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Fast
Falcon
Registered CT60
developer Roger Burrows tests the supersonic
accelerator from France
I took delivery
of my CT60 in July 2003, after quite a wait
- but it was worth it. Rodolphe Czuba, who developed
the well-known CT2 upgrade board, has produced
another fine piece of hardware that runs most
existing Atari software at blinding speeds.
![[Photo: CT60 fan]](images/ct60re01.jpg)
A quick tour For those who
haven't heard, the CT60 is a Falcon add-on board,
which allows you to
run most programs on the on-board 68060 at 66
MHz or faster. Since
the 68060 can do more in a single clock cycle
than the 68030 in a standard
Falcon, and since the CT60 runs at four times
the clock speed of
a standard Falcon, the overall CPU performance
improvement is
huge. Combine that with on-board memory of up
to 512 MB, and you have
a powerful system. The CT60 uses the existing
Falcon hardware (keyboard,
mouse, video, floppy, IDE, SCSI...) to communicate
with the outside
world, which enhances compatibility, although
it does mean that those
functions are not accelerated in the same way.
The CT60 can
be installed with or without soldering, which
is one of the aspects that attracted me in the
first place (I'm a coward about hacking my precious
Falcon). If you choose the "no solder"
installation, the motherboard continues to run
at 16 MHz, so most communications with the outside
world, including the video display, are unaccelerated.
The "solder" option requires you to
connect six wires to the motherboard, as well
as some other small modifications, in order
to run the motherboard at 20 or 25 MHz; this
provides a 25 to 50% acceleration of some motherboard
functions, including video. If you would like
the accelerated motherboard, but are not comfortable
with doing the modifications, Rodolphe will
do the job for you, at a very reasonable price.
The CT60 can
be booted in 68060 or 68030 mode; in 68030 mode,
the 68060 and on-board memory are ignored, and
the system will behave exactly as a stock Falcon.
This is a nice safety feature in case you need
to use any software that won't work with the
68060.
A CT60-equipped
Falcon can't use the standard Falcon power supply;
in fact the Falcon power supply must be removed
to provide space for fitting the CT60. The CT60
must be connected to a standard ATX-style power
supply, and the motherboard is actually powered
via the CT60. ATX power supplies are inexpensive
and widely available, and a side benefit of
using an ATX supply is that it's possible to
power down the system from the keyboard. However,
it does mean that you will probably want to
recase your Falcon. It is possible (although
I haven't tried it) to fit the CT60 itself into
a standard Falcon case; however, that means
the ATX supply would be external, which is a
bit of a hack.
The CT60 comes
with its own configuration CPX, which has many
features, including a couple of "gee-whiz"
items: you can display the temperature of the
68060 chip (and a graph of the same over the
past hour too if you wish), and you can set
the system to shut itself down at a predetermined
time.
![[Photo: CT60 expansion bus]](images/ct60re02.jpg)
The waiting
game To continue to support a computer
system that has not been manufactured for close
to a decade, a lot of mutual trust is required.
Users trust that developers will continue to
support their favourite system; and developers
trust that users will actually want to use that
new product they have sweated over for the last
year or more. As someone who is usually on the
developer side of the fence, I found it an interesting
experience to be a user for a change.
The worst part
of the whole experience for me was the wait.
I originally ordered the board in November 2001,
and by May 2002, Rodolphe had received the boards
(all 150 of them) from the assembly company.
However, due to a number of firmware bugs, the
board still had not been shipped to users by
the end of 2002 and I was disappointed although
not disheartened. Finally, in June 2003, Rodolphe
announced that he had the board working, and
I received my board in July 2003, about 20 months
after my initial order.
Not all smooth
sailing In fact, I was one of 20 developers
to receive a board in advance of the majority
- kind of a hardware beta test. I decided that
a "no solder" installation was a good
choice to start with, since it minimised the
number of changes I had to make. I installed
the ATX power supply and the CT60 board in my
recased Falcon, and plugged in my 512 MB(!)
SDRAM memory module. I connected everything
up carefully, and checked things a dozen times
before powering on in 68060 mode. The bad news
is that the board did not work; the good news
is that I wasn't surprised.
