ACA500 tested

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

That's just an incompatible CF card - use a different one. The CF card slots and the flash chip share the same bus (both address and data), so CF cards *can* interfere with the overall functionality of the ACA500. Also mentioned in the manual :-)

Jens

This card must be a fake! My Other Transcend cards are working fine

Or my others are fakes and the real one doesn't work

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

This card must be a fake! My Other Transcend cards are working fine

That's not necessarily a fake. These companies use different controller chips and different flash chips all the time, and some behave this way, some the other way. If you're buying a brand, you can be sure that it's a re-labelled far-east design. Once the batch is sold out, a new batch is bought, possibly from a new supplier. The one thing that's not changing is the look, packing and the people who provide the warranty.

Jens

[fitzsteve]

That's interesting, so trusted brand is no guarantee of compatibility!

Also found something very cool last night, no need for prepareemul when running ShapeShifter, nice feature

I've setup Classic Workbench Full now running Scalos and it's really nippy with the ACA1232

I'll do a Video for my Youtube channel later, it's been a while since I uploaded anything interesting...

[Cowcat]

Somebody saw this? http://www.a1k.org/forum/showpost.ph...&postcount=473

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Cowcat

Somebody saw this? http://www.a1k.org/forum/showpost.ph...&postcount=473

lol, that be CRAZY!!!

[fitzsteve]

I made a little Video of my setup now, sorry it's a bit shaky my normal camera I film with was no good for the CRT but the shutter speed on my Phone Camera was!

[ Show youtube player ]

@Cowcat

That was my dream! Sadly no more BPPC here

[Cowcat]

@fitzsteve Bad move ! Anyways love your channel/blog.

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Cowcat

@fitzsteve Bad move ! Anyways love your channel/blog.

Glad you enjoy the Channel/Blog mate

I'm going to get a Tripod that supports the HTC so that I can take a better Video, I also got a SonyPVM recently and I got a proper Scart-RGB lead today so I can see me using that instead of the Amstrad Monitor

[DonutKing]

Just got mine setup on the weekend. So far I am pretty happy with it.
Being able to read FAT format CF cards natively is great, makes it really easy to transfer files downloaded on my PC to the Amiga.




I've yet to install Workbench to a CF card and try out WHDLoad - that will be next weekend's project

I think its a great expansion for the A500, really makes it a lot more flexible.

I'm using the CatCase from amigastore.eu and although its a little rough around the edges, if you don't look at it too closely its fine.



If they made a proper wedge shaped beige plastic case in the same style as the A500 I'd be all over it Maybe 3D printing is an option....

[Jacques]

Hello Everyone

Is/will be there a chance to use MAPROM of ACATUNE program to map any desired Kickstart (2.x, etc.)?

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Jacques

Hello Everyone

Is/will be there a chance to use MAPROM of ACATUNE program to map any desired Kickstart (2.x, etc.)?

ACA500 comes with acamaprom program. It is "magic" flash resident program, simply type acamaprom <rom file> in shell. Note that under KS 1.3 shell-seg update needs to be active because 1.x CLI does not understand resident commands.

[Jacques]

It works perfectly, thank you for an information Toni

[CrashMidnick]

Blizzard 1230 MKI does not work with it (FW V099)

[fitzsteve]

Hey guys, thought I'd share this... I got rid of my ACA1232 a while back (was skint) and have been using the ACA500 without any 12xx Turbo Board.



I found a 2mb clip over CPU Ram board at Amibay which works with the ACA500 to give me 4mb Fast Ram(inc the ACA's 2mb), enough for me





Memory is added to the free memory pool with AutoAddRam tool by Jonathan Potter, I used address 200000 3ffffe which as you can see add's the extra 2mb Fast Ram.







And tested with a couple of multi-disk WHDLoad Games + Preload:









Just to mention the CPU if socketed like mine touches the Keyboard, but I can still close the case on my A500+

[Photon]

Good to know this board compatible, a little ironic the memory size is so small Sending the same why-only-2MB question to piacc64

Is it proper FastMem or does it become a Slowmem replacement when put inside like this? (Run Sysinfo speed vs A500 with ACA500 unplugged I guess is the simplest way). If it's FastMem, you could disable the ACA500 ram of course and see if it can keep up

[fitzsteve]

AFAIK It's proper Fast Ram, probably not as Fast as the ACA's but I will make the SysInfo screens later (after FA Cup final)

Jens did mention in a post locations you can Map memory that wont conflict with the ACA500 so would need to double check and see if that could be more then 2mb.

Just bare in mind the cost of buying these expansions vs the cost of buying an ACA12xx, at a point you're better off just buying an ACA1220!

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

Just bare in mind the cost of buying these expansions vs the cost of buying an ACA12xx, at a point you're better off just buying an ACA1220!

ACA1232 40mhz @Amigakit = 187 USD +shipping
GTI 2MB expansion = 29 USD +shipping

There is currently no ACA1220 in stock at Amigakit.

So it is a huge difference.

[DonutKing]

amigastore.eu has the ACA1220-16 for 88.52 Euro.

However a small RAM expansion like this could still be useful. I've found a couple of games/demos that slow down or stutter with my ACA1232-25 attached to my ACA500. Disabling the ACA1232 seems to fix the issue but the lack of RAM causes some issues with WHDLOAD.

The majority of games/demos work fine however.

[fitzsteve]

I managed to find an ACA1230/56 (on these very boards)





Runs great!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mih8qh9d1cjkssp/VIDEO0048.3gp

(Sorry for the rubbish Video, it's ADoom in EHB)

One comment though, I had to roll back to V0.67 Firmware for the ACA500, any above and there was no Fast Ram from the ACA1230

I've had a similar experience. I have an Amiga 500 (motherboard rev 6 with 1mb onboard ram modded to chipram and kickstart 2.04) and an ACA1230/42.

With the latest firmware choosing any maprom profile, it disables the 1230 fast ram and the Aux CF slot. If I go to the expert menu and enable "add other on-board ram" and "AUX CF slot" (F5 and F8) while keeping disabled the maprom function ("Map ROM: off" and "ROM: keep current") I can get the Aux CF slot working and all fast ram enabled successfully.

I haven't tried an older firmware yet. I've tried a Blizzard 1230 IV and it works flawlessly.