Building the GBA1000: Part 0x00

The GBA1000 is a replacement motherboard developed by the uber amiga-expert Georg Braun for the A1000 computer by Commodore. The idea is to keep the same form factor of the original motherboard, but reworking the components and the circuit to obtain one of the most powerful ECS-based Amiga available: Motorola 68030 50Mhz processor (vs the 68000 7Mhz of the original A1000), 2Mb Chip RAM + 8Mb Fast RAM (vs 256Kb), onboard IDE (vs nothing), Zorro II expansion slot... etc etc etc.

The (almost) bare GBA1000 PCB

Mixed blessing of this project is that it uses the original Amiga chipset, which means you get full compatibility (You can even say this device is an original, albeit non-Commodore, Amiga: which is not something completely new), it also means you'll have to track down hard-to-get custom chips to complete this project. Yep, you have to build this device yourself!

Right now I only have a minimal part of the required components, but I'll slowly try to fix that by gutting dead boards I have around, buying from re-sellers and attempting to find some at flea-markets.

First RAM chips soldered in!

I decided to start with the 16 CY7C1049 ram chips, as those are SOJ (SMD components with the tiny legs bending on the inside) and it was the first time I soldered that kind of components. The hardest part was making sure the solder connecting the pads to the legs flowed correctly. A liberal amount of flux helped.

Even if I have a lot of the DIP components, I'll solder them last, as they would make reaching the pads for SMD components a lot trickier.

Wish me good luck!