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Coldfire Amiga project.
In-House CDTV DIY Projects.
Fancy turning your CDTV into a monster machine?Fancy running a 68060 @ 50Mhz, SCSI 2 interface, 128 Meg of ram? Then look at the A2000 CPU adapter.
Fancy adding a 24 Bit true colour 3D graphics card, 24 Bit sound card, SCSI & IDE card, serial and parrallel port cards, Network cards and more? Then look at the Zorro adapter.
Also there is a video port adapter, Giving you a 15Khz SVGA outlet.
Click on one of the below items for more information:
Coldfire CPU upgrade.
Diagnostic connector > Amiga 2000 CPU adapter.
Diagnostic connector > single Zorro 2 slot.
15Khz SVGA Video Board.
Joystick/Mouse adapter.
The Coldfire Project.
People have asked me "how can I upgrade my CDTV?" and up to now it has been very hard to get modern "PC" speed out of you Commodore CDTV, This is because no matter how much memory and no matter how modern an operating system you run at the CDTV`s heart there is still a 7.14Mhz Motorola CPU, There has been a CDTV CPU upgrade by W.A.W. to upgrade the CDTV toa 32 Bit 25Mhz computer but today even that is slow so I have started a new project, To use Motorola`s 68000 compatable "Coldfire" CPU running at 220 Mhz, The Coldfire CPU can connect directly to the CDTV`s 16Bit bus, It has an onboard SDRam interface so cheap PC memory can be used (Up to 512 Megabyte can be connected as standard, with 2Gig more using 3rd party chip sets), USB, 10/100 ethernet, Firewire and 33Mhz PCI slots can also be fitted.
The project is now well up and running, It now has its own web site at www.cdtv.org.uk/coldfire/ and a newsgroup dedicated to it at groups.yahoo.com/group/amigacoldfire/ which now has over 100 subscribers.
The project was started for Amiga 500 and CDTV owners but a large number of Amiga 1200 and 4000 owners also want to use the Coldfire CPU, This would mean more software being developed and cheaper cards (More parts = cheaper parts).
It will let you play games like Payback & Quake, Watch video CD`s and maybe even DVD`s and surf the internet, all on your CDTV.
A2000 CPU port adapter.
The CDTV has a connector on the motherboard called a Diagnostic connector, This connector holds the important signals found on the CDTV and was designed for debuging but lucky for us it can also be adapted to let you fit an Amiga 2000 CPU card to the CDTV, An adapter needs to be built, The adapter changes the type of connector from a very high density one to a low density 86 pin ISA like connector.
To build this project you will need to make a PCB, (The design is in the below archive in an Amiga .iff image) and get the plug for the Diagnostic connector on the CDTV, (The plug is type: 8801-080-170S) and lastly an 86 pin PCB Edge Connector.
The card is missing a few signals, Mainly clock timings (28Mhz, AKA Signal "E") but should work, I am making a new version of the design and will then make a card.
Click here to download an LHA archive including the scematics.
Zorro 2 slot adapter.
To make this project you will need to make a PCB (The diagram is in the archive below), You will also need the plug for the CDTV's Diagnostic connector and a Zorro connector (A 100 pin low density PCB edge connector).
The card is missing a few signals but Amiga 500 versions work well with even complicated expansions and the A500 card would be missing the same signals.
There is one main problem with this card, The CDTV's Diagnostic connector is missing the Config in signal, There are two ways to get the signal (Actually there are three but I am not going into the 3rd), you can solder a wire from the board to the Dmac chip or solder a wire from the bottom of the Dmac chip (The bottom of the motherboard) to the Config in pin on the Diagnostic connector (More info as soon as I look it up).
Click here to download the LHA archive containing the scematics of the Zorro adapter.
SVGA 15Khz Video Board.
This adapter lets you plug in a 15Khz SVGA monitor, The adapter is like the small silver external box that came with the Amiga 4000.
The adapter is not a scan doubler so it wont let you plug just any PC monitor in, The monitor must be able to display 15Khz, Amiga made some including the 1940 & 1943, these can be picked up second hand and they deliver great quality screens. If your CDTV has had its Kickstart upgraded (IE: you run Workbench V2.04 or better) then you can display limited 31Khz (Standard PC SVGA frequency) screens using the VGA only and Multisync drivers,
The card uses a single "Quad And Gate" chip, SVGA socket and a double sided PCB, A 3.5mm stereo audio socket can also be added to the design below to add a modern audio output as used by PC speakers and headphones.
The card replaces the card currently in the Video Slot (On the back, next to the Expansion slot).
One note, If you do run the card using a Multisync driver the RGB port will also try to display a 31Khz signal, If you have a TV or A520 video adapter damage may be caused.
For more information and scematics download the below LHA archive.
Click Here to Download the SVGA Archive.
Joystick / Mouse port adapter.
Here is a little hack made by Darren Ewaniuk, The below link is to a HTML file (Right click and select "Save Target" to save page or left click to view) from his original (And best?) CDTV site. (Now available on this site if you are a member of the CDTV USers Club.)
You will need to open your CDTV up after you have made this adapter as it fits internally under chip U75.
For more information on the adapter and how to make / fit it click on the below link.
Joystick / mouse adapter HTML file
Other projects I intend to do.
CDTV 2 A500 Side Expansion port.(This adapter is like the Zorro version but I am currently having problems with tracks needing to cross over one another, I may be able to mount a small PCB to the main PCB like on A4000 Bus boards to solve the problem but I havent tried yet.
Full blown 7 Zorro, 1 CPU slot bus board.
This card will need a A2000 Buster Chip to stop all of the cards swamping the bus at once, The design isnt that hard apart from adding the Buster (Which is a smallish chip) but I have yet to design it.