Individual Computers - New accelerator cards for A600 & A1200

[vroom6sri]

That is fantastic news! Feels like Xmas again. I've learnt a lot (well... a lot for me) about my A1200 thanks to this thread and FOL. I've got one of these 2b motherboards unfortunately so will check for these capacitors ASAP.

Soooooooooo excited about potentially having this all sorted and running a sweet-sweet A1200!!!!

Thanks to Jens BTW!

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by vroom6sri

That is fantastic news! Feels like Xmas again. I've learnt a lot (well... a lot for me) about my A1200 thanks to this thread and FOL. I've got one of these 2b motherboards unfortunately so will check for these capacitors ASAP.

Note that you cannot tell from the board revision if the caps are installed or not. You really have to remove the board and check the bottom side where these caps are located.

This fix is quite a few years old. To my knowledge, it was first documented by Eyetech and reported back to ACT, where I did service on those oh-so-flaky Apollo accelerators. I was expecting that by now, every A1200 motherboard has the fix applied. I only have one board where the caps are installed, and it's one where the ACA1230 works perfectly. That's a good indicator that there really is a chipset combination where the components E123C and E125C are required.

Jens

[dabone]

Quick question dealing with Royal Mail, exactly how long does it take for Origin Post is Preparing Shipment people???? You have had it since 12/30.
Just stick in on a plane or something...


Sorry, just had to vent a little.


later,
dabone

[FOL]

Originally Posted by dabone

Quick question dealing with Royal Mail, exactly how long does it take for Origin Post is Preparing Shipment people???? You have had it since 12/30.
Just stick in on a plane or something...


Sorry, just had to vent a little.


later,
dabone

Way off topic.

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Note that you cannot tell from the board revision if the caps are installed or not. You really have to remove the board and check the bottom side where these caps are located.

This fix is quite a few years old. To my knowledge, it was first documented by Eyetech and reported back to ACT, where I did service on those oh-so-flaky Apollo accelerators. I was expecting that by now, every A1200 motherboard has the fix applied. I only have one board where the caps are installed, and it's one where the ACA1230 works perfectly. That's a good indicator that there really is a chipset combination where the components E123C and E125C are required.

Jens

We were discussing it via support tickets as you posted the timing fix document.

[amigakit.com]

@dabone

I offered you FedEx shipping upgrade on two occasions in this thread before it was shipped (FedEx Priority delivers in 24-48 hours from us) as you seemed very eager to get the card.

USPS are very slow to update their website- you will probably find it arrived in the New York JFK mail centre 2-3 days after mailing, but they didnt update the tracking. It can then take up to 2 weeks to make its way across the States to the local USPS depot.

[NovaCoder]

I'm too poor to buy a ACA 1230/56 at the moment, hope they'll still be available to buy in a few months time. A lot of these great new products seem to disappear for some reason.

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

I'm too poor to buy a ACA 1230/56 at the moment, hope they'll still be available to buy in a few months time. A lot of these great new products seem to disappear for some reason.

I'm wasting a lot in the Amiga although things look bad here in Spain for work and so. I hope I will receive my ACA1230/56 tomorrow as the next day we celebrate the Three Wise Kings...

[Riempie]

I have some problems fitting the 28mhz and 56mhz cards nicely. A dutch guy on a dutch amiga forum gave me this url:
http://www.a1k.org/forum/showpost.ph...postcount=1236

It seems you have to cut away some other pieces of the casing instead of only cutting a little piece of the trapdoor.

The cards do work fine if I do not cut anything, but they bend a lot if I do not cut something away.

Are there any tools available somewhere to cut things nicely instead of doing it the hard ugly way?

Btw. The cards are great and this cutting-thing is totally not a big problem for me. Thx Jens!

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Riempie

I have some problems fitting the 28mhz and 56mhz cards nicely. A dutch guy on a dutch amiga forum gave me this url:
http://www.a1k.org/forum/showpost.ph...postcount=1236

It seems you have to cut away some other pieces of the casing instead of only cutting a little piece of the trapdoor.

The cards do work fine if I do not cut anything, but they bend a lot if I do not cut something away.

Are there any tools available somewhere to cut things nicely instead of doing it the hard ugly way?

Btw. The cards are great and this cutting-thing is totally not a big problem for me. Thx Jens!

I used my own A1200 for some of the testing and all fitted fine.
Granted the 28MHz were bit awkward to push in, but the 56MHz, were all perfect.

[mfilos]

My 56MHz ACA1330 it was also a bit hard to insert due to some plastics and it's indeed a bit bend due to the upper plastic. I can post a picture about what I mean.
It's not a problem of usability since everything works like a charm, but the bending of the card exists for real.

[kipper2k]

Not happy, just found out my order from Amigakit was sent by fedex. Fedex charge brokerage fees to the end user on international deliveries which are above and beyond regular customs fees. I was told heavy items are shipped by fedex when previous heavier items were shipped via Royal Mail.

