User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Feb 12, 2018 9:51 am

I've posted about the AdSpeed before; it's a tiny little accelerator for Amiga computers that was released in 1990 for the 500, 1000 and 2000 machines. Those machines were shipped with 7 Mhz processors - plenty for most occassions. The AdSpeed provides a power boost of 2X at 14 Mhz. For most software this won't even be felt, but in some instances the difference can be dramatic. In not only speeds up computations but it can also accelerate reading and writing to fast RAM.
DVtNodkUQAAzVPR.jpg
The AdSpeed came with the device pre-populated with a 7 Mhz 68000 CPU, activation software and a decent manual.

An ingenious design, the AdSpeed allows for a stock 68000 CPU to sit on top of it and barely add any height or width while being pressed back into the 68000's socket. This is a major deal especially for the Amiga 1000. It's floppy drive bracket is in very close proximity to the CPU, and oftentimes the use of accelerators can be a major logistical nightmare.
IMG_3775.jpg
Stock 68000 on the left, populated AdSpeed accelerator on the right.

Having recently acquired an 8MB RAM module that also utilizes the 68000 socket, I wanted to see if I could get the AdSpeed and RAM to work together in my A1000 - like a nice fat upgrade sandwich. Would it fit? Would it work?
IMG_3722.jpg
8MB RAM module to 68000 socket by "MKL"

First, I pressed the AdSpeed on top of the new RAM module.Next I tried to put it into the Amiga 1000. It was literally a perfect fit! Had the AdSpeed been 1mm wider this would have become troublesome. As it it, it fits perfectly behind/under the FDD bracket.
IMG_3765.jpg
A pretty tasty looking sandwich, right? For orientation, the only thing you have to pay attention to are the little notches in the CPU and the painted silkscreens on the boards. Easy peasy.

I think the AdSpeed was originally designed for the 500 and 2000, but it's one of the few things that'll fit in an Amiga 1000 that's non-destructive. The original manual suggests clipping the back of the FDD bracket off with tin snips, but in my case it actually fit just fine.
IMG_3766.jpg
It's close, but it fits without any issues.

How it works:
The AdSpeed has a jumper on the board. If you pull the jumper off, in theory it is supposed to run at 14 Mhz. If you put the jumper on, it runs natively and essentially bypasses the board altogether. But, you can always turn it back on/off in Workbench using the supplied software. You can even modify your startup sequence to run the program automatically when booting Workbench. A very cool idea.

What some people did back in the day was they would attach a mechanical switch to the jumper so they didn't have to keep opening their machine's case. They'd load their favorite game (e.g a flight simulator) then flip the switch to 14 Mhz. Once done, they'd flip it back to 7.

But if you really want to, you should be able to just remove the jumper and be set to 14. The reason why this is important is many older games required being booted off the floppy drive. And when this happens, you bypass Workbench altogether. Hence the need for a mechanical solution and not just software.

After installing the AdSpeed in my stock 1000, I was ready to see if it would work with the new RAM module. I prepared for the following tests.

Test 1
Boot up at 7 Mhz (jumper on) and see if there are any conflicts with the RAM.
Result: No conflicts, boots fine!
Check Sysinfo for Speed and RAM |7 Mhz, 8 MB
Use AdSpeed program. I 14 Mhz activates instantly.


This was extremely good news. At a base level, the AdSpeed could be ignored by default, but activated in Workbench via software. Very cool.

Test 2
Boot up at 14 Mhz (jumper off) and see if there are any conflicts.
Results: produces a solid yellow screen.
I've never memorized what all of the colors mean. I checked my easy-reference. Unfortunately, yellow isn't a ton of help. Yellow can mean there are several problems: custom chips, RAM or Kickstart ROM error. Well, since I'm on an A1000, that led me to believe it was either having issues at that speed with the RAM or the custom chips.
IMG_3767.jpg
Boooooooo!

Test 3
Remove 8MB RAM. Reinsert AdSpeed and boot up at 14 Mhz. Basically just try to use the AdSpeed by itself with no memory upgrades.
Result: Produces a flashing yellow screen.

Yellow can also mean this:
Yellow (0xFE5) an unexpected processor exception before the appropriate system failure message was prepared. This could mean defective hardware or an attempt to access a RAM address where no RAM exists.
So at this stage, even just the AdSpeed sitting in there all by itself has an issue with the hardware being fixed at 14 Mhz on bootup. Totally sucks! This means any games that require being booted off the floppy are out of luck! I have to think this issue is specific to the 1000.

Test 4
I booted up at 7 Mhz, switched to 14 Mhz using the software, then did a soft reboot. Unfortunately, it lets go of the AdSpeed software on soft reboot as I figured it would but it was worth a shot.

So for now I have this crazy little tech sandwich in the stock 1000 with 8MB RAM and 14 Mhz available to Workbench apps and games - whenever I turn it on. By default it stays at 7 Mhz. Kind of bummed I can’t get it to be hardware-bound, but it’s still pretty cool.

My last ditch hope for it to work outside of Workbench would be to create a switch for it. According to the manual, it is possible to activate and deactivate on the fly - outside of the boot sequence. That, I'm afraid, will be for another day. But for now, I leave you with this. :)
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AdSpeed activated at 14 Mhz. "Excellent!"


User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Mon Feb 12, 2018 10:32 am

Interesting, I remember seeing these advertised back in the era. Are you planning on trying that sandwich in an Amiga 500 or 2000? I would be curious to see how it works booting direct.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Feb 12, 2018 10:47 am

That's an interesting question.

