ICD Adspeed/AdIDE CF Drive/KS 2.05 Hardware pr0n

[Dropcheck]

This is for Zetr0!

Don't see many of these on Ebay or here for that matter. It may not be as sexy as a soupedup A1200 or A4000, but my little A500 with ICD AdSpeed/AdIDE is doing just fine.

It all started today when the wind was blowing and the snow was falling and I had a day off. Oh the things you can get into with time on your hands.

I had an A500 stock with KS 1.3 rev 6A motherboard and a KS 2.05 ROM lying around the apartment. Just then I realized I had just recieved an ICD Adspeed/AdIde board off of Ebay. So naturally I had to do something with it. So out came my tools, a six pack of MGD and the rest of the day.

One of the first things I did was search the web for drivers/install disks for the ICD board. I also went looking for a manual. I came up with next to nothing. RedskullDC pointed me to AdSpeed manual/software on http://amiga.resource.cx I was able to find a driver for the AdIDE there too. No manual. I had some months ago pulled a huge dl of files from the alt.binaries.emulators.amiga newsgroup. Now I don't necessarily condone trading in illegal files, but in this case it was an a$s saver. Anyway on to the pics.

It's just a A500. Nothing to write home about.


Just the usual insides.



Until now I had been flying through the early stages of this upgrade/mod. All of a sudden I came to a screeching halt. That CPU seemed to be glued into the socket. And it had to come out if I was going to install the ICD board. Finally after much and . I was able to pry the chip out of the cement socket. After that I had to rest. A couple beers later I pried the OS chip out too. Now I had a Kickstart switcher that I wanted to install, but I took a look at the clearence between the OS chip top and the bottom of the ICD board that overhung the OS socket and there wasn't any.

Okay... well... I decided to scrap that idea. I figured it was better using the KS 2.05 and WB 2.1 anyway. So fairly easily I inserted the KS 2.05 chip into its socket. Now I was ready to install the ICD board.



Uptil now I thought it couldn't get any more stressful. I mean everything I had heard about this board said it was just dropin, close it up and turn and burn. Don't believe it! I swear I went thorough half the six pack just trying to figure out how to seat the board without breaking a freaking irratitating little cap on the mb.





But finally I was able to work the cap around and nudge it just far enough so that the edge of the board cleared the edge of the cap. Jeeze!!



Almost there. I celebrated with a fresh bottle of beer

Now I was ready to attach the storage device. The board came with a IDE cable and Toshiba 1.4G 2.5" laptop drive. Now I wasn't in possession of the manual so I had no idea how to power the drive. I wasn't sure I could power the drive from the board. So I decided why not try a CF drive. First I tried to replace the IDE cable it came with with a PC standard IDE. D'oh! It wouldn't fit. The ICD connector was 44 pin. Not just any ole laptop connector, no it was nearly half again the size.

I've never seen this big a connector, it was almost as big as a SCSI 50 pin connector. Okay so I went back to the original cable. It was custom made. One end fit in the ICD connector and the other had a normal IDE 44 pin female connector married onto that end. Okay well I think I can work with that. I had a CF adapter with a male 44 IDE connector and a 256MB Lexar CF card laying around. Okay I can do this I thought. So.....



The connector was keyed, but the CF adapter wasn't. There was a pin in the 10th hole on the bottom row on the cable. So the male pins on the CF adapter were not going to fit. Could I break off the corresponding pin on the CF adapter? I wasn't getting anywhere otherwise, so I put down my reservations and broke the pin off. I connected the cable and adapter and CF card and begain to reassemble the case.



It was a tight fit on the metal shield. I ended up having to leave off the metal bracket on the expansion slot. There was just no way I could screw the screws holding it down in.

Now came the ultimate test. Would the A500 boot? Or would the lights flicker, flames shoot out of the top of the case and the smell of burned plastic fill the air? I was a chicken at first, I only hooked it up to the old 17" LCD I was using for my Atari and Amiga 1200 computers. It booted!!!!!

Then I connected to the main TV.



Okay, so at least 1 part of the upgrade worked. I now had a functioning KS 2.05 A500. But what about the ICD AdSpeed/AdIDE. Well the board was functioning. Otherwise the A500 wouldn't have booted. So 1.5 parts of the upgrade were working.

But the AdIDE part was unknown. How to mount/install the hard drive part? First I tried the HDToolbox on the WB 2.1 install disk. Yelled at me because there was no driver installed. Then I tried the disk I had gotten from the website. No hd install program, although it did boot to a ugly wb 1.3 theme. No docs of course. No indication what the heck I needed to do. Then I remembered the huge Amiga app dl I had gotten from the newsgroup a few months ago. I went looking for anything about ICD and found a disk whose title was ICD HD Preperation. Yippee! I plopped that in and clicked on HD mount and we were off and running. A little more than 30 minutes later I was booting to CF card so fast it was making my head spin. Of course I was down to my last beer by then, but you know what I mean.



