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mr.t.guru

Posted Wed Aug 08, 2018 9:39 pm

I can if the numbers are there. probably need to make 50 to get the price lower. remember to build it costs about $500 and to build the 060 and Picasso is about $500 more (in AUD). that's about what it cost me to build the 3 boards complete and it took a long time to source parts because some are very difficult to find.

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BloodyCactus
Lexington VA

Posted Sun Aug 12, 2018 8:09 am

yeah so far I've done it all by hand, I was going to hot air some stuff but there are some things too close together and I'd end up messing up other components I've already got on. Its certainly an odd mix, being 50% SMD and 50% through hole. Some of the unobtainium parts are a pain, I sacrificed an A500+ motherboard to get some (crystal, DB23 connectors etc). The rest, I think I was lucky as nobody else at the time was buying up those parts (Amber IC, plenty of 2mb agnus around etc), now, good luck getting Ambers, and the correct Agnus are not as easy to find. Kipper reverse engineering the video hybrid was also good timing!

I have all the chips + connectors for the 060 and graphics card, the hardest to get was the 68030 double sided connector, but I lucked out on a Daystar IIcx accelerator adapter card that had one. These adapters are like hens teeth! https://i.imgur.com/dgWDR25h.jpg

A 50mhz 030/8mb is going to be quite snappy for what I want to mess around with, I dont really have a massive urge to go 060.

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mr.t.guru

Posted Mon Aug 13, 2018 12:23 am

you can make that 68030 double-sided connector using male and female machine-pin strips. that's what I did and what everyone on A1k.org did.

Intric8: I found out a bit more about the GBA 1000 design. I actually found the Eagle files/schems/board layout/pal files etc for several Phoenix expansions made by Georg Braun around 2004-2006. A VGA Flicker Fixer based on Amber, 8MB RAM expansion and a 68030 accelerator card... all expansions for the Phoenix board. This info is enough to re-make those boards if desired. It looks like Georg did not design the GBA 1000 from scratch as people think, he actually just put the cards he made for the Phoenix onto one board and built the GBA 1000 around them. If you compare the two board layouts, they are *very* similar so Georg obviously had access to the Phoenix schematics and board files when designing the GBA 1000. So that is why those parts are a poor choice, because they were current at the time when those Phoenix cards were designed and he just re-used the same designs on the GBA 1000 board. The rev 5 motherboard solved all those problems but sadly he didn't release the files so the 10 rev 5 boards in circulation are pretty much priceless now.

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BloodyCactus
Lexington VA

Posted Mon Aug 13, 2018 5:25 am

I thought everyone knew GBA1K stemmed from the Phoenix design. Swap the SCSI for Oktagon etc. I remember drooling all over Phoenix when I read ACAR magazine back in Melbourne but as a kid, that kind of money they wanted was insane lol.

As for using machine pins to make the 030 socket.. meh ;) do it right, go big or go home ;) Since I was in no rush (been sitting on components for 5 years), I just kept an eye on ebay...

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Bugging

Posted Thu Apr 14, 2022 4:19 am

BloodyCactus wrote:
Sat Apr 28, 2018 1:35 pm
Image

So, I procrastinate and do too many projects at the same time etc etc etc.. Well, 5 years ago I got all the parts to build a GBA1000... Then did a lot of other things except build it... So now it is time. Time to get out the solder paste and actually put this beast together.

This will be a rough log of progress, not a photo of every resistor I solder in.

Anyway, start pics!

The rev 4 GBA1000 motherboard
Image

The GBA1000 68060 / 128mb accelerator card (left) and Picaso-II clone PCB v3.0 and v3.2 on right (I dont know what differences are from v3.0 to v3.2)
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Two copies of the GBA1000 Thylacine board (left) and on the right is the GBAPII++ v2.6 Amiga 500/2000 (and tower 2k/3k/4k) Picaso II clone (which I dont need)
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Most of the hard to get parts came from a donor Amiga 500+ motherboard (those non existant DB23 sockets and the oddball 28.3715 mhz crystal ) and the Amiga 1000 that is donating its case.

(Last time I dug it out, it was pleasantly, not very yellowed!, and that is a kickstart 1.2 disk next to it)
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I have printed out the GBA1000 guide as well as the BOM from the rev4 pcb so I can tick off every single item I solder (its 16 pages long).

First thing is to go through the crappy pink mouser bag, sort out all the components and do some inventory, after that my thought is to paste and hot air the 8mb ram because its the smallest pitch parts on the board, after that, hit all the birdseed and lastly hit the sockets and dip parts.
Hi I've just bought myself a set of these I have the BOM file for the motherboard but not the Two other cards can anyone help.
Thanks Craig

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fastrobplus

Posted Thu Feb 09, 2023 4:40 pm

Any progress on this? I'm considering building one myself if I can get the two I currently have sorted.

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BloodyCactus
Lexington VA

Posted Fri Feb 10, 2023 5:08 pm

my covid work from home office basically took over my hobby space... things are somewhat going back to normal then i had some rogue water spilled all over my paperwork, which I would cross off when i did a resistor etc to know where i was so i'm kinda gotta reprint it all and go over it carefully to mark stuff off again :(

and i procrastinate lol

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m0c
Utrecht, Netherlands

Posted Sat Nov 04, 2023 5:00 am

I stumbled across the GBA project late 2019 and it was love at first sight. I have conceived 7 since then :)

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Seb132
Gold Coast, Australia

Posted Sat Nov 04, 2023 8:28 pm

mr.t.guru wrote:
Wed Aug 08, 2018 9:39 pm
I can if the numbers are there. probably need to make 50 to get the price lower. remember to build it costs about $500 and to build the 060 and Picasso is about $500 more (in AUD). that's about what it cost me to build the 3 boards complete and it took a long time to source parts because some are very difficult to find.
That sounds super-dupper cool.
What are the mods and specs of your modified PCB?
I know few people who could be interested....





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