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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

V4SA Schematicspage  1 2 

CD32 Freak

Posts 25
09 Sep 2020 15:19


Hi,

Would it be possible to share the schematics of the V4SA board for us curious technical nerds? Thanks in advance.


Roy Gillotti

Posts 517
10 Sep 2020 04:22


I wouldn't mind some detailed information for all the Vampires on the pinouts of the expansion headers and what not. I don't think they should give away the farm by fully releasing the schematics.


Eric Gus

Posts 477
10 Sep 2020 07:10


This has come up before and I dont think you are going to get any sort of reply ..

There are SPI headers and such but thats about as much documentation as you should realistically expect.. I have never seen them really answer this sort of question.


Scott Jacobs

Posts 12
10 Sep 2020 13:07


Why should the team open source?  They have invested an immense amount of time, energy, and their own money to see this project to fruition.

They deserve to recoup their investment.



Robo Kupka

Posts 50
10 Sep 2020 13:52


Scott jacobs wrote:

Why should the team open source?  They have invested an immense amount of time, energy, and their own money to see this project to fruition.
 
  They deserve to recoup their investment.
 

I agree that we do not need whole schematic. Besides, the whole board is software defined in FPGA. What we really need is detailed description of all available interfaces and SDK for programming them. And programming reference manual, concerning new CPU registers and instructions, hardware registers etc...
Gunnar is already discussing and "hiring" volunteers to work on it.



Scott Jacobs

Posts 12
10 Sep 2020 23:43


My original response was meant for someone else's and apparently they deleted it.



CD32 Freak

Posts 25
15 Sep 2020 06:57


I guess the answer is no :-P


Michal Pietal

Posts 236
15 Sep 2020 10:26


CD32 freak wrote:

Hi,
 
  Would it be possible to share the schematics of the V4SA board for us curious technical nerds? Thanks in advance.

Hardware schematics kept under wraps is the ONLY means to:

1) return on (substantial) investment on making it (happen)
2) securing additional funds for ie. bug fixes, further development, software/OS maybe

So I would personally see no sense in such step, in case of V4SA and other Vampire cards as well.



James Husted
(Needs Verification)
Posts 81/ 3
15 Sep 2020 14:23


After what happend to stephen leary's Terrible fire designs the other day the vampire team would be Ill advised to share schematics as it looks like there are a lot of hardware cloners about looking to make money off the back of others hard work - for the full story have a look at this EXTERNAL LINK the last few posts explain it!


Michal Pietal

Posts 236
15 Sep 2020 18:38


Some day, maybe, yes.


Eric Gus

Posts 477
16 Sep 2020 04:18


While I fully understand and side with Stephen on this specific issue.. the guy is a serial rage-quitter..

And honestly for his own mental and physical well being .. maybe he should leave .. he seems to get very stressed out about things more often then apparently is really healthy..


James Husted
(Needs Verification)
Posts 81/ 3
17 Sep 2020 09:45


yea he can seem a little cranky but lets face it cant we all sometimes - especially with all the COVID19 stuff going on!
I mean it would be useful to have technical information on the Vamps but at the same time I just think it will fall into the wrong hands.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
17 Sep 2020 10:42


Maybe it makes sense to explain something here.

Making a complete PCB design like the V4 with many ports and high speed components like DDR3 memory and DIGITAL-VIDEO running at gigaherz speeds is not a very simple task.

As you might know the Apollo-Team did spend several years on designing and developing the V4.
Part of this development were some test-boards which we needed to tried out some parts and also some board iterations - to the now finished and final V4 design.
Its obvious the development of these test boards and iterations
did cost us a significant amount of money.

Our goal is to produce the V4 for a long time.
We plan to perfectly support the V4 and to fully polish AGA and bring it to perfection.




CD32 Freak

Posts 25
17 Sep 2020 14:33


Hi Gunnar,

Thanks for you reply. I understand all about Return Of Investment. The reason I bring up the question about schematics is, that one day the warranty of the boards will end and some folks like to repair their own stuff. So how are we going to do that without schematics?


Michal Pietal

Posts 236
21 Sep 2020 20:36


It is not a matter of Return of Investments, it is a matter of Return of Costs being incurred.


Ron Valen
(Needs Verification)
Posts 12/ 2
05 Oct 2020 00:08


Any Hot Chips style lecture or high-level block diagram presentation on Apollo 68080?

An example of high-level block diagram presentation is when AMD shows Zen design to the public.


Mark Mc Fadden

Posts 36
05 Oct 2020 00:14


I think this raises a good point in general, Gunner what happens if (heaven forbid) you were run over by a bus in the morning? The team is so small but is there any contingency plan for unexpected loss of very important Apollo members?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6197
05 Oct 2020 08:16


Mark Mc Fadden wrote:

  I think this raises a good point in general, Gunner what happens if (heaven forbid) you were run over by a bus in the morning?
 

 
I hope you then give me a nice funeral with all Amiga fands attending. ;-)

And then my friends in Apollo-Team will have to continue without me.
As you might know, the Apollo-Team is not that small.
I believe that the Apollo-Team is even bigger than the original team developing team which did develop the Amigas at Commodore, and also bigger than the people behind both the Pegasos and MorphOS, and  bigger and stronger than Hyperion.
 
The scenario that you describe did happen to the Amiga/Commodore.
Jay Miner died, but Amigas were still produced as you know.
 
Of course such scenario that a key member dies, can happen to every company involved in Amiga. 
But as the Vampire are currently produced in 2 different countries, they will continue to be produced. I believe Vampires will be produced and available for many years to come.


Gerardo G.

Posts 54
05 Oct 2020 08:37


Mark Mc Fadden wrote:

I think this raises a good point in general, Gunner what happens if (heaven forbid) you were run over by a bus in the morning? The team is so small but is there any contingency plan for unexpected loss of very important Apollo members?

So inappropriate comment, really... 

It remembers me when a doctor told me that I could die. My answer was, you too!


Henrich Raduska

Posts 62
05 Oct 2020 09:43


Jay Miner...
EXTERNAL LINK

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