30 November 2019, 02:05 | #1 |
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Blizzard 1220 - ADD4 RAM PCMCIA friendly?
I have a Blizzard 1220/4 which runs quite well (020 at 28Mhz, 4MB of Ram, FPU).
Now I maybe have the opportunity to buy an "add4" Board which gives additional 4MB of Ram. Does anybody know if it is PCMCIA friendly (I want to use a CF Card there for data transfer)? If not: I "think" there is a disable jumper on the board. Did anybody successfully wire it to a disable switch? |
01 December 2019, 16:58 | #2 |
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Nope, it won't be PCMCIA friendly after that.
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01 December 2019, 18:06 | #3 |
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Just ordered it =P
Will try it out, probably hacking a switch if possible (because I dont want to turn the miggy around to de/activate it) and report. Thanks for the info. PS: What happens if you have 8MB Ram activated and try to use a pcmcia card? Can you safely test it? |
01 December 2019, 22:12 | #4 | |
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if you have roms 3.1 there is a patch that you can insert in the startup.sequence that make the PCMCIA work in roms 3.1 ( such patch requires a reboot so I recommend use roms 3.0 in such Amiga1200) |
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01 December 2019, 23:21 | #5 | ||
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I tried an 8meg card with 3.0 ROMs and 3.1 with patches, etc. and got nothing but crashes/non-boots. If anyone else actually has PCMCIA working with 8meg RAM (excepting cards with 32-bit mem obviously) I'm interested in hearing about it. Quote:
Hacking a 4/8meg switch to the jumpers totally worked for me though (just don't switch it when the machine is on ) |
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01 December 2019, 23:33 | #6 | |
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PCMCIA works perfect here on roms 3.0, no patches needed is very well known that roms 3.1 have a bug which prevents PCMCIA working if more than 4mb is installed I'm surprised that few people know this it seems that when a myth is repeated a thousand times it becomes true |
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01 December 2019, 23:54 | #7 | |
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Like Marchie, I can't get it to work on mine. Please can you let us know exactly what Kickstart 3.0 ROM version you have and also what memory address range the 8mb is allocated in - you can use Amiga Test Kit, or various other memory tools. |
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02 December 2019, 00:20 | #8 | |
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it is the only 3.0 version which exists ,there is no other one I will try to make some sysinfo screenshots for you to check where the fast memory is located btw this is what I have: http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/tra1200 which ram card or turboboard have you got in your A1200? |
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02 December 2019, 09:28 | #9 | |
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My memory card is a 'modern' A1208 board from Edu Arana - arananet.net: https://www.arananet.net/pedidos/pro...tram-for-1200/ According to https://www.amigacoding.com/index.php/Amiga_memory_map the 8MB Fast Ram should be using the Zorro-II 24-bit address range: 200000-5FFFFF (First 4MB) 600000-9FFFFF (Second 4MB) It is the second 4MB range that clashes with the PCMCIA (for memory card) address space. I understand Kickstart 3.0 (39.106) doesn't have the check to disable PCMCIA memory. Since I don't use the PCMCIA slot for memory, only Compact Flas, in theory it should not conflict with the 600000-9FFFFF range. However, I'm finding that my A1200 still crashes/glitches when I put my A1208 in 8MB memory mode and use the CF in the PCMCIA slot. |
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02 December 2019, 19:08 | #10 | |
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perhaps there is some incompatibility with ur compact flash adapter try another different PCMCIA device ie a modem or a LAN and check if works btw, I checked where is located the fast ram memory in my tra1200 turboboard in sysinfo say this: start adress :$00200000 end adress :$009FFFFF total size : 8.0mb memory type : fast ram public kick24bitDMA Last edited by Misclegend; 02 December 2019 at 19:13. |
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02 December 2019, 22:58 | #11 | |
