a314 VS pistorm

The retro-computer enthusiast has increasingly to grapple with not only runaway computer prices, but the astronomical cost of vintage peripherals. A welcome solution in some cases comes from the Raspberry Pi, which has proved itself fast enough to emulate those add-ons for a lot less outlay. A good one comes from [Niklas Ekström], who’s made a Pi-based network adapter for the Commodore Amiga 1200. Better still it doesn’t hog the main expansion port or the PCMCIA slot, instead it sits on the 1200’s rarely-used real-time-clock port. Software wise it uses an updated version of his earlier project for the Amiga 500. It provides access to the Pi command prompt, as well as a SANA driver and a mounted file system.

On the A500 there was the A314 which had shared memory with the chipram and hence could do funky stuff. The PiStorm on the A500 couldn't do that as it didn't connect to chipram[1]. Some of the functionality was ported to the PiStorm stuff but I don't know enough about the A1200 expansion port to know if it can connect to chipram or not.

Have you seen the Motorola MC68000 drop-in replacement projet - that started for Commodore Amiga? https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm

Computers: 1. Commodore 64 Pi1541 - emulates 1541 floppy drive for Commodore 64. Video review 2. Amiga RGB2HDMI - convert Amiga's RGB video signal into friendly HDMI output. Video review 3. Amiga Pistorm - emulates faster version of Motorola 68000 CPU. Theoretically, can be used in any machine that uses 68k chip. But I hear mostly about Amiga Pistorm implementation. Basically, Pi Zero emulates faster CPU, video modes, acts as HDD storage, HDMI output etc. Pistorm does what popular Amiga accelerator boards do for hundreds of space bucks. Video review

What fun! It's so good to see these systems still in use.

The Amiga community never fails to impress. In addition to modern updates to AmigaDOS (3.2.1 is great), there are projects to replace battery damaged motherboards, to replace hard-to-find custom chips, to offer brand new accelerators, and to even use a Raspberry Pi as an inexpensive accelerator (https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm) for those on a budget.

2 years to get a PiStorm amiga accelerator at a decent price (https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm) due to chip shortage.

Finally managed to get 3 PiStorm boards (for a more decent price than the scams off ebay), but I have only one Pi 3B, and the 3A+ or Zero 2 are nowhere to be found

Only option is to buy 3B/B+ which are a little more common, at 3x+ the price, and unsolder the usb connector.

Sure feels like back in the amiga days when I was waiting for the Emplant to emulate a PC and whatnot... or waiting for Gateway, Escom, etc... to do something useful...

Come to think of it, it's a perfect retro experience WITH post-1994 frustrations of waiting with constant hopes and failures as a bonus :)

No arguments here: https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm

This isn't a Raspberry Pi powered Amiga. (Which is a thing, see PiStorm: https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm)

This is just a Raspberry Pi running an emulator. Any computer could do this.

All links (incl. Discord) and info at https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm