This version of the ACA1221lc comes on a red circuit board.
This accelerator comes with a 68ec020 processor (guaranteed to run at 26.67MHz) and 16MBytes physical memory. 11.2MBytes of this physical memory can be used as fastmem, and 1 MByte is reserved for a fast copy of the Kickstart ROM. The CPU speed can be switched in four steps between 14MHz and 40MHz. Overclocking the card beyond 26.67MHz will require active cooling and a very good power supply; operation at this high speed is not guaranteed.
The ACA1221lc features our IDE speeder technology that accelerates reading from the internal IDE port. Other than competing products, this IDE speeder does not require opening the computer or even removing chips from their socket. The IDE speedup to PIO mode 3 is activated with a software setting and reaches a raw data transfer rate of 10.2 MBytes per second, which results in every-day performance of 3.6MBytes/s with fast CF cards. Fast harddrives with cache may exceed 7MBytes/s performance. The IDE speeder feature is not available if connected to an ACA500 or ACA500plus.
The ACA1221lc is prepared for use with our forthcoming ACA2000, where it will provide up to 11.9MBytes of fastmem. More memory configurations allow for using Zorro cards without conflicts.
ChipMem access speed has been greatly improved in comparison to the ACA1220, which will help eliminating the so-called "Turrican slowdowns" and other WHDload game hickups. Although the card is running asynchronously to the A1200, synchronous ChipMem speed can be achieved while maintaining full PCMCIA compatibility. In addition, the slowest speed setting of the card (14MHz) is synchronous to the A1200, which means that it can run cycle-exact for best compatibility with games and demos that require the original A1200 speed.
The ACA1221lc has much faster memory performance than most older designs with a 68020 processor. The modern 3.3V SD-Ram is clocked at 80MHz, resulting in 0-waitstate access most of the times. Although the clock speed is a bit lower than the speed of the predecessor ACA1221ec, the overall performance of the ACA1221lc is better, because the memory can be run using faster access sequences. This results in a lower probability of wait states compared to the ACA1221ec. In numbers: Although clocked about 6.5% slower, the resulting performance is 8.9% higher than with the ACA1221ec (measured with Sysinfo).
As with our previous ACA12xx accelerators, the ACA1221lc supports the popular 1MB Maprom option. Maprom allows you to increase ROM access speed by copying the Kickstart ROM into an especially-reserved memory space. This will improve real life performance considerably, but it will also enable you to load any higher version or patched version of a Kickstart ROM. The ACA1221lc supports MapROM at power-up: By setting a jumper, the Kickstart ROM is copied to the reserved space automatically, so you don't need to install any MapROM tool.
In addition to that, the ACA1221lc makes sure that the exec base in cacheable 32-bit fastmem. This is another "first" that we've introduced to the world of 68020/68030 accelerators for the A1200.
Another huge improvement over older accelerators is memory mapping to the legacy 0x00c0.0000 address. This is the location where many A500 games expect a trapdoor memory expansion. The ACA1221lc card gives a good compatibility boost only because of this little chunk of memory in the right place.
The ACA1221lc has two clock ports for expansions: The clock port is mainly meant for an RTC module, but it can also be used to connect any clockport device that has been designed for the A1200. It's a straight copy of the A1200 internal clockport: Very early A1200 board versions do not have a usable clockport, so this port will come in handy for owners of such a board. More details about possibilities and limitations of this port can be found in our technical Wiki.
The second clockport is specifically designed for the RapidRoad USB host controller: It is considerably faster than a normal A1200 clock port, which will result in considerably higher USB transfer rates. This means you will be able to install USB in an A1200 without opening the computer! This port can also be used with a Subway USB controller. Both physical expansion ports can only be used with an A1200 or the forthcoming ACA500plus. Clockports cannot be used on the ACA500.
Package contains:
- Accelerator with RAM and CPU assembled
- short installation manual
You will need in addition to that:
- transfer method for the ACAtool to your Amiga (free download from our wiki)
- motherboard patches as described by Commodore: A1200 capacitors E123C and E125C may need to be removed.
Processors on this card are used and may have scratches. Heat sink assembled as standard.