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The CF adapter itself should not be an issue, since it is just a passive adapter. The various CF cards that do work, are working fine with compactflash.device and FAT95 drivers on my A1200 when in 4MB mode. It is only when in 8MB mode that there are stability issues. What revision is your A1200? And what Workbench are you using with Kickstart 3.0? I've been using ClassicWB, but will to switch if required. I'll have to do some more investigation and testing as I really do want to get this working on my A1200. |
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03 December 2019, 00:48 | #12 | |
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and I have installed OS3.9 including all 4 boing bags please note also there is a myth that says that OS3.5 and OS3.9 requires roms 3.1 which is not true They hacked the workbench.library which crash maliciously when Kick 3.0 is detected this was a comercial move to sell rom3.1 kits in the era you can install OS3.9 manually copying and replacing all files into respective dirs, then you must copy the workbench.library version 45.132 which comes with unnoficial boing bag 4, that's all, you will have OS3.9 working there also you can try a clean install of workbench 3.0 or 3.1 using floppies and then installing the minimum PCMCIA drivers and software required to check if PCMCIA works |
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03 December 2019, 11:10 | #13 |
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@Nightshift
Apologies for hijacking this thread! @Misclegend I don't think it is an OS issue. I think there is some hardware incompatibility with these 'modern' ram expansion boards. I haven't got a 'old' memory card to test and compare against. Even when booting directly in to Amiga Test Kit from floppy, in 8MB mode with a known working CF card plugged in and performing a memory test on the 8MB range it shows an issue on the first round of checking: This Amiga Test Kit memory check error only occurs when my ram expansion card is in 8MB mode and there is a CF card plugged in. Please could you do the same test using Amiga Test Kit, from floppy (or ADF) and show that it is passing the first round of testing. |
03 December 2019, 15:21 | #14 | |||||
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Anyway, having to work around not having 3.1 just so you can avoid rebooting with a replacement patched card.resource is moot in that case since you need to reboot to use OS 3.9 anyway. Adding additional modules doesn't add additional reboots, so the 3.1 ROM doesn't have that disadvantage when running 3.9. |
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03 December 2019, 17:56 | #15 |
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I take that back.
I tested a boot up with no startup-sequence and mounted CF0: successfully and was able to access the CF without any issues: I also created a boot floppy with CFD and FAT95 drivers, and it is able to access the CF card without any issues: So I'm not sure what in my ClassicWB setup is causing the incompatibility and how this relates to the memory check errors. Last edited by solarmon; 03 December 2019 at 19:11. |
03 December 2019, 22:58 | #16 |
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now do a clean workbench install , 3.0 or 3.1 or OS3.9, there should be no problems, fact is that PCMCIA here always worked fine ; I never need any patch |
03 December 2019, 23:10 | #17 | |
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Stock Workbench, whatever the version, is just too..erm..stock, for me. |
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03 December 2019, 23:14 | #18 | |
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the original workbench.library v44 crash maliciously when roms 3.0 are detected thanks to the developers of boing bag 3 and 4 they removed such malicious check here OS3.9 works perfect in my A1200 with roms 3.0 I do not need to sofkick rom 3.1 anymore , it doesn not need any reboot or anything like that it boots on the fly "Setpatch SKIPROMUPDATES" etc |
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03 December 2019, 23:27 | #19 | ||||
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04 December 2019, 01:54 | #20 | ||
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My card is 'classic' era and it doesn't play nice with PCMCIA beyond 4meg. Quote:
Interesting to think that ClassicWb may be creating unnecessary RAM/PCMCIA conflicts. It's just so convenient to keep copying a know-good WB install that I never thought to put a fresh WB on just to test the Wifi. Being able to use the full 8 meg with WiFi PCMCIA cards makes a significant difference for too - pretty much every website in Ibrowse runs out of memory with only 4meg fast, which makes the Wifi card kind of useless for anything but FTP. (Ok, so FTP is probably the only thing you'd use WiFi for with an A1200 anyhow, but still, it's nice be able to post to forums such as these from classic hardware from time to time ) |
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