A500 4/8mb with IDE board completed

[dirkies]

some Q surrounding the Kipper card I have now working fine in my A500 using KS2.05:

I dug up my AlfaData-BSC AlfaPowerPlus (2xIDE+RAM) sidecard, with 8MB of ram (2x4MB SIMMs) onboard.

Also connected is an A501 trapdoor expansion, a A1010 ext floppy drive and on the internal floppy connector sits a HxC.

However it does not like the Kippercard too much!

with the memory enabled and SIMMs populated on the AlfaPower, coldstart always shows yellow screen/guru (memory).

with the memory enabled but no SIMMs populated on the AlfaPower, I see this when Kickstart comes alive:


I could not even find what Manufacturer/Product autoconfig ID 6461/25 is.
2092 is AlfaData, 8 must be the memory part and 38 the IDE part. Not sure where 2092/6 went.
Also notice that the Kippercard (4369/17) is not listed at all here.

In this state, the system WILL boot from the AlfaPower, and the KipperCF card partitions will also be shown in the Workbench, BUT the 8MB Kipper memory is not shown, the A501 memory is 99,9% "in use" > 8 bytes free! (??) so all that is left is CHIP memory (not much left!).
I assume this is most likely because the AlfaData expansion memory mapping is also $00200000-$009FFFFF like the Kippercard does. I could however find no info on that.

With the memory disabled on the AlfaPower (there is a button for that), the card simply disappears (even the IDE drive) and Kipper is available as normal.

I also did the test with the A501 removed but results were identical.

So my Qs are:
-can the RAM part of the Kippercard be disabled (through software or soldering jumpers or so, I noticed many unsoldered jumpers on the card)
-can the IDE part be disabled somewhat?
-can a 2nd IDE port be enabled on Kipper (assuming the chip on it does support a 2nd IDE device). I ask the question because through the AlfaData I could connect an IDE CD-ROM aswell, but it seems this combo is not possible anymore Maybe if it is possible on the Kipper card, I could hook up a CD drive through there (?)

And another thing I wonder if it is due to the Kippercard: When I connect my ActionReplayMK3 to the expansion slot, and press the freeze button, it will always guru.

I have not retested without the kippercard as my 68000 pins are already so weakened that they may not survive another unplug & replug. May order a new 68000 cpu just to avoid wearing out the cpu feet!

Any suggestions working this around would be nice. If nothing helps, I might aswell sell the Alfadata or Kipper, the jury is still out there!

[demolition]

I think you can be fairly certain that the memory on both devices uses the same memory space since they have to reside in 24-bit (16MB) memory space, so you can only use memory on one or the other.

Before the memory can be disabled on the Kipper2k board, I think you need to replace the CPLD for one without autoconfig (used on the CDTV version for example). If the memory can then be disabled without soldering, I am not sure. To disable the IDE, maybe removing the 2-wire cable is enough.

The AR will only work with standard A500 memory configurations. Is it quite picky about that. I also tried the AR MkIII on my 500+ with the Kipper2k board and it ended up breaking my floppy drive (head was moved off the spindle, so could not be fixed without opening the drive).

[alexh]

Originally Posted by dirkies

The AlfaData-BSC AlfaPowerPlus does not like the Kippercard too much!

They are effectively the same thing connected to the same CPU in the same way and of course they conflict.

Originally Posted by dirkies

-can the RAM part of the Kippercard be disabled (through software or soldering jumpers or so, I noticed many unsoldered jumpers on the card)

Should be possible. There were jumpers on the LDV board this is based on. Kipper2k will know for sure.

Originally Posted by dirkies

can the IDE part be disabled somewhat?

I don't think so.

Originally Posted by dirkies

-can a 2nd IDE port be enabled on Kipper (assuming the chip on it does support a 2nd IDE device).

2nd Port no. 2nd device yes. You can use a master/slave IDE ribbon cable just like on an A600.

[dirkies]

Originally Posted by alexh

2nd Port no. 2nd device yes. You can use a master/slave IDE ribbon cable just like on an A600.

the kippercard only has a CF slot, so unless there is some special CF to IDE adapter, I am out of luck

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by mc68k

My home made RAM + IDE card prototype is also complete. It has 8 MB SIMM RAM, IDE connector, CF card slot and 512 kB flash ROM for Kickstart. The ROM is flashable from the Amiga.

Whoaaaa man this is great
Please consider making more and selling them. Or contact Kipper and see what you two can figure out

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by dirkies

some Q surrounding the Kipper card I have now working fine in my A500 using KS2.05:

I dug up my AlfaData-BSC AlfaPowerPlus (2xIDE+RAM) sidecard, with 8MB of ram (2x4MB SIMMs) onboard.

Also connected is an A501 trapdoor expansion, a A1010 ext floppy drive and on the internal floppy connector sits a HxC.

