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  3. MIST FPGA computer:
    emulates the following computers:
    Acorn Archimedes
    Amiga (AGA)
    Amstrad CPC
    Apogee BK-01 / Radio-86RK
    Apple II+
    Apple Macintosh
    Atari ST
    Atari 800
    BBC Micro
    BK0011M
    Commodore 16
    Commodore 64
    Commodore VIC-20
    MSX
    Sam Coupe
    Sinclair QL
    Specialist/MX
    TRS-80 Model I
    Vector-06C
    ZX Spectrum
    ZX81

    emulates the following consoles:
    Atari 2600
    Atari 5200
    Bally Astrocade
    Chip8
    Colecovision
    Game boy
    Master System
    NES
    PC Engine
    Videopac/Odissey2

    from: https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-board/wiki/CoreStatus

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  4. Suska III-C has an 030 compatible core (no mmu) available while mist has no current plans to include that, but does have 16mhz and 48mhz options.
    The Amiga 1200 has an 020 cpu which no atari ever used, this could add incomptibilities relative to falcon or st software (ie; what guarantee is there that anything will run) so has more similarities to a Mac II / LC. Which means a Mac LC II (030 based) might be an interesting alternative (if only we had more developers!) one day.

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  5. So in the table I've got 'vampire 500.. disable it for full compatibility' - which sounds like nonsense.. If anyone else can explain that would be good.

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  6. Ok.. I understand I think: Although the vampire stuff is mostly aimed at amiga users, there was some stuff about fitting it to a normal Atari. So to get compatibility, you switch off the vampire and you're back to normal. In general with this list, you either get enhanced performance or you get compatibility.. The only way around this is with patched software.

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