For those who insist here are the full size pics. They are huge! You are warned 56kers!

http://www.dropchecks.com/a500start.html
http://www.dropchecks.com/a500middle.html
http://www.dropchecks.com/a500end.html

[Zetr0]

@Dropcheck

!!!Awesome!!

What does sysinfo make of the speed and drive access?

[Dropcheck]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@Dropcheck

!!!Awesome!!

What does sysinfo make of the speed and drive access?

Well I was a bit surprised. I wouldn't have thunk I would see it but the Adspeed scores rather well against a stock A1200. Even doesn't lose too much against a 68020.



I'll have to wait on the drive scores, my camera batteries are dead and I'll have to get some more. Hopefully tonight.

For Zetr0 http://www.dropchecks.com/a500sysinfo.html

[fc.studio]

Great!

Now I use real A1200 (x2) and A600 (x1) but, about a month ago, I found in the attic my old A500 (rev. 6a) and I had a similar idea.

This is equipped with +1,8 MB RAM expansion, KickROM switcher (1,3 / 2.04 ROM), and the simple ICD AdIDE interface (no speed accelerator) used to drive an external 120 MB 3,5" hard drive taking power, by a special cable, from the external floppy port.

My target is to put inside a compact flash as hard drive, like I recently did with A1200 and A600, containing WB2.1, ClassicWB GAAE and many WHDLoad games.

This ICD AdIDE controller has a 40 pin ide interface. Therefore to put inside a compact flash I need a 40 pin male Compact Flash adapter and the cables to power it from the internal floppy port.

I ordered them on e-bay but at the moment only the power cables arrived(2 different versions connected together) and I'm still waiting for the CF adapter (DUAL type).

ICD AdIDE is smaller than yours, but the height of the Kick-switcher gave me, in the past, e similar space problem. To have both interfaces installed a seller made and cheaply sold me a 10 cm cable, with pins to its ends, to be able to move the switcher.

ROM 2.04 (37.175) drove the external hard disk and I'm 90% sure it didn't need any special driver. ROM 1.3 didn't run HD probably because its driver was required, but this was not a problem 'cause I could run the floppy games with better compatibility (no WHDLoad available in those time).

When the CF adapter will arrive, I'll try to get a result similar to yours .

At the moment I have to mount, like you, a minimal 512 KB RAM expansion and this means to say goodbye to WHDLoad Games...
Unfortunately on checking my 1,8 MB expansion (AlfaRAM RA5-2MB), memory errors were reported. A Gary adapter required by the card has a broken PIN. Then, in these days, I damaged another one. Arghhh .

I hope, if possible, to find someone could help me to repair them.
Then we will be both the owners of very rare A500.

[fc.studio]

@Dropcheck

I downloaded from Amiga.resource.cx the ICD-AdIDE.dms file coming with ICD-AdIDE. The disk contains a tool called ICD Formatter utility v2.10, but unfortunately I have problem with this, since it detects only 21 MB from a 128 MB compact flash.
Please could you upload to the zone the utility you used to prepare the Hard Drive?
... and what's the exact ROM version you have installed?

[Dropcheck]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@Dropcheck

!!!Awesome!!

What does sysinfo make of the speed and drive access?

Well not too bad like I said.

dh0 is 704,862 bytes/sec

CPU is 1324 dhrystones on par with A1200.

Now that gives me an idea. I've got a Catweasel Z-II S-Class card. Maybe I can slap a couple IDE to CF adapters on that, a couple 512mb cards and get 1 of my A2000 up and running with a hard drive. I'll let you know.

[Zetr0]

@Dropcheck

Awesome stuff thanks for posting the sysinfo

it does look like that the little bit of cache goe's a long way

tis indeed great to see

a much thanks indeed

[fc.studio]

I found on the Web ICDPrepHD v4.0 and solved my HDD preparation problems.
Then I installed my custom WB2.1.

Now my A500 has 2.04/1.3 ROM, 512 KB Chip + 1024 KB Fast, 256 MB HDD Lexar Compact Flash on ICD AdIDE 40 (no speed). It works great. HDD boots only with ROM 2.04, but I don't dislike this.

SysInfo 3.24 reports:

DH0 is 760572 Bytes/Sec (icddiskide.device, FFS from WB2.1)
CPU is 537 Dhrystones

CPU speed is obviously slower, but DHO speed is a bit higher!!!