However it does not like the Kippercard too much!

with the memory enabled and SIMMs populated on the AlfaPower, coldstart always shows yellow screen/guru (memory).

with the memory enabled but no SIMMs populated on the AlfaPower, I see this when Kickstart comes alive:


I could not even find what Manufacturer/Product autoconfig ID 6461/25 is.
2092 is AlfaData, 8 must be the memory part and 38 the IDE part. Not sure where 2092/6 went.
Also notice that the Kippercard (4369/17) is not listed at all here.

In this state, the system WILL boot from the AlfaPower, and the KipperCF card partitions will also be shown in the Workbench, BUT the 8MB Kipper memory is not shown, the A501 memory is 99,9% "in use" > 8 bytes free! (??) so all that is left is CHIP memory (not much left!).
I assume this is most likely because the AlfaData expansion memory mapping is also $00200000-$009FFFFF like the Kippercard does. I could however find no info on that.

With the memory disabled on the AlfaPower (there is a button for that), the card simply disappears (even the IDE drive) and Kipper is available as normal.

I also did the test with the A501 removed but results were identical.

So my Qs are:
-can the RAM part of the Kippercard be disabled (through software or soldering jumpers or so, I noticed many unsoldered jumpers on the card)
-can the IDE part be disabled somewhat?
-can a 2nd IDE port be enabled on Kipper (assuming the chip on it does support a 2nd IDE device). I ask the question because through the AlfaData I could connect an IDE CD-ROM aswell, but it seems this combo is not possible anymore Maybe if it is possible on the Kipper card, I could hook up a CD drive through there (?)

And another thing I wonder if it is due to the Kippercard: When I connect my ActionReplayMK3 to the expansion slot, and press the freeze button, it will always guru.

I have not retested without the kippercard as my 68000 pins are already so weakened that they may not survive another unplug & replug. May order a new 68000 cpu just to avoid wearing out the cpu feet!

Any suggestions working this around would be nice. If nothing helps, I might aswell sell the Alfadata or Kipper, the jury is still out there!

The cpld could be reprogrammed with the noconfig ram hat would allow you to select what fastmem, in what address to add which may cure the conflict

I didn't add jumpers to remove the ram on the a508IDE board, only on the a600 board as that has the pcmcia board and ultimately trring to mimic the A500 to allow maximum compatibility with older games.

Action Replay uses area $400000 so my card would conflict with it. The cpld would need to be rewrote with fastmem not reserved in that area. (I am not sure what size chunk, 512k maybe?). That may fix it, not sure though

Power for the IDE cpld is provided by the through hole diode, lifting this and removing the 2 pin wire to the mobo may work.

[dirkies]

Thanks Kipper

so no chance there could be a software utility (similar to the ones to disable A501 fast memory) to disable expansion memory?

Or can we solder something on the board to disable the RAM, and then jumper it somewhat?

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by dirkies

Thanks Kipper

so no chance there could be a software utility (similar to the ones to disable A501 fast memory) to disable expansion memory?

Or can we solder something on the board to disable the RAM, and then jumper it somewhat?

Hi,

first thing to try, remove the plcc chip and see if that fixes it.

if that doesn't work...



To disable power to ram there are 2 power supply traces that would need to be cut. This would probably be the cleanest easiest repairable way.

cut trace between c17 to C1 (topside) located to the right of the green LED.

cut trace coming from Rom J7 VCC jumper (topside) just below where it "T"'s off to VCC supply of the 6 pin programming header.This prevents power feed to RAM chip 4 and feeding all the other RAM chips. This would not need to be repaired if reverting as it is part of the power loop so power would still reach all necessary components

the left side of through hole diode (closest to ram chip) would now require a jumper to bottom of C17 to provide power to the IDE CPLD chip not sure if this would work, but like i said it would be relatively easy to revert.


As always with this kind of thing, do at your own risk

[dirkies]

Hmm, sounds complicated, maybe a picture of the PCB with some coloured indications where to do what may help. I also wonder if instead of a jumper I could use a switch, but not risking to blow up the RAM when you flick the switch while the machine is on. (?)

On the other hand, I just realized that the A508IDE board does not fit anymore if used with the IndivisionECS board! Using the riser board it sits too low, not fitting the socket because the Indy blocks it, and without the riser board it sits extremely close to the kickstart rom (which has a wire mod) and I can't close my A500 anymore because the keyboard hits the CPU.

I guess I will need another 64pin passthrough socket that must go between the CPU socket (which already has a 64pin passthrough socket from the A508IDE) and the riser board, just hoping I will still be able to close my A500 afterwards...

[xArtx]

Nice project It looks like the expanded A590 functionality inside an A500 case
minus the SCSI.
It would be nice if the SD card were accessible, but it doesn’t look possible,
and you would have had to open your A590 to change HDD anyway.

[dirkies]

Originally Posted by xArtx

It would be nice if the SD card were accessible, but it doesn’t look possible,

it would be with this type of cable:

[xArtx]

Did I miss a development having read only the start & end of this thread?
It’s Compact Flash in the first page, and I made a mistake referencing an SD card.

I suspect it’s still IDE.

