New redesign is taking place, maybe replacing Cyclone II with Cyclone III FPGA and adding faster SDRAM. So maybe we are stuck for now.
Anyway for past few days news about this project was published in many forums and dedicated Amiga websites. Thanks to Comi from VOODOO AMIGA who contacted Trevor and inform him about this project. Trevor was so kind to publish project information's on his blog and because of that there was many donations who will help further development. Just because of those donations project stayed alive, there was one moment when I spend all of my funds to complete my idea. Another article was published on Amiga-News. They published related information comparing performance of Vampire 600 with other accelerators. Looking at the comments on their website and few forums it seems that I again need to explain some things. People still think different than me regarding Amiga and now I just know that I will need lot of time trying to make them think different and beyond limits, books and proven concepts. In process of doing that I will keep reading comments about this project two years ago and amuse myself looking the same people changing their mind in matter of days on each published video. So here we go:
1. Can you attach VGA, USB, Wireless, MicroSD, PS2 or something else on any accelerator produced for Amiga?
On Vampire 600 you can!
2. But what regarding the performance compared to other accelerators?
Just wait until I add cache to this thing. Don't trust me again?
3. What if I m nostalgic and only need accelerator with real CPU?
It is quite trivial to make accelerator with real CPU, connect it to Vampire's FPGA simulate 7.09MHz bus cycle and you have it.
So what about those things we can add to this accelerator board, who will add them? Some of them will be interfaced and some of them you can add it. It is time to start thinking different. If you are Amiga user and want to have that feeling that you actually contributed by creating something new and innovative you will find a way. If not, this is not place for you buy an Pentium 19 and enjoy with rest of the people who will spend all his life not thinking how stuff works.
After those conclusions I have done lot of thinking regarding this projects. Do anyone get me regarding this or is there any demand for production such device? What about the price? Reduce costs, build it yourself I will help you.
UPDATE: March 1, 2013
There are some rumors about this project regarding final price. Something like: "It's a cool project but it could cost about 500USD". Let me say once more STOP MILKING MONEY FROM RETRO FANS. New PCB redesign is taking place and I m doing major makeover to drop price under 100USD for advanced version and under 50USD for low end version. So stop spread words about high price and that someone again want's to get rich from Amiga name. Will I succeed regarding final price we will see. For now I can't promise anything but that is the final goal regarding the price. Another thing I m removing current survey from website because there is no point for it because we already have an accelerator. So final conclusion will be that 84 people voted that we will never see Amiga FPGA accelerator created by me and 78 of them supported project. Guess what ? :)
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