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knowledge base channel: /home/knowledge base/amiga hardware reference manual

roles of the amiga custom chipset:

Agnus:
Responsible for controlling 25 system DMA channels, the generation of system clocks in some Amiga models and for addressing Chip RAM.
Agnus contains the Blitter, Copper, and DMA circuitry.
The Copper co-processor is also found in Agnus.

Chip Name Size Chip Numbers Part Number Agnus 512K 8361 R3 Agnus 512K 8370 Agnus 1MB 8371 Agnus 1MB 8372 A Agnus 2MB 8372 B Agnus 2MB 8375 318069-10 Agnus 2MB 8375 318069-11
Akiko:
Only found in the CD32 and is responsible for Chunky to Planar conversion and for controlling the CDROM.
Alice:
The Alice(8374) is responsible for controlling 25 system DMA channels, and addressing Chip RAM.
Inside Alice is a Blitter which is designed to move blocks of memory at high speed as well as performing logic operations on that memory. The AGA Copper is also found in Alice.
Alice is found only in AGA equipped Amiga's and is AGA's equivalent of Agnus.

Chip Name Size Chip Number Part Number Alice 2MB 8374 391010-01
Amber:
This chip is only found in two models of Amiga. The A3000 and the A3000T (may also exist in the A3500T but is unconfirmed).
It handles the scandoubler of Amiga native screens for output to an SVGA/VGA monitor.
The same chip also appears on the Commodore A2320 scandoubler card.
Bridgette:
Found only in the A4000 and handles the bridge logic.

Chip Number Part Number -01 3913780
Daphne:
No information currently available.
Denise:
The Denise is responsible for handling the native screen modes and colour generation and has support for up to eight hardware sprites.

Chip Name Chip Number Part Number Denise 8362 R6 Denise 8362 R8 Super-Denise (ECS) 8373 R4 391081-01
Paula:
Paula has a multitude of functions. Primarily it controls sound generation and acts as the Amigas floppy drive controller.
It also handles disk I/O and has an interrupt for various system operations.

Chip Chip Number Revision Paula 8364 R4 Paula 8364 R7 391077-01
Budgie:
No information currently available.
Super Buster:
Found in models:-
A3000 - (Usually Rev 05, 06, 07)
A3000T - (Usually Rev 05, 06, 07)
A4000 - (Usually Rev 09, 11)
A4000T - (Usually Rev 11)
Boxer (Unconfirmed but likely due to its Z3 slots) (Probably Rev 11).
Buster is usually used in reference to the Zorro Controller chip in the A3000 and A4000 series machines.
However, technically its the Zorro controller chip in some A2000's and the Zorro III controller version is called Super Buster.
Revisions 05, 06, 07 have no support for Zorro III DMA .
Revision 09 tries to implement Zorro III DMA but is bugged and generally fails.
Upgrading to revision 11 buster is generally a good idea as it fixes many of the DMA problems with Zorro III and is also faster than the earlier versions.

Chip Number Part Number -05 -06 -07 -09 (390539) 84pin PLCC, (390537) -11
Gary:
Gary is responsible for the functioning of the address decoder and bus controller.
It creates the control signals for all the chips in the Amiga, as well as VPA and DTACK for the processor. Also Gary contains the reset logic and the 'flip-flop' for the disk drive.
The A2000B was based on the A500 circuitry, which used Fat Agnus and Gary Chips.
Gayle:
The Gayle chip is responsible for handling the IDE bus in the A600, A1200 and A4000.

Chip Name Chip Number Revision Gayle 45 391155-02
Lisa:
The Lisa is responsible for handling the native screen modes and colour generation and has support for up to eight hardware sprites.
Lisa can handle many video modes and resolutions supporting up to 256 colours per screen, HAM-8 (262,144 colours on screen), and EHB (Extra Half Brite) from a palette of 16.77 million colours.
It can also do 2 x 32bit fetch cycles to memory.
Lisa is only found in AGA equipped Amiga's and is AGA's equivalent of Denise.

Chip Number Part Number 4203R2-01 391227
Keyboard MPU:

Chip Name Part Package 6571R6PL N/A 391079-01 44pin PLCC A600 Keyboard Controller N/A KEYBOARD MPU REV 0 391508-01 44pin PLCC A1200 Keyboard Controller
Portia:
No information currently available.
Ramsey:
Found in:-
A3000 (Usually rev 04)
A3000T (Rev 07 in 040 versions)
A4000T (Rev 07)
Controls part of the on board SCSI in the A3000(T) and A4000T in combination with the DMac.
There are some problems with revision 04 of Ramsey when used with some AA3640 processor boards.
Ramsey 04 is normally used in combination with DMac 02
Ramsey 07 is normally used in combination with DMac 04
NB You can't use Rev 07 Ramsey with Rev 02 DMac! and you can't use Rev 04 Ramsey with Rev 04 Dmac.

Chip Number Part Number -03 -04 -07 390541
Super DMac:
Found In:-
A3000 (Usually rev 02)
A3000T (Rev 04 in 040 versions)
A4000T (Rev 04) (NOT ordinary A4000's)
Controls part of the on board SCSI in the A3000(T) and the A4000T in combination with the Ramsey.
Ramsey 04 is normally used in combination with DMac 02
Ramsey 07 is normally used in combination with DMac 04
NB You can't use Rev 07 Ramsey with Rev 02 DMac! and you can't use Rev 04 Ramsey with Rev 04 Dmac.

Chip Number Part Number -01 -02 390563 (84pin PLCC) -04


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