XVI Excel 040/060 Accelerator

[hyperneogeo]

Definitely a Doujin effort. I spent quite a bit of time trying to find the drivers for this...I eventually had to contact a Japanese guy on Mixi about it. What's interesting is these share the same base drivers as the Jupiter. The guy who wrote the drivers also worked on the Jupiter drivers themselves. This also has a slot for a 128mb sdram.

These were sold for about $400 on release in 2000 without a CPU, oscillator, ram.





As you can see it requires some rewiring.



Now the problem is, the accelerator itself does not seem to work. I replaced the 74xx646 logic in the sockets as they seemed very crusty and the oscillator..which leads me to believe that the 040 itself may be the problem. Apparently they are known for killing themselves because of the heat they give off (this had no heatsink on it). When booting up in the accelerator mode (there's a switch) on the back of the x68k...a blue LED comes on. However when I do that it just stays at a blank screen and the CPU seems to get quite hot.

When I boot the driver disk without the 040 on, the system says it can't find the 040 and just quits. So obviously it has to be on for it to do anything.

I also spent some time translating the instructions for installing the modifications. Though it's kind of vague heh.

http://www.gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:040excel_necessary_modifications

Anyone have an extra 040 CPU that I can test?

XC68LC040RC25
XC68LC040RC33
MC68040RC33   

I've also seen pictures/talked to a guy that has modded his for a 060. Basically what it requires is a CZ-6BE2a memory board + the 060 jupiter bios roms. It doesn't work in the XVI's own bios rom slot because it conflicts with it or something?

[hyperneogeo]

Interesting thing to note...if you add a PC-100 SDRAM memory stick even though the 040 accelerator is not active, it will fill the 12mb up in regular 68000 mode.

[RobIvy64]

Wow, a full 68040 with MMU certainly needs a heatsink. They run hotter than 68060s!

I wonder if it will have the same compatibility issues with games as they do on the Amigas and Macs. The 68040 isn't a great CPU

[hyperneogeo]

Wow, a full 68040 with MMU certainly needs a heatsink. They run hotter than 68060s!

I wonder if it will have the same compatibility issues with games as they do on the Amigas and Macs. The 68040 isn't a great CPU

Well if this works..I'm going to ask about upgrading it to a 68060 which should prove to be interesting!