The scsi.device delay. Can it be reduced?

gulliver · 04 February 2010, 11:24

As i understand it, the delay present in the scsi.device inside the kickstart rom was designed to provide compatibility for old, hence slow spinning drives, and give them enough time to actually be accesible.
In these days of CompactFlash and solid state drives solutions for the Amiga, shouldnt it be possible and make sense to reduce that delay generating with that a faster booting system?

Could it be as simple as implementing a patch to scsi.device?

Has someone done it? or knows how to do it?

coze · 04 February 2010, 11:44

check blizkick

Minuous · 04 February 2010, 14:49

If you've got an A3000 or A4000 you can edit the battery-backed RAM with Report+ to change the SCSI spinup delay (among other things).

alexh · 04 February 2010, 18:50

Assuming you still have a working battery.

Doobrey · 04 February 2010, 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by gulliver

As i understand it, the delay present in the scsi.device inside the kickstart rom was designed to provide compatibility for old, hence slow spinning drives, and give them enough time to actually be accesible.

In these days of CompactFlash and solid state drives solutions for the Amiga, shouldnt it be possible and make sense to reduce that delay generating with that a faster booting system?

If you're using a CF/IDE adapter or a relatively modern IDE drive (anything made in the last 10 yrs or so) you shouldn't need to reduce the delay.
The delay is only happens if scsi.device's init code can't find any ATA device on the bus, so it keeps on looking until it reaches a hardcoded 'timeout' value, and quits if it can't find anything.
(IIRC, OS2.x to OS3.0 was 9 secs, 3.1 was 30 secs, 3.9 went to 31 secs)

Quote:

Could it be as simple as implementing a patch to scsi.device?

Has someone done it? or knows how to do it?

I did one over Xmas, it's a Blizkick/Remus patch that should work with all IDE scsi.devices,reducing the timeout back to 9 secs, and as an added bonus it removes the beta 'timeout' warning from Amiga Int's scsi.device 43.24
http://www.doobreynet.co.uk/files/remus/IDEDelayFix.lha

gulliver · 04 February 2010, 21:58

Thanks everyone very much. These were the kind of answers i was looking for

04 February 2010, 11:24	#1
gulliver BoingBagged Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: The South of nowhere Age: 46 Posts: 2,358	The scsi.device delay. Can it be reduced? As i understand it, the delay present in the scsi.device inside the kickstart rom was designed to provide compatibility for old, hence slow spinning drives, and give them enough time to actually be accesible. In these days of CompactFlash and solid state drives solutions for the Amiga, shouldnt it be possible and make sense to reduce that delay generating with that a faster booting system? Could it be as simple as implementing a patch to scsi.device? Has someone done it? or knows how to do it?

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04 February 2010, 11:44	#2
coze hastala vista winny vista Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: mt fuji Age: 46 Posts: 1,335	check blizkick

04 February 2010, 14:49	#3
Minuous Coder/webmaster/gamer Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Canberra/Australia Posts: 2,629	If you've got an A3000 or A4000 you can edit the battery-backed RAM with Report+ to change the SCSI spinup delay (among other things).

04 February 2010, 18:50	#4
alexh Thalion Webshrine Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Oxford Posts: 14,330	Assuming you still have a working battery.

04 February 2010, 21:58	#6
gulliver BoingBagged Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: The South of nowhere Age: 46 Posts: 2,358	Thanks everyone very much. These were the kind of answers i was looking for

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