I really really really wish it would boot into 14 Mhz with the 1000. I'd stop tinkering right this minute if it did. This A1000 is so damned close to being done. It's just about perfect. I'd love to do one of those Kickstart ROM board things, but I'm not building one myself. That's just too much for me right now (sure wish someone sold one, though!).

I have a switch around here somewhere that I'm going to attach to that freaking AdSpeed jumper and flip it after a game is loaded from FDD. I won't have any on-screen UI to see it it worked or not, but I can video a game I know is affected by CPU differences and do a side-by-side comparison to see if it really works or not. If nothing changes, I guess I'll give up. Super annoying as it works brilliantly in Workbench. Glad it works with the new RAM across the board, too.

As for putting it in a 500 or 2000, I just old my 500 over the weekend. It's sitting in its original box waiting to go to its new home.

I'm hesitant to gut my 2000 to complete this test right now. I'd have to crack the case, pull my CPU card as well as (IIRC) the FDD/PSU bracket because the CPU sits down there below the bracket. I bet clearance is tight. Maybe in the future when I am doing surgery on the 2000 for my Kickstart switcher I'll give that a go then. Good idea - it'd be nice to know if this is just a peculiarity with the A1000 model (or specifically my A1000) - or the device itself!

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Feb 12, 2018 4:02 pm

I stayed home from work today due to a minor illness (I'm getting better). After I rested for most of the morning I couldn't take it anymore: I went back to my Amiga room!

First, I soldered a jumper to a switch to see if flipping it after booting up a game seemed to make a difference. Assuming I wired up the switch correctly, it did nothing.

Next, I put it into my Amiga 2000. No small task, mind. It performed exactly the same way! This now eliminated my Amiga 1000. Across two different machines I got the same exact results: works in software, but in hardware.

And both of my AdSpeeds do the same thing. I contacted the guy who I got the newest device from and he said it did that to him as well! To make matters worse (in my mind) he said he had owned another one 20 years ago which he had in an A500, and it did the same thing, too! So, this leaves a few options in my mind.

Option 1 Total false marketing. It really only worked in software (although I really have a difficult time believing this. Not to mention the fact that the first one I got, the previous owner remembered it working as advertised 25 years ago. . . even though it only works in software now.

Option 2 The device is extremely susceptible to hardware failure through this jumper system.

Option 3 The device is actually very picky about whichever Kickstart ROM it sees. I didn't realize this before, but there were actually a ton of versions of Kickstart 1.3! I really had no idea. And how I'd go about fixing that? Probably not going to happen. Here's just a small sampling of Kickstart 1.3 ROM images:
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Option 4 Capacitor failure on the AdSpeed. I didn't realize this before, but when you flip the AdSpeed upside-down and look closely at the board, there are a couple of tiny surface-mounted capacitors! These are the same crappy caps that are prone to failure on the 600/1200/4000. Sigh! Could it possibly be that most AdSpeeds out there have failed caps, and when they go they (thankfully) don't hurt the accelerator but do in fact control its hardware switches? Certainly possible.
IMG_3776.jpg
There was a bit of minor corrosion around C1. Some electrical cleaner made that go away, but could there be some sort of cap failure going on here?

IMG_3777.jpg
The AdSpeed seen from below.

I'm not an electrical engineer, but I believe anything marked with a "C" is actually a tiny surface mounted capacitor. That would be C1, C2 and CJ - which I assume stands for C-Jumper. Keep in mind this thing works - it's just not letting me boot from 14, so it still has obvious value. But if it could boot and get its switch to work? Man... that's what I was hoping for when I got this second one.

So maybe what I do, since I have 2 and both perform identically, is send this little bundle of joy to Acill to have those 3 caps replaced. If it doesn't change anything, I'll just accept it as a fact of life. But if it actually fixes it?

UPDATE:
Acill accepted to take a look at it. One of them will be on its way to California later this week. Fingers crossed this actually makes a positive difference!

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Tue Feb 13, 2018 2:12 pm

Wow, bummer they are not working right in the A2000 either. I am with you though, at least it is not your A1000.

I wish I could help you but I don't know much about that device.

As to the ROMS, if you have a copy of Amiga Forever then you will have the ROMS that you need. Some of those listed via TOSEC are bad other languages or regions, or perhaps alternate betas, etc. You can dismiss any that have [h], or [o] those stand for hacked, bad dump and over dump respectively. Ones with a "!" are supposed to be known good ROMS. Here is the naming conventions for TOSEC, it is long but it is helpful for things like this and Amiga software:

https://www.tosecdev.org/tosec-naming-convention

As to the capacitors on the underside of the board, you are indeed correct that those are capacitors labeled with C. But those are not the aluminum electrolytic caps that usually suffer from the bad cap plague like the round surface mount on A1200's, A600's and A4000's. Sure they can go bad, but I wouldn't think it is likely. Take that for what it is worth as I am certainly no electrical engineer either. I have replaced a ton of capacitors over the years and I have not yet come across a need to replace one of these tiny varieties.

There has to be some piece or small detail missing to get it to work correctly.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Feb 13, 2018 2:48 pm

Yeah, you're probably right. If Acill can at least find a way to get my switch working I think that'd be killer. I could boot up in 7Mhz off the floppy and once a game was loaded just flip the switch. They are supposed to be able to be switched on the fly. I've been chatting with someone on Facebook about it. He seems to be the only person I've met who currently has one that works as advertised.

I'd total settle for fixing the switch and leaving it at that.





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