520 to Falcon, how realistic

[Atari-Jess]

This is more just a curious question than a serious one but,

 

Just how close to a falcon could an old 520 be converted to?

 

Certain things would just be "crazy talk" I'm sure, but stuff like the

CPU could be brought to a 68030, ram expanded to only 4.

1.44mb floppy, add a blitter, add a DSP, add another shifter chip

load into MultiTOS... IDE/SCSI addition...

 

Certainly that would make it a very fancy "high end" if you will ST

wouldn't it?

 

I plan on trying to upgrade my 520 (I have a 1040 as well) not to

that extreme, but I'll get into that later...

[dark willow]

You can't make an ST work exactly like a falcon, but most things are possible, given enough effort, and determination. Some of the upgrades I mention below are for the STe, and i'm not sure if it can be done on normal ST, as the CPU is not socketed, and a lot of things require that (The PAK/30 most importantly). However, there may well be a way around if you are determined enough and don't mind soldering and fiddly hardware work, and have some idea of how to go about it.

 

CPU:

It is possible to upgrade the 68000 8Mhz to a 68030 with a clock speed of around 45Mhz, which is a lot faster than a standard Falcon.

 

RAM:

it's possible to add TT RAM to the ST, which would allow you to have more RAM than the standard Falcon max of 14mb. Theroetcially you an have up to 256mb, though I havn't seen cards allowing that, the largest one I've seen is for 64mb TT RAM. I'm not sure wether or not ST RAM can be expanded beyond the 4mb, though with the TT RAM you wouldn't really have the need to.

 

TOS:

AFAIK you can't run TOS 4.x on the ST, but you can have upto TOS 3.06, or just use MagiC or MiNT.

 

VIDEO:

Panther/ET4000 upgrade will give you VGA graphic modes upto 1024x768 256 colour and a 640x480 Truecolor mode. Better than a standard Falcon.

 

IDE:

There are a couple of options for adding IDE abilities to the ST, but because most drivers were made for SCSI products, you are better off sticking with a SCSI adapter. This would allow you to use large capacity HD's, CD-ROM, CD-RW. A device called Link97 (no longer made but brilliant idea) plugged into the ACSI port and provided an external 25 pin SCSI socket (for Scanners, external drives etc) ready to go. Simple and effective.

 

DSP:

There is no way to add a DSP to the ST as far as I am aware.

 

HD Floppy:

It's possible to replace the floppy controller chip on the ST with a 16Mhz unit that allows HD floppy drive support.

 

How to do it:

Most of hte upgrades come as part of the PAK/30 upgrade which replaces the CPU with a 68030, gives use of TT RAM and TOS upgrade to 3.06. It is however designed I believe for the STe range, hwoever, as I said, it may be possible to work around that.

 

Adding SCSI or IDE support is fairly straightforward and there are several options. The AdSCSI board is easy to fit, simple and reliable, and needs no soldering.

 

There are a cople of kits for upgrading the disk drive controller to 16mhz chip. afaik they are all much of a muchness really. Theoretically solder free, in reality I have no idea, but I suspect not.

 

End Result:

You can make an STe (and probabaly an ST) much more high powered. However it is not a Falcon, but more of a TT. The biggest advantage of the Falcon is it's DSP, and that cannot be replicated on an ST, however in terms of raw power, you can make the system cosniderably better than a stock falcon. It all depends on what you want. You still will not be able to run Falcon specific software, but you will find things work hell of a lot faster, and programs that demand lots of RAM or a 68030 CPU will work. It's worth it if you do data intensive work, converting, compiling etc. (bascially, anything a TT does well) For graphics and sound work, it's not. The best software for graphics work is Falcon only and if you want to do that kind of work you would be better off getting a stock falcon, and getting the new CT63 upgrade, which woudl give you the extra memory and speed, but you'd also have the DSP and comptability you wouldn't get from upgrading the ST.

[Atari-Jess]

The ST upgrading thing is more of a proof of concept thing for myself and

my friend.

 

As much as I would just like to get a falcon then upgrade that, thats 300

(400 or so canadian?) dollars I don't have right now.

 

Saving bits and pieces here and then making some medium sized purchases

is something I can do easier.

 

 

I greatly appreciate your help and anyone who has read to this point and

wants to add, please do.

[Goochman]

So,

 

How do I get VGA output for my Mega 2 ST? Anyone know of any cards anywhere?

[Atari-Jess]

The only thing ive seen for VGA output is monochrome only due to limits

of the Atari and most modern monitors

[Atari-Jess]

I think TT would have been better wordage, anyway here is what I'd like to do.

 

= Build the Mach16 addon board using a 68010 (hey even a few percentage

better performance is better than stock)

= upgrade to 2.5mb ram (gets out his soldering iron)

= new case. (how easy is this for modern ATX cases?)

= keyboard/mouse mod

= SCSI mod (I need some schematics for a build-yer-own)

= 1.44mb floppy drive mod

 

And I think thats it. I'd like to get the 2.06 OS rom upgrade chips

but I know its going to cost me too much(anyone out there feel free to prove

me wrong keeping in mind its a 520STfm)

 

Those are the mods that I can see being not-so-difficult. The RAM upgrade

taking the longest, (I'm gonna solder wires to simms) but the Mach16

costing the most...

[atarianer2003]

RAM:

Theroetcially you an have up to 256mb, though I havn't seen cards allowing that, the largest one I've seen is for 64mb TT RAM.

 

The MagnumTT card can take 2 128MB PS/2-SIMM's

 

Mike

[+doctorclu]

I have one of those. So far I have only been able to get 32 meb working stabiliy, but then the memory I used was probably bad.