How to test PCMCIA card?

[Andrew]

Hi everyone

Got my PCMCIA RAM card through the post today for my 600. What I was wondering is what can I do to make sure the computer has recognised it and is working? Thanks for the help.

[RetroMan]

I assume you bought a Fast-Ram Card for PCMCIA, right ? So just open a shell (CLI) and type AVAIL ! If there is fast-ram displayed, your card works properly (of course it must show the correct amount of ram too :D ) .....

[Uukrul]

Please, can you try some WHDLoad games with the PCMIA card installed to see if that games suffer slowdowns with the card on?

A good example is Jaguar XJ220 (with 2 MB of chip ram is slow as hell). Next week I'll get a hardrive for my A600 (ebay.de is great!) and if PCMIA card runs well with WHDLoad games I'll get one :)

If you don't have WHD disks I can upload them to the zone.

[Andrew]

On the cards its says its a "Mitsubishi 256KB SRAM" card

when i typed the AVAIL command it showed:

AVAILABLE
CHIP 1983288
FAST 59832
TOTAL 2043120

So i guess that means it work?? I have a 1 MB trapdoor expansion too, just to let u know.

Uukrul -> Yeah could you upload the disks please. would 256KB affect gameplay at all with WHDLoad games?

Thanks

[RetroMan]

Uhm, yes it seems to work, but why on earth did you buy a 256KB card :confused It´s really useless since most of your fast ram is eaten up by WB (that´s why you only have 59832 Bytes left of 256KB) and that minimal amount of fast-ram won´t speed up anything :(

[Andrew]

It was dirt cheap so I thought i might give it a go.

[jmmijo]

Well, if it was under $1 (USD) then yes it was dirt cheap, any more then that then it wasn't ;)

So just how large a memory card can you use on the PCMCIA slot of either an A600 or A1200??

[Uukrul]

Originally posted by jmmijo
So just how large a memory card can you use on the PCMCIA
slot of either an A600 or A1200??

I saw at ebay months ago a Boeder card with 2 megs of RAM (2 modules of 1 meg)

@Andrew: Jaguar XJ220 uploaded, give it a try with and without the card connected and tell us your experience :)

[jmmijo]

But it seems to me that there are cards that have upwards of 512MB on them now. Of course most of these are the smart media type of cards rather then PCMCIA type. Also doesn't the slot on these both these Amiga models only support Type-I cards?

[rgen]

A pcmcia card on Amiga 600/1200 can have up to 4MB of ram. (in the range $600000 to $9fffff so you can have only 4MB other fast ram in the trap door if it is configured in the lower 16MB range for 68000/68ec020 cpus).

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by rgen A pcmcia card on Amiga 600/1200 can have up to 4MB of ram. (in the range $600000 to $9fffff so you can have only 4MB other fast ram in the trap door if it is configured in the lower 16MB range for 68000/68ec020 cpus).

This makes sense, thanks for the info rgen :)