It it ok to use 8Gb Compact Flash, even if you can only partition a lower capacity for the A500?

[dirkies]

I think I am gonna stick to a 4GB card for the A508IDE, on an A500 more gigs do not make much sense to me, and a hassle with all this scsi.device patching.
I have an A4000 with a 32GB SCSI CF card (System & Work), and also a 32GB on the IDE port (pure for storage) that will do the real hard work

[demolition]

If you use a filesystem like PFS3, you can use the entire 8GB card, for example one 500 MB system partition and the remaining 7.5GB on a data partition for games and software. Above 8GB, you need a patched scsi.device.

If you use FFS I think you can only use the first 4GB of the card.

[dirkies]

but that will require first partitioning the card in WinUAE, as the original kickstart makes quite a mess of the partitioning part if the CF card is over a few gigs (even on a 4GB card it showed all kinda nonsense in the GUI but it worked anyway after reboot)...

[demolition]

You should be able to partition it just fine on a real Amiga. HDToolBox will show incorrect values above 4GB, but just create a small system partition first, like 500MB and then create a 2nd partition with the remaining space and ignore what the text says.

WB 3.1 will also incorrectly list the free space as 5GB free will show as 1GB free since it will roll over at 4GB. This can also just be ignored. Only a few installers could fail if they check the remaining space before installation begins. The remaining space could report 500kB, where in fact it is 4.0005GB. Just copy some ADF on it and it will then correctly show ~4GB available again.

Summary: The problems are mostly cosmetic.

[xArtx]

It’s just that I have some doomy military spec 8Gb CF cards
It wouldn’t matter if 4Gb of it was totally lost, just nice if they work ok.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by xArtx

It’s just that I have some doomy military spec 8Gb CF cards
It wouldn’t matter if 4Gb of it was totally lost, just nice if they work ok.

Try them out. The size is definitely not an issue (even with FFS, you can just set it up as a 4GB card), but the controller could be incompatible. Sometimes you will even find seemingly identical cards from the same vendor where one works and the other one does not, because they may have a different controller inside (or simply differently configured).

[xArtx]

Ok, thanks, I guess I have to put myself down for one of these.
It would be nicer if they are reliable, than the real A590 with moving parts int he HDD.

[geir]

Originally Posted by dirkies

some Q surrounding the Kipper card I have now working fine in my A500 using KS2.05:

I dug up my AlfaData-BSC AlfaPowerPlus (2xIDE+RAM) sidecard, with 8MB of ram (2x4MB SIMMs) onboard.

Also connected is an A501 trapdoor expansion, a A1010 ext floppy drive and on the internal floppy connector sits a HxC.

However it does not like the Kippercard too much!

with the memory enabled and SIMMs populated on the AlfaPower, coldstart always shows yellow screen/guru (memory).

with the memory enabled but no SIMMs populated on the AlfaPower, I see this when Kickstart comes alive:


I could not even find what Manufacturer/Product autoconfig ID 6461/25 is.
2092 is AlfaData, 8 must be the memory part and 38 the IDE part. Not sure where 2092/6 went.
Also notice that the Kippercard (4369/17) is not listed at all here.

In this state, the system WILL boot from the AlfaPower, and the KipperCF card partitions will also be shown in the Workbench, BUT the 8MB Kipper memory is not shown, the A501 memory is 99,9% "in use" > 8 bytes free! (??) so all that is left is CHIP memory (not much left!).
I assume this is most likely because the AlfaData expansion memory mapping is also $00200000-$009FFFFF like the Kippercard does. I could however find no info on that.

With the memory disabled on the AlfaPower (there is a button for that), the card simply disappears (even the IDE drive) and Kipper is available as normal.

I also did the test with the A501 removed but results were identical.

So my Qs are:
-can the RAM part of the Kippercard be disabled (through software or soldering jumpers or so, I noticed many unsoldered jumpers on the card)
-can the IDE part be disabled somewhat?
-can a 2nd IDE port be enabled on Kipper (assuming the chip on it does support a 2nd IDE device). I ask the question because through the AlfaData I could connect an IDE CD-ROM aswell, but it seems this combo is not possible anymore Maybe if it is possible on the Kipper card, I could hook up a CD drive through there (?)

And another thing I wonder if it is due to the Kippercard: When I connect my ActionReplayMK3 to the expansion slot, and press the freeze button, it will always guru.

I have not retested without the kippercard as my 68000 pins are already so weakened that they may not survive another unplug & replug. May order a new 68000 cpu just to avoid wearing out the cpu feet!

Any suggestions working this around would be nice. If nothing helps, I might aswell sell the Alfadata or Kipper, the jury is still out there!

Gravedigging a bit here.

Did you get your AR3 to work with KS2.05?
And regarding the memory conflict between the kipper card and the AR3, wouldn't less ram on the card solve this? 2mb instead of 4. Then the ram would be located between $200000-$3f0000 and $400000-> is free for AR3.
I'd be happy with "only" 2mb memory upgrade if it worked together with AR3.