Building the GBA1000: Part 0x02

Ok, good news and bad news.
Bad first: I found out that the SRAM chips I got together (CY7C1049CV33-15VXC) with the GBA1000 mobo are not rated for 5v, but for 3.3v. I did not bother to check because the two got sold together as a kit... Lesson learned: ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK THE DATASHEET!!!

Building the GBA1000: Part 0x01

Finally finished installing the 16 main RAM chips. This was probably one of the hardest SMD components to solder with a standard soldering iron (being of the SOJ type). The next hard one will be the 29F800 flash chip, which has a thin leg pitch.

Next step: make a detailed inventory of what I need and what I'm missing to continue the build...

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

First prototype of the AKAB (Amiga Keyboard Adapter Board)

I've finally received the printed boards for my prototype of the AKAB: the Amiga Keyboard Adapter Board I designed!
The purpose of this device is connecting a cheap & common PS/2 compatible keyboard to Amiga big-box (like the A1000, A2000 etc.) and Amiga 500 computers. The design is pretty simple, and involves a single active component (an Atmega 328P microcontroller) and a few passive ones. Everything is through-hole, so it's pretty easy to build.

Here is the first built proto:

First AKAB prototype

The weird Amiga "Cubo" CD32

Before people started thinking that modding consoles to fit them inside an arcade cabinet is a cool thing, a little known Italian company called C.D. Express decided to take standard Amiga CD32s (which, funnily enough, is a consolized version of the Amiga 1200 home computer), slap a sticker on them. fit them with an expansion provided with a JAMMA connector  and sell the resulting combo as multi-game, cd-based arcade boards. The SISTEMA CUBO CD32 was born.

BTW, "cubo" in italian means "cube". Do you see anything remotely cubic in this thing?