99105/99110 Accelerators?

[Geoff Oltmans]

Were there ever any CPU accelerators sold for the TI? I see where a couple were announced at one point.

 

[+dhe]

None were ever sold.

[Geoff Oltmans]

That's what I figured. I can't recall ever seeing anybody talk about them back in the day or after the fact. All I found was some references in an old Micropendium. 

[+FarmerPotato]

Sone have boosted the slow parts of the console, especially RAM on the 16-bit bus. But replacing the CPU leads to making a whole new computer.
 

The most one could overclock the 9900 would be, I hear, 3.3 (10%) or 4 (AMI S9900). (And see what breaks.) 

The best option is to get an F18A and play with the 100 MHz 9900 core inside it!

 

9995 or 99105 present so many differences... Those  several of us who have used them -- have produced an all new computer.
 

I'm one trying a 99105 board design which offers  a 4A and Geneve hardware abstraction layer. But design and PCB layout are perhaps the easy part. 
 

 

The SNUG approach also redesigned  everything and moved the CPU into the PBOX. 
 

 

[Geoff Oltmans]

1 hour ago, FarmerPotato said:

Sone have boosted the slow parts of the console, especially RAM on the 16-bit bus. But replacing the CPU leads to making a whole new computer.
 

The most one could overclock the 9900 would be, I hear, 3.3 (10%) or 4 (AMI S9900). (And see what breaks.) 

The best option is to get an F18A and play with the 100 MHz 9900 core inside it!

 

9995 or 99105 present so many differences... Those  several of us who have used them -- have produced an all new computer.
 

I'm one trying a 99105 board design which offers  a 4A and Geneve hardware abstraction layer. But design and PCB layout are perhaps the easy part. 
 

 

The SNUG approach also redesigned  everything and moved the CPU into the PBOX. 
 

 

Oh, I'm under no illusion that there wouldn't be (potentially significant or impossible) issues with bus timing and/or software timings. Usually wiring things up is the easy part. hehe

[RickyDean]

I believe Jeff White had been working on an accelerator back in the day, but did have problems with the trace spacing and and noise, maybe as well as timing issues. Don't know if today's  tech can take those issues.

[Geoff Oltmans]

2 hours ago, RickyDean said:

I believe Jeff White had been working on an accelerator back in the day, but did have problems with the trace spacing and and noise, maybe as well as timing issues. Don't know if today's  tech can take those issues.

It's certainly a lot cheaper to build low numbers PCBs these days with more than 2 layers... so maybe that would help.

 

[Tursi]

I've looked with jealously at the 6502 accelerators (http://www.e-basteln.de/computing/65f02/65f02/) that replace the 6502 with a 100MHz accelerator but access the computer bus at the normal speed. They suck in the external memory contents and then run as much as they can internally. Something like that would be fun.

 

[+dhe]

I felt cheated by Randy Holcomb in Computer Shopper in the late 80's.

 

Month 1 - here are somethings to look at when building a 9995 accelerator for the 4a, next month we'll start building it.

  (can hardly wait until next month's issue!!!)

Month 2 - Been busy, here is some short software reviews to hold you over, but next month well start on the accelerator.

Month 3 - Nothing.

Month 4 - A few more small software reviews, but next month, on to the accelerator.

Month 5 - Yea, I don't have time for this crappy TI stuff, I have an Atari now, see you loser.

Month 6 - Hello, I'm Barry Traver and will be writing the TI column here at Computer Shopper.

 

Me -

😠

 

[+OLD CS1]

6 hours ago, dhe said:

I felt cheated by Randy Holcomb in Computer Shopper in the late 80's.

We should see if he is still around and fire some shots at him (metaphorically, of course.)

[Asmusr]

17 hours ago, Tursi said:

I've looked with jealously at the 6502 accelerators (http://www.e-basteln.de/computing/65f02/65f02/) that replace the 6502 with a 100MHz accelerator but access the computer bus at the normal speed. They suck in the external memory contents and then run as much as they can internally. Something like that would be fun.