[fitzsteve]

@Kipper,

I'm sure it was best intentions to get the item out to you as fast as possible, Airmail from UK is taking 2-4 weeks (even longer in some cases) to get over the pond. FedEX is much faster.

They are not to know that your local agent is charging a handling fee, for example Royal Mail do the same here

Again, I feel this sort of thing is misuse of this thread and unfair feedback against Amigakit.

Steve.

[kipper2k]

This will be my last post.

If you look up this thread i did mention it a few days ago which was acknowledged by them about the fees

[FOL]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

This will be my last post.

If you look up this thread i did mention it a few days ago which was acknowledged by them about the fees

Mentioning it in a forum is not the way to go.
It should have been either noted in the order comments while ordering or in a support ticket on our site.

Royal Mail will not cover the full amount of the cards worth, FedEX do.

[DyLucke]

Originally Posted by Retrofan

I'm wasting a lot in the Amiga although things look bad here in Spain for work and so. I hope I will receive my ACA1230/56 tomorrow as the next day we celebrate the Three Wise Kings...

Got mine today "muyayo"... I bet yours will be there soon.

[S0ulA55a551n]

I was waiting for all the timing fixes needed on A1200 boards.

Same thing with the faster apollo cards.

I believe that why the blizzards didn't have these issues and were hence slower

[deicidal]

Has anyone else in the UK not received theres yet that where sent out before Christmas?

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by deicidal

Has anyone else in the UK not received theres yet that where sent out before Christmas?

I've not ordered a card from Amigalkit, but if we're talking about Royal Mail I'm still waiting for a few parcels sent before Xmas

[cosmiq]

Had a very nice package delivered today.
Too bad I have some problems with the VGA unit (black screen / no output).. but hope to clear that up soon enough.

[cv643d]

Originally Posted by Riempie

I have some problems fitting the 28mhz and 56mhz cards nicely. A dutch guy on a dutch amiga forum gave me this url:
http://www.a1k.org/forum/showpost.ph...postcount=1236

It seems you have to cut away some other pieces of the casing instead of only cutting a little piece of the trapdoor.

The cards do work fine if I do not cut anything, but they bend a lot if I do not cut something away.

Same problem with Apollo 1240/1260, but more extreme. I had to shave off the edge around the CPU-slot on the underside. Also had to cut out holes for SIMM from the cover.

I used a Dremel, it was almost to easy to shave it with the Dremel, and fun too! Smelling soft, warm burnt Amiga plastic never gets old

[Khyron]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

Not happy, just found out my order from Amigakit was sent by fedex. Fedex charge brokerage fees to the end user on international deliveries which are above and beyond regular customs fees. I was told heavy items are shipped by fedex when previous heavier items were shipped via Royal Mail.

You shouldn't worry about that. It's not the same as when you're recieving something shipped by Fedex or UPS ground from the states. I do quite a bit of shipping/receiving so..

With canada post these are the rules. anything over $30 you're charged $5 processing fee and GST/PST or HST. they usually let it slide up to $39.
If the package is marked as Gift or Sample they'll only charge the $5+GST&PST/HST if the value is over $60.

Fedex, shipped with Inernational economy or Priority (like Amigakit ships to canada) only charge a $10 fee and the GST/PST+HST. So it's $5 more than canada post. It's also possible to avoid the $10 fee if you have a fedex account and pay for the taxes up front..

[FOL]

Originally Posted by cosmiq

Had a very nice package delivered today.
Too bad I have some problems with the VGA unit (black screen / no output).. but hope to clear that up soon enough.

Im wondering why you cut the plastic and bent the can?
The A603 will fit in without doing any of that.

[amigoun]

@ cosmiq
I also know about the black screen (no signal) output of Indivision ECS. To my surprise it doesn't show anything on my friends HP LP2065 20" LCD (even though his A3000 flickerfixer output works there), but fortunatelly works nicely for me on EIZO L768 or Viewsonic VP171s. Maybe its your case.

[PulsatingQuasar]

Originally Posted by Riempie

I have some problems fitting the 28mhz and 56mhz cards nicely. A dutch guy on a dutch amiga forum gave me this url:
http://www.a1k.org/forum/showpost.ph...postcount=1236

It seems you have to cut away some other pieces of the casing instead of only cutting a little piece of the trapdoor.

The cards do work fine if I do not cut anything, but they bend a lot if I do not cut something away.

Are there any tools available somewhere to cut things nicely instead of doing it the hard ugly way?

Btw. The cards are great and this cutting-thing is totally not a big problem for me. Thx Jens!

I also removed the first 4 cm to reduce the bending. I have an ACA1230 56 MHz. It just fits better that way.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by deicidal

Has anyone else in the UK not received theres yet that where sent out before Christmas?

I haven't.

[r0jaws]

Mine arrived today via FedEx, and I'm very excited indeed, but I'm waiting to open it on Friday over at Zetr0's.

