Someone in the Danish amiga community asked if the 68010 is faster than the 68000.
The short answer is No, and the long one Yes.
There is a slight improvement which you might be able to feel for CPU intensive work. But for gaming? naaa.. you might see a slight smoother scrolling for vector based games.
For the tests, I’ve created a bootable floppy. It has Sysinfo, WhichAmiga and AIBB on it. And I’ve chosen AIBB as benchmark program for this test.
I’ve used the same A500 for both tests, with a 512KB ram upgrade getting up to 1MB. The A500 ran Kickstart 1.3. Nothing other than switching out the 68000 with the 68010 has been done with the 2 A500 systems
You’ll see 4 systems in the images
A600-NF – This system comes with AIBB, and I can guess it’s a stock A600 (68000)
A500_1M – A500 with 512kB ram upgrade (68000@7MHz)
A500-010 – A500 with 512kB ram upgrade (68010@7MHz)
A1200-030 – A1200 Blizzard1230 MK IV 030@50MHz, 64MB ram
It is rumoured that there are quite a few applications that require a 68020 actually runs fine on the 68010 due to instructions needed are in the 68010. I haven’t seen any of these applications, but if you find any please report them here so I can add them to a list. If you run into issues using 68010, the Decigel software might help you out.
Otherwise I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves and make it up to you to decide if you want to upgrade your system.
You can download the diskette with the modules created here.
If you only want to preview the results without testing on your own system, you can go to the menu “Special” and activate “Preview mode”.
One of the problems with the Commodore and Philips monitors models C=1084, C=1084S, C=1081 etc, CM8833, CM8833-II, is the power switch is no longer able to be “stuck” in it’s ON mode. These are generally easy to replace if one can find a replacement unit.
I recently got some power switches off a guy from Amibay, these aren’t the exact same models as the ones used for the monitors, but they are still useable.
The switch is originally produced by Preh and is called ME5A, but there are quite a few models of these, and they aren’t written on the switch itself. So if you hunt down the switches, make sure you atleast get to see if the pins are meant for PCB soldering or just wires. The ones I received are solderable into the PCB, thus also useable for wires.
The original model number for the C1084S is: PREH ME5A 70060-062 (NS28)
The replacement used here is: PREH ME5A 70060-232 (NS11)
If you know how to use a solder iron, and know your way around cables, this should be easy for you otherwise you should contact a professionel or atleast someone experienced to help you out.
This whole procedure can be done in 10-15 min.
WARNING: the CRT monitors have high-voltage inside and can give you shock if you’re not properly protected or careful. Touch only on plastic.
DISCLAIMER: if you by any means, hurt yourself or your equipment, I can’t be held responsible for any damages done.
UPDATE 2012-12-11 :A (badly made, which was made spontaneously with a smartphone) video showing the CM8833 monitor and how to unplug the 2 wires and access the power switch is shown in the bottom of this article.
Before starting, unplug the power chord, and any other cables attached to the monitor.
The switch to the left is the original one (from 1084S, I didn’t take a picture of the one from the 1084), and the one to the right is the new one.
The ones I received here has a few extra pins which aren’t needed for our purpose, so we’ll just cut these pins off.
The 1084 Monitor with the power switch in the front.
Remove the philips head screws in the holes where the arrows point.
Remove the philips head screws in the holes where the arrows point, remove the 2 in the bottom first before unscrewing the one close to the audio/video output.
Make sure the power chord is removed from it’s holding clip.
Now you can gently slide off the back of the monitor. Be careful not to touch anything not plastic, as you can get hurt.
There might be a wire attached inside, to the back you’re pulling off, this wire can easily be removed. Just remember where it was located before assembling again.
There is a small plastic tap that needs pushing around the area where the red arrow is pointing, when that is pushed the small PCB in the plastic can easily slide up.
There is a wire connected to this board, which should be removed before pulling up the PCB.
Now that you have access to the switch, remove the 2 screws, and unsolder the power wires (or cut them, just make sure you cut as little as possible as you need the full length of the wire)
On the power switch I received it had a mounted plate, this can be removed by using pliers bending back the metal locks (white arrows), and gently pulling off the plate (red arrows).