 

But even with a 100Mhz CPU many game ideas would be limited by the VDP data transfer bottleneck.

[Willsy]

A 9995 accelerator did exist for the 4A, but not in a commercial form. It was built by Colin Hinson who was a TI UK (Bedford) employee. It was in my possession for a while, but it was already non-functional when I got it. From memory, it consisted of a project board upon which Colin had soldered legs to sit in the original 9900 slot on the motherboard. On the project board was a crystal, a 9995, and maybe two other chips - a PALs or GALs. Can't remember. I never saw it running but according to Colin it worked fine until the board it was hosted on was cannibalised for parts. This was in 1994. I'd be surprised if Colin was still with us now, as he was in his late 60s and already retired when I met him.

[+OLD CS1]

22 minutes ago, Asmusr said:

But even with a 100Mhz CPU many game ideas would be limited by the VDP data transfer bottleneck.

Could go the Amiga Vampire route.  An accelerator which replaces the VDP and over-rides the 9900, running an F18A core.  Then the limiting factor becomes the ROMs, GROMs, scratchpad, 9919, 9901, 8-bit external buss, &c.  The first four can be taken care of by hosting them on the accelerator, as well.

[Stuart]

3 hours ago, Willsy said:

A 9995 accelerator did exist for the 4A, but not in a commercial form. It was built by Colin Hinson who was a TI UK (Bedford) employee. It was in my possession for a while, but it was already non-functional when I got it. From memory, it consisted of a project board upon which Colin had soldered legs to sit in the original 9900 slot on the motherboard. On the project board was a crystal, a 9995, and maybe two other chips - a PALs or GALs. Can't remember. I never saw it running but according to Colin it worked fine until the board it was hosted on was cannibalised for parts. This was in 1994. I'd be surprised if Colin was still with us now, as he was in his late 60s and already retired when I met him.

Trivia: Colin Hinson was one of the designers of the Powertran Cortex. He was still around in 2021 ... see [https://www.blunham.com/Radar/Teletext/index.html].

[+dhe]

Colin also wrote an article about the TI DSR. Best explanation I've read of Level 1,2 and 3 calls.  Brilliant guy and great explainer!

 

 

[Tursi]

12 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

Could go the Amiga Vampire route.  An accelerator which replaces the VDP and over-rides the 9900, running an F18A core.  Then the limiting factor becomes the ROMs, GROMs, scratchpad, 9919, 9901, 8-bit external buss, &c.  The first four can be taken care of by hosting them on the accelerator, as well.

Well, the ROMs and scratchpad you'd suck into internal memory on the accelerator anyway, though bank switching becomes an issue. Might as well pull in the GROMs too, they aren't going anywhere.  In theory you could minimize your external interface to CRU, DSR, video and sound.

 

If you decide to host video and sound too, well, you've pretty much got the F18A Mark II with a second-gen HDL loaded.  It's got the necessary hardware onboard, would just need to be wired in a little differently.

 

Only thing I keep coming back around to is "what apps does the TI have that benefit from acceleration?" Sure, we could do more, but what exists that would benefit? Chess, I guess?

 

It'd be neat to see for sure. I'm not sure that it wouldn't need a lot of new software to be useful. And if we want to take that route, hell with an accelerator. Let's do the PCB replacement route.

 

[+retroclouds]

8 hours ago, dhe said:

Colin also wrote an article about the TI DSR. Best explanation I've read of Level 1,2 and 3 calls.  Brilliant guy and great explainer!

 

 

Might sharing that article or link to it? I’d be interested 😀

[+retroclouds]

48 minutes ago, Tursi said:

Only thing I keep coming back around to is "what apps does the TI have that benefit from acceleration?" Sure, we could do more, but what exists that would benefit? Chess, I guess?

Edited August 19 by retroclouds
Please ignore this, AA did not let me add a reply to the quote

[+retroclouds]

49 minutes ago, Tursi said:

Well, the ROMs and scratchpad you'd suck into internal memory on the accelerator anyway, though bank switching becomes an issue. Might as well pull in the GROMs too, they aren't going anywhere.  In theory you could minimize your external interface to CRU, DSR, video and sound.