[fitzsteve]

Its been reported in another thread that the facility to Jumper off DH1 as DF0 only works in 030 mode so if you disable the 030 then this reverts back to DF1.

Jens, is this the correct operation? I was really hoping this would allow me to play my Floppy based games from an external drive in 68000 mode

If this is the case I think its a deal breaker for me

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

Its been reported in another thread that the facility to Jumper off DH1 as DH0 only works in 030 mode so if you disable the 030 then this reverts back to DH1.

You mean DF0: and DF1:

[Oliver_A]

New Bugfix Update !

I have written a new beta version of ACATune tool, which should make most ACA1230-56Mhz users very happy, because it fixes the following issues:

- Ram (especially RAD disks) is now reset-proof (currently Kick 3.1 or greater only)
- IDE drives recognized after MAPROM

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...1&d=1294335231

In order to activate this feature, the Kickstart ROM needs to be patched after MAPROM. This is done by using the new "p" option. For example:

acatune -maprom * p (internal ROM)
acatune -maprom <kickfile> p (external ROM file)

After installing the patch, the Amiga takes a little longer to boot. In exchange, all of the issues should be fixed.

Have fun!

Update: this update now supports patching 1MB Roms. Be sure that the area in file offset $7ffa6-$7ffe7 is free and not occupied by any ROM module

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Predseda

You mean DF0: and DF1:

Yeah sorry early morning typo

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

Its been reported in another thread that the facility to Jumper off DH1 as DF0 only works in 030 mode so if you disable the 030 then this reverts back to DF1.

Jens, is this the correct operation? I was really hoping this would allow me to play my Floppy based games from an external drive in 68000 mode

If this is the case I think its a deal breaker for me

Yes, that's correct. If you have disabled the 030, then the "bootselector" logic is also disabled. That's because the 68000 is directly on the mainboard and therefore talks to the CIAs directly. If the 68030 is running, then it talks to the CIAs through my logic, which shuffles bits around in the appropriate places in order to swap DF0: and DF1:.

As I cannot interrupt the data path between the 68000 and the CIA chips, I'm powerless here. Maybe Chuck Norris could, but I can't ;-)

Jens

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by Oliver_A

New Bugfix Update !

I have written a new beta version of ACATune tool, which should make most ACA1230-56Mhz useres very happy, because it fixes the following issues:

- Ram (especially RAD disks) is now reset-proof (currently Kick 3.1 or greater only)
- IDE drives recognized after MAPROM

http://www.a1k.org/download/sonst/ol...une_V102B4.lha

In order to activate this feature, the Kickstart ROM needs to be patched after MAPROM. This is done by using the new "p" option. For example:

acatune -maprom * p (internal ROM)
acatune -maprom <kickfile> p (external ROM file)

After installing the patch, the Amiga takes a little longer to boot. In exchange, all of the issues should be fixed.

Currently, this works only on 512K roms. Support for 1MB roms is in the works.

Have fun!

FOL and / or Amigakit.com: Why dont put the ACAtune just to the product page for download?

[Oliver_A]

Originally Posted by Predseda

FOL and / or Amigakit.com: Why dont put the ACAtune just to the product page for download?

Because it's a beta release and still work-in-progress. It's here to get the first feedback from the users.

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Yes, that's correct. If you have disabled the 030, then the "bootselector" logic is also disabled. That's because the 68000 is directly on the mainboard and therefore talks to the CIAs directly. If the 68030 is running, then it talks to the CIAs through my logic, which shuffles bits around in the appropriate places in order to swap DF0: and DF1:.

As I cannot interrupt the data path between the 68000 and the CIA chips, I'm powerless here. Maybe Chuck Norris could, but I can't ;-)

Jens

Thanks for explaining that

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Predseda

FOL and / or Amigakit.com: Why dont put the ACAtune just to the product page for download?

Plus we would never release anything without permission first.

[Predseda]

After the permission, of course.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Oliver_A

Because it's a beta release and still work-in-progress. It's here to get the first feedback from the users.

Oliver, link is dead.

Gives 404 Error.

[Oliver_A]

Fixed.

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...1&d=1294335231

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Oliver_A

Fixed.

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...1&d=1294311967

Danke

[cosmiq]

Originally Posted by amigoun

@ cosmiq
I also know about the black screen (no signal) output of Indivision ECS. To my surprise it doesn't show anything on my friends HP LP2065 20" LCD (even though his A3000 flickerfixer output works there), but fortunatelly works nicely for me on EIZO L768 or Viewsonic VP171s. Maybe its your case.

@amigoun:
Thanks for telling me. I'll test it today again with some different monitors. Already tried a 22" tft and a 17" crt, but both gave black screen (as if it's getting no signal at all, not even resolution click or alike).
Too bad this doesn't work; the main reason I bought it was to connect it to the second input on my main TFT.
Also strange that the ECS tool does work... I don't get it!