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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

Minimal A500 Motherboard for Vampire

Matthew J Fletcher

Posts 8
24 Dec 2019 11:40


Hi all,

Longtime reader, first time poster.

Can anyone confirm the minimal requirements of an A500 motherboard to run a Vampire ?, by minimal i mean what CBM custom chips are required.

I ask as an owner of a new Checkmake A1500 case and new A500++ (un-populated) motherboard.

When running Vampire AGA clearly Agnus,Paula,Denise are running from the FPGA in the Vampire,.. but what about Gary/CIA's for floppy/serial ?

Clearly all the power delivery, reset and clock components are needed.

regards, Matthew.



Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
24 Dec 2019 11:48


I am no engineer, but common sense is GOLD2 cores use everything of onboard chips except CPU. With GOLD3 cores none will be used, but we are not there yet.

There is no Vampire AGA, all V2 series currently use onboard chipset, with v1200 it happens to be AGA. However, GOLD3 core will bring AGA compatibility to all v2 users.


Matthew J Fletcher

Posts 8
24 Dec 2019 13:25


Yep, i meant for V2 GOLD3 or V4 boards.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
24 Dec 2019 14:18


Hi this is a very good question...
I have not very much thought about it ...
I wonder why use a A500 motherboard at all and not a V4-SA?


Kyle Blake
(Needs Verification)
Posts 108/ 1
24 Dec 2019 14:55


Could be useful for real serial/parallel but then you need at least some chips for those to work.


Matthew J Fletcher

Posts 8
24 Dec 2019 16:32


Hi Gunnar,

I've been considering the V4-SA version, but i think now A500-V4 is best for me as i wish to use 'real' floppy drives and build my own A500++ motherboard into my Checkmate 1500 case.

If your FPGA core does CPU+AGA, then what remains on the A500 is CIA/B, Gale and some reset/bus logic.



posts 6