If you're an Amiga enthusiast, or happen to have an Amiga kicking around your home that hasn't been used in eons, you may be interested to learn of a brand-new accelerator that can breathe new life into these old boxes. Think of it as a way to experience what the Amiga could have been like if future generation parts were available back then.

Called the Vampire V4, this FPGA device will be sold in a few configurations, including one that will function as as a standalone system. Conversely, it can be used as an add-in accelerator card for the classic Amiga 500, 1000, 1200, and 2000 systems, though it'll require a special adapter to work in an Amiga 600.



Amiga's 1000; Credit: Ubcule (Wikipedia)

Previous Vampire accelerators have been well-accepted by Amiga fans, so it stands to reason that the Vampire 4, with its beefier specs, could enable some record benchmarks and smoother gaming. On tap is 512MB of memory (spec'd at 1GB/s), and Altera's Cyclone V A5 SoC, built on a 28nm process.

While Vampire products are designed to complement the desires of Amiga purists by enhancing the performance of classic machines, there are some additional features that users could enable as well, such as output to 720p/60 via HDMI, as well as support for a microSD card.

While smoother gaming on modern displays stands to be the most major reason why anyone would opt for an Amiga accelerator, these add-in cards can make the OS itself a lot smoother to use as well, and multi-tasking won't be quite as limited.

Pricing isn't available at this time, and cards aren't expected to ship until later in the year. However, even for a few hundred dollars, it's a small price for Amiga diehards to experience a fast Amiga without going the emulation route.



Now, for something equally as cool, go read our how-to on building a killer Amiga Emulator with Rasberry Pi for under $100.