Kickstart 1.3 / A500 / WinUAE / RTG / Graphics - Is it Possible?

[Azvareth]

Hi! everything in this post is about WinUAE, just so noone would be confused.

I wonder if someone knows if there existed an RTG card for A500 1.3? Mostly drivers and software for any Amiga 1.3?

A500: if I understand it has an ZII bus so it "should" be possible? Beside I have seen some hacks for "later" OS's like 3.x. that does it.

Have anyone tried this? Any hints?






[Background to my question]

I am (just because) trying a little project "what I whished I had with my A500")

So I am trying to emulate an A500 with "real" emulated hardware.

For now it is
A500+, Kickstart 1.3 (this is what I bought -87), later on I added 512kb, so I did that to to 1MB chip in emulation.

I also added one harddrive (as I did back then) one A590 (then with 30MB) now with 2*40MB...

And I also added (which I did not have back then) an accelerator card Commodore A2630 with 2MB added Ram..

So naturally I would like research if it is possible to add more graphic capabilities as well...

//Thank you!

[Minuous]

What software would you run on it? There is no RTG software for OS1.x.

[nogginthenog]

I would say Kickstart 3.0 will be the minimum. 3.0 does work on an A500.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by nogginthenog

3.0 does work on an A500.

As does Kickstart 3.1

[Azvareth]

thanks for the replies

No I am not trying to run something specific, I just wanted to know if for example: Amiga 1000 or Amiga 2000 had Graphics Cards for Zorro 2 (then theoretically? with this
apparantly a project by Rob the Nerd, don't know if it is available though) could it be possible?

Hence I am asking if there where any software [Edit: with Software I mean drivers that could let WB run in higher modes :Edit] (and hardware) For Amiga 500 or could be (with above card) used with an A500 with Kick 1.3?...

Yes I know I am emulating, but still my pointless project is to determine if this is possible with as much emulated hardware as possible.

And no, I have not yet found any software on my own for OS 1.3 though I soon have downloaded and browsed trough every file, disk mag's and Amiga resource on the entire Internet (ok I am kidding, but I have browsed trough a lot of stuff)

[EDITED]

I Have tested the A2024 disk, it seems to be targeting OS 1.3? however the ramkick utility can't load graphics.library or the setmonitor command complains about to old graphics.library.

For some reason when "using" the A2024:devs/system-configuration file it changes the resolution, but I have no clue how to do that on my own.

The old screen looked like:



and the newer one looks like



So it is a change in resolution by only copying A2024:devs/system-configuration file ?



(if you wonder about the background, it is a composition used from various reources on the internet)

[Minuous]

>I just wanted to know if for example: Amiga 1000 or Amiga 2000 had Graphics Cards for Zorro 2

Yes, eg. see http://amiga.resource.cx/search.pl?p...&base=dec&pid=
But of course you will require later than OS1.x.

>Hence I am asking if there where any software [Edit: with Software I mean drivers that could let WB run in higher modes :Edit] (and hardware) For Amiga 500 or could be (with above card) used with an A500 with Kick 1.3?...

OS1.x is hardcoded to only run in native screenmodes. Which means A2024 is not supported on OS1.x. The mode shown in your screenshot is not an A2024 mode, seems to be ordinary 640*512.

>I Have tested the A2024 disk, it seems to be targeting OS 1.3?

I am doubtful about this, do you have a link to the disk?

[Rotareneg]

The A2024 did indeed come with a "driver" disk for 1.3, it's on the EAB file server. It works by loading new versions of the exec, graphics, and intuition libraries in RAM and then rebooting.

Here's a screenshot from WinUAE as proof:

[Tomislav]

http://www.gregdonner.org/workbench/wb_2024.html

EDIT: Looks like screenshot on that site was made in WinUAE because 2024 is monochrome.

[Azvareth]

well...

I have a problem when running the jumpstart disk directly or when I have transfeered the neccessary files to 1.3 HD, according to the screenlink (by Tomislav)



I don't get the same result, on the second row

loadseg() "libs:graphics.library" (and also on intuition when running the command manually)

I got an error that the version of graphics.library is to old?

Perhaps I need to check the ROM file used, it might be a newer version that I am using, strange though as I bought my A500+ with 1.3 1987 - Later on I bought one A2000.

Anyway the A2024 and disk seems to be a later version (1988)?.

Rotareneg

Would you like to share your settings in WinUAE, escpecially the version of the ROM used - if it is legal? I see that you are using a Cloanto solution? I do not know if configurations is intellectual property as well.

[Rotareneg]

To start with, you might try just a regular quickstart A500 config with the "1.3 ROM, ECS Agnus, 1 MB Chim RAM" option should work with one tweak on the Chipset tab to select A2024 in the Video port display hardware drop down box. The ROM I'm using is detected as "KS ROM v1.3 (A500,A1000,A2000) rev 34.5 (256k) [315093-02]" in WinUAE.

Boot the A2024 floppy, answer "y" to installing the JumpStart libraries. When it reboots, "y" again when it asks to reset the Workbench, and then it should load into A2024 mode. If the screen looks all glitchy and weird, open the config windows and toggle the A2024 mode on and off in the chipset tab, it doesn't seem to be 100% reliable at detecting it sometimes.

As for getting it to work with an existing 1.3 hard drive install... no clue, sorry.

[Azvareth]

Ok... that seems to work -thank you, except for that when the workbanch has been reset it switches in to some wild flickering. When I open the settings and toggle the A2024 drop down option, the Amiga screen switches to monochrome (off) and color (on) but the flickering remains the same

Something like this (taken from two different states of the flickering)



I have read the documentation for the A2024 it says it operates in 10 or 15 Khz but I am unsure (if any) where I should change this...

[McTrinsic]

The flickering is correct.

The A2024 functioned as a flicker-fixer.

[Locutus]

...Do you have an actual Commodore A2024 monitor?

The A2024 doesn't work properly on anything else.

[Azvareth]

Originally Posted by Locutus

...Do you have an actual Commodore A2024 monitor?

The A2024 doesn't work properly on anything else.

No... I do not! this was purely an emulation exercise

Do I understand you correctly that I can't emulate the same specs somehow (for now at least)?

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by Azvareth

Ok... that seems to work -thank you, except for that when the workbanch has been reset it switches in to some wild flickering. When I open the settings and toggle the A2024 drop down option, the Amiga screen switches to monochrome (off) and color (on) but the flickering remains the same

Something like this (taken from two different states of the flickering)

That's what it's supposed to look like, if you don't enable the A2024 setting in WinUAE. A real Amiga connected to a 1084 monitor would look like that when showing an A2024 mode.

Open WinUAE settings, click Chipset in the left pane. Under Video port display hardware select A2024 (Commodore). Note that A2024 support apparently broke with WinUAE 4.0.0. It seems to be working again in WinUAE 4.3.0 beta 5.

[Azvareth]

Originally Posted by mark_k

That's what it's supposed to look like, if you don't enable the A2024 setting in WinUAE. A real Amiga connected to a 1084 monitor would look like that when showing an A2024 mode.

Open WinUAE settings, click Chipset in the left pane. Under Video port display hardware select A2024 (Commodore). Note that A2024 support apparently broke with WinUAE 4.0.0. It seems to be working again in WinUAE 4.3.0 beta 5.

I have WinUAE 4.21 and have selected the A2024 in Chipset display settings, the behaviour described above is from that settings. Perhaps it is broken in this version as well? If there is a new version I will try that out.

//Thank you for the hint!