By the time I'd
installed my board, Rodolphe had identified
some additional firmware bugs, updated the firmware
and posted the new firmware to his web site.
Just one small problem - to load the new firmware
required a special cable that wasn't provided
with the CT60.
The choices at
that time were: make one from scratch (cost
of parts about $30 Canadian) or order one from
Xilinx (cost about $100 US) and hack it slightly.
My frugal side won out and a few days later
I had a working cable. After uploading the latest
firmware, and making sure that my software was
set up appropriately (including patched versions
of XCONTROL and GENERAL.CPX on my boot partition),
I booted in 68060 mode again, and saw the welcome
sight of the TOS desktop.
At this stage,
the system was quite usable, so I started to
use and test software (including ExtenDOS Gold
and CD Writer Suite of course). All of the "modern"
software that I tested seemed to work fine,
but I ran into a couple of problems: the system
crashed when trying to open a floppy from the
TOS desktop, and to recover I had to power off
the system because the reset button didn't work.
Both problems were fixed within a couple of
weeks, thanks to hard work by Rodolphe and Didier
Méquignon (who developed and programmed the
patches to TOS used by the CT60). Since that
time, the firmware package has been very stable
and has not needed updating, so that carefully
constructed cable of mine has been gathering
dust.
Faster yet! The
CT60 runs well at a clock speed of 66 MHz using
a standard 68060, but even faster speeds are
available if you have a special version of the
68060! During the life of the 68060, Motorola
changed the way the chip was manufactured, as
chip-manufacturing technology progressed; each
change has a different "chip mask"
designation. The last chip mask used was E41J,
and chips with this designation are capable
of running at up to 100 MHz with the CT60, thanks
to firmware changes made by Rodolphe in November
2003.
![[Photo: 100 MHz oscillator]](images/ct60re03.jpg)
Compatibility In
general, the CT60 is highly compatible with
existing Atari software (Rodolphe's web site
has an extensive compatibility list). Any compatibility
problems seem to be cache-related, similar to
those faced by anyone with an Atari system using
a 68040 or 68060. In many cases, you can circumvent
problems by setting the program flags so that
the program is loaded into ST RAM.
The only major
piece of software that I had to change was the
control panel. Being a traditionalist, I use
XCONTROL, which needs a patch (the alternate
control panel COPS works without modifications).
No matter which control panel you use, you need
an updated GENERAL.CPX to manage the 68060's
caches. Users of MagiC, Cubase Audio, and Calamus
also need patches. All the patches are distributed
with the CT60 software package, available by
download from Rodolphe's web site.
Although I needed
a special cable to load updated versions of
the firmware, most users should not need one.
The firmware is stable and the CT60 is shipped
with the latest firmware. If you do need a cable,
you now have another option: a Xilinx-compatible
cable from http://www.seytronix.com,
which sells for about $20 US. It does need changes
to both connectors to work with the CT60, but
so does the official Xilinx cable, which costs
five times as much. I bought one, but haven't
yet had the time to make the changes and test
it.
Past, present
and future The original production run
of 150 CT60s was pretty much sold out before
any shipped, and I was very happy to get one.
Earlier this year, Rodolphe arranged for a second
production run, and I've ordered one from that
for my second Falcon. There may still be some
CT60s available from the second run - I encourage
you to check with Rodolphe. In addition, some
European Atari enthusiasts are currently developing
an accelerated video board for the CT60, and
I'm planning to get one for each of my Falcons.
The bottom
line The CT60 works well and provides
plenty of power. Rodolphe Czuba has provided
yet another major hardware advance to the Atari
world, and thanks to his hardware/firmware skills
and the help of Didier Méquignon's excellent
software package, the CT60 is a "must have"
product for Falcon owners. Five stars out of
five!
Verdict
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Name:
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CT60
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Developer:
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Czuba-Tech
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Requires:
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Atari Falcon
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Price:
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299
Euro (including 66 MHz
68060 with FPU/PMMU)
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Pros:
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-
Straightforward installation in "no solder"
mode
- Very
fast (arguably fastest)
Atari system at
a reasonable price
- 68030/68060
mode provides high
compatibility
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Cons:
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-
Falcon
needs re-casing
to avoid "home-brew"
look
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Rating:
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