[DrF]

I have a question that I have wondered about for a long time, as I never owned a A500, only a A500+ so I hope you can help me here.

Ok, games say they need 1Mb, if a A500 has 512K chip & 512K fast would that appear as 1Mb regardless to the game?
I ask because I don't recall seeing many games say anything but "1Mb Amiga required" on them.

[fc.studio]

Before 1990 512 KBs RAM were enough to play games! Then there were many and increasing Amiga games requiring for 1 MB RAM, but for what I remember they required memory regardless chip or fast.

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by DrF

I have a question that I have wondered about for a long time, as I never owned a A500, only a A500+ so I hope you can help me here.

Ok, games say they need 1Mb, if a A500 has 512K chip & 512K fast would that appear as 1Mb regardless to the game?
I ask because I don't recall seeing many games say anything but "1Mb Amiga required" on them.

the half meg upgrades are chip ram only.

there are other upgrades that will give you

• 1mb chip 512k fast
• 1.5mb chip
• 1.5mb chip 512k fast
• 2mb chip

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

the half meg upgrades are chip ram only.

.. for the A500+, yes, but for everything before that, they are slow fast, unless you have a 1MB Agnus and do the addressline swap on the motherboard jumpers..

[DrF]

Originally Posted by Jope

.. for the A500+, yes, but for everything before that, they are slow fast, unless you have a 1MB Agnus and do the addressline swap on the motherboard jumpers..

Thats what I was thinking, Agnus would decide whats happening, hence my confusion.

[fc.studio]

But are 1 MB RAM expansions (1,0MB, 1,5MB 1,8MB...) for A500 compatible with A500+? ...and what happen to A500+ if you add a standard (born for the A500) 512 KB expansion like the A501: do you have 1,0 MB CHIP + 512 KB FAST or 1,5 MB CHIP?

[Jope]

Originally Posted by fc.studio

But are 1 MB RAM expansions (1,0MB, 1,5MB 1,8MB...) for A500 compatible with A500+?

Those non-standard expansions are not compatible with the 500+ unless they are specifically designed to play nice with it.

Originally Posted by fc.studio

...and what happen to A500+ if you add a standard (born for the A500) 512 KB expansion like the A501: do you have 1,0 MB CHIP + 512 KB FAST or 1,5 MB CHIP?

You get 1.5MB CHIP.

[DrF]

Originally Posted by fc.studio

But are 1 MB RAM expansions (1,0MB, 1,5MB 1,8MB...) for A500 compatible with A500+? ...and what happen to A500+ if you add a standard (born for the A500) 512 KB expansion like the A501: do you have 1,0 MB CHIP + 512 KB FAST or 1,5 MB CHIP?

I had a 512K upgrade from a A500 in my A500+ it gave me 1.5Mb chip, came in usefull though I must admit.

I guess adding a 1Mb add on would give 2Mb chip, but as others have said what would happen if you had a 1.5Mb add on?

Surely you can't have half a upgrade as chip and the other half as fast?
Maybe it would just all show as fast? (1Mb chip as standard 1.5Mb fast?)

[Jope]

The 1MB addon for an A500 would not give 2MB CHIP, since all of them over 512kB use tricks to get them mapped in the address space..

So like I said, the "oversized" expansion board needs to have been designed to be configurable for the a500+ or you will get max 1.5MB chip and the rest hopefully map somewhere that is not used in the 500+. IF it works at all.

[Paul_s]

Cool mods. The ICD internal stuff tends to be quite pricey nowadays

Although at least it's not reached PPC prices

[fc.studio]

@Dropcheck

Please Dropcheck, could you test for me if your system regularly boots (purple 2.0 disk boot screen) if you remove hard drive/cf adapter and close the kickstart jumper 1.3 on the AdIde?

Unfortunately, during the hdd loading, I had a disconnection of the power connector on the CF adapter (very bad soldering). I removed it (to trashcan) but now the system boots only if kickstart jumper 1.2 is closed.

I would not want I got a damage of the AdIde.

It would be much appreciated.

[Dropcheck]

Originally Posted by fc.studio

@Dropcheck

Please Dropcheck, could you test for me if your system regularly boots (purple 2.0 disk boot screen) if you remove hard drive/cf adapter and close the kickstart jumper 1.3 on the AdIde?

Unfortunately, during the hdd loading, I had a disconnection of the power connector on the CF adapter (very bad soldering). I removed it (to trashcan) but now the system boots only if kickstart jumper 1.2 is closed.

I would not want I got a damage of the AdIde.

It would be much appreciated.

Hi

Did you replace with another CF Adapter w/Card or hard drive?