 

If you decide to host video and sound too, well, you've pretty much got the F18A Mark II with a second-gen HDL loaded.  It's got the necessary hardware onboard, would just need to be wired in a little differently.

 

Only thing I keep coming back around to is "what apps does the TI have that benefit from acceleration?" Sure, we could do more, but what exists that would benefit? Chess, I guess?

 

It'd be neat to see for sure. I'm not sure that it wouldn't need a lot of new software to be useful. And if we want to take that route, hell with an accelerator. Let's do the PCB replacement route.

 

 

I think there some out there that might benefit from it. The ones I see are mainly those that use SAMS. 

For Stevie having more horsepower would help on doing editor buffer manipulation on large files in memory, e.g. assembly source upper case to lower case, search and replace.
So far I haven't looked in using the F18a as accellerator.  (In the future I'd see C compiler and assembler)

[+OLD CS1]

1 hour ago, Tursi said:

Only thing I keep coming back around to is "what apps does the TI have that benefit from acceleration?" Sure, we could do more, but what exists that would benefit? Chess, I guess?

 

1 hour ago, Tursi said:

It'd be neat to see for sure. I'm not sure that it wouldn't need a lot of new software to be useful. And if we want to take that route, hell with an accelerator. Let's do the PCB replacement route.

When thinking of accelerators, the 99/4A is a different ecosystem than the Amiga.  Perhaps if such an accelerator was realized BITD, it could have been like the SuperCPU.  Do we consider the Geneve as the "next generation"?  A replacement PCB pushed the boundaries of "what is a real x?"  Is a stand-alone Vampire or the X5000 a real Amiga?

 

Why climb the mountain?

 

 

 

[Tursi]

>Why climb the mountain?

 

For me there has to be something at the top besides a second mountain.

 

 

[Geoff Oltmans]

18 hours ago, Tursi said:

Well, the ROMs and scratchpad you'd suck into internal memory on the accelerator anyway, though bank switching becomes an issue. Might as well pull in the GROMs too, they aren't going anywhere.  In theory you could minimize your external interface to CRU, DSR, video and sound.

 

If you decide to host video and sound too, well, you've pretty much got the F18A Mark II with a second-gen HDL loaded.  It's got the necessary hardware onboard, would just need to be wired in a little differently.

 

Only thing I keep coming back around to is "what apps does the TI have that benefit from acceleration?" Sure, we could do more, but what exists that would benefit? Chess, I guess?

 

It'd be neat to see for sure. I'm not sure that it wouldn't need a lot of new software to be useful. And if we want to take that route, hell with an accelerator. Let's do the PCB replacement route.

 

Yeah, and then it's like, "why are we even doing this? If we change it too much and all we wanted was a more powerful computer, why not just use a PC?"

 

I admit it's a existential problem I struggle with with a lot of retro hardware projects (Commander X16?).

[Tursi]

34 minutes ago, Geoff Oltmans said:

Yeah, and then it's like, "why are we even doing this? If we change it too much and all we wanted was a more powerful computer, why not just use a PC?"

That comes up for me sometimes too. But... if it's in the same shell, and it uses the same peripherals, and it runs the same software, I'm kind of okay with it.

 

Like, I've been sorely tempted to drop a cheap PC in the console with the necessary hookups to run the hardware, and use an integrated emulator for the compatibility function. It'd be fun. If it wasn't also a multi-year full time project, I think I'd have done it already.  

 

[+OLD CS1]

2 hours ago, Tursi said:

Like, I've been sorely tempted to drop a cheap PC in the console with the necessary hookups to run the hardware, and use an integrated emulator for the compatibility function. It'd be fun. If it wasn't also a multi-year full time project, I think I'd have done it already.  

[Tursi]

2 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

Keeping it stock is explicitly against the desires of the original engineers, who built in everything they could think of to make it a forward compatible machine!

 

I'm just honoring their wishes!