ACA 630/25 Stealth Accelerator for the Amiga 600 computer
Features
FULL 68030 running at 25Mhz (With MMU)
32MB of Fast Memory (SDRAM surface mounted)
Fully compatible with expansions installed in the A600 PCMCIA port
Re-Kick option from software
Secured onto motherboard via hard drive cradle holes
Compatible with
CF hard disk drives only - due to space restrictions inside the A600 case
ACA630 Images © 2010 Individual Computers GmbH - reproduced here with permission.
The new
ACA630-25 Stealth is an accelerator for the Amiga 600 that's a lot faster than you might think, judging by it's moderate clock frequency. The cause for the outstanding performance is the high-speed memory that comes pre-assembled on the card: 32 MByte SD-Ram connected to the 68030 processor at optimal speeds. As a result, the
ACA630-25 is about 24% faster than an Amiga 3000 that's clocked at the same frequency. To reach this high performance, we've clocked the memory twice as fast as the processor, and we skipped on an FPU (floating-point unit). We think that this gives more benefits than drawbacks, because the ACA630-25 is made for everyday use, for games and simple applications on the Workbench- you require integer performance for this, and this is where the ACA630-25 excels.
The
ACA630 introduces radical new mounting and cooling solutions: two small screws keep the card in place, and an anodized aluminium cooler serves as a replacement for the harddrive cradle, which must be removed. We recommend a
flash-based mass-storage solution, as a real harddrive would cause too much heat and also would not fit under the keyboard.
The ACA630 is designed to fit with our other products. Even with the limited space inside the A600 case, the
A603 memory expansion and
Indivision ECS fit nicely with the
ACA630.
If you have removed your internal floppy drive in favour of an
Indivision ECS, the
ACA630 can assist in two ways to get around the long wait that's caused by the missing drive: You can either build a completely floppy-less system by setting the
No Disk jumper, or you can turn an external floppy drive into the
df0: drive, which lets you boot games and other track-loading programs.
ACA630 Images © 2010 Individual Computers GmbH - reproduced here with permission.
If you need to run very old software that will only work on the 68000 processor, the
ACA630 can be completely disabled.
There are more optimizations under the hood that can be selected conveniently with the
ACAtune software tool:
The MapRom function allows copying the kickstart-rom (256k, 512k or 1MB) to fastmem and use it like a normal ROM there. This speeds up most operations significantly, because large parts of the operating system are located in the kickstart ROM. The MapRom function is similar to the Fastrom-option that the Amiga OS CPU command offers. However, the ACA630 does not requrie the MMU for that. If you require the MMU for a different use, there will be no conflict.
Re-Kick:
Similar to MapRom, a Kickstart image is stored in Fastmem where it will apear just like a ream ROM chip to the user. The different is that the Re-Kick option does not use the Kickstart ROM as a source, but a file from your harddisk. After a re-boot, the new Kickstart is available, and it stays active until the next power cycle. The ACA acceperators are the first commercially available products that support true 1MB kickstarts!
c0mem:
This will simulate an Amiga 500 memory expansion of 1MByte or 512k. Some games and programs require this exact memory configuration and would not work at all, despite the large amount of memory in the system: They just don't support 32-bit memory. The A500 memory expansion is within 24-bit boundaries, so this special software can run on an
ACA630 equipped A600, but it would not work at all without it.
Fastchip:
This option allows faster access to Chipmem (graphics mem) of the accelerated Amiga. Please note that this is a tuning option that may or may not work with all Amigas or Chipmem expansions. You'll have to verify this for your particular Amiga.
FastZ2:
This option speeds up PCMCIA memory expansions. Just like with the FastChip option, there may be setups that cannot handle this kind of acceleration. This tuning-option must be verified for your individual setup. If in doubt, you should switch it off!
Chipcache:
Typically, the CPU caches are switched off for Chipmem, otherwise certain actions may cause crashes. However, there are certain configurations where you may want to allow caches for Chipmem. Consider this a tuning-option for experts who truly know what they're doing!
z2cache:
This will activate CPU caches for PCMCIA memory cards.
noFastMem:
Allows to switch off 32-bit fast memory. This will slow down the system significantly, so software that doesn't run well on an accelerated Amiga can be used again.
As a final downgrade option, you can limit the amount of available Chipmem: Games or programs that cannot cope with larger amounts of Chipmem can be made compatible by reduciong the Chipmem size to 1MB or even 512k.
Don't Forget:
ACA 1230/28 Accelerator
A603 Memory Expansion
Indivision ECS Scandoubler / Flicker Fixer (Internal)