The plastic bracket on the old switch is needed, so gently pull this off.
It didn’t fit on the switch I had so I had to do a little sanding.
I used my dremmel to sand down the plastic in the sides and bottom.
The result looks like this, I had to try mounting the plastic bracket several times before I was satisfied.
Time to solder the power wires onto the switch. Make sure that you have one set of cables to the back of the switch, and the other towards the front. Brown needs aligning to brown and blue needs aligning to blue. On the picture the cables going to the monitor are soldered to the leftmost pins, brown up/blue down, and the power chord is soldered to the right most part of the switch, brown up/blue down.
All you have to do now is mount everything back the way it was.
Fasten the switch to the plastic slider.
Slide the plastic slider into place.
Reattach the cable that was removed earlier.
Reattach the cable from the plastic casing back.
Slide the pack of the monitor into place.
Attach the 5 screws.
And you’re done.
A video showing the Philips CM8833 monitor (which is almost identical to the C= 1081) and how to access the power switch.
So the most time consuming job with IC Run is finished, I can now start working on getting them published. Again, lots of thanks to Thomas Viborg for lending me these.
Warning about the eBay seller, selling the GBS in a box – the items draws more power than the specs of the Amiga recommends
So my RGB to VGA converter arrived. I’ll write up on how to connect a VGA monitor to the Amiga.
Requiremens:
23 Pin D-SUB Female (preferable with a casing)
Solder iron + solder
5V / 2A DC adapter. These can be aquired from ebay.
Some wire if you want the item to be further from the Amiga.
And the “RGB to VGA converter” (search sentence in quotes used for ebay)
Difficulty: Easy
Simple solder skills are required
Click on the images below for larger pictures
GBS 8200 with RGB wire
The item as aquired. It came with 2 sets of wires. One set for power (upper right corner of the pcb) and a set for video. A 5 1/4″ floppy has been placed behind it for reference of size.
I’ve marked the 5 locations on the PCB that have interest for us.
VGA output (connect the VGA monitor to this)
5V / 2A power input. The cable that comes with the converter can be plugged into the white socket.
Menu buttons, change output resolution, adjust vertical/horizontal position etc. Change input source / auto detect input.
B, G, R signal strength. Mine is set to max for all 3.
RGB input from the amiga, using the cable shown on top of the picture.
The cable that came with my converter was properly colour coded, the RGB was proper red, green and blue, and gnd is black.
For this setup the V-Sync (yellow cable) is not needed.
23 pin connected to cable
On the picture above you can see how the cable needs to be connected to the solder side of the 23 Pin D-Sub female connector. Connect the finished wire to (5) and the amiga. Power on everything and you’re good to go.
Converted 640×256 to 1024×768
Finished picture.
UPDATE: I made a movie for 640×512 (high-res interlaced) to show how it looks like
This converter has a menu which came in Chinese. This can be changed in the menu, step one up, and select English.
The rest of the menu speaks for itself. The settings I adjusted was Horizontal/Vertical stretch, and Positioning. Also changed from 640×480 to 1024×768 for the output resolution.
I must confess that the image output is really great compared to the price.
Update (2014-10-22): Henrik Christensen made a nice box, see below
Why make a RGB cable when you can take an old RGB one and just solder one connector? Much better solution than creating a cable from scratch isn’t it?
Word of warning: Someone is selling this packed in a nice box on ebay, I don’t agree with the high price for the box, and if you are going to get it shipped, you might as well pick up the Indivision or ScanJuggler.
EDIT: I must recommend against this as it can burn/kill your amiga. the 5V power or the 12V powerline given by the Amiga is only 100mA, whereas the GBS draws around 300-350mA @ 5V, I haven’t checked how much it draws at 12V, this I have to test ofc.
This last item -sold on eBay- draws power from the output port of the Amiga, which output current only is designed for 100mA, this item draws 3x more current than what the Amiga is designed for, therefore it can destroy your amiga if you use this. The one without a box use an external power supply and doesn’t have this problem.
I originally wrote this article for the CiA website.
Even though I’m spending a lot of time scanning these borrowed magazines, I had a little time tonight to make one available. I’ll be putting the Run magazines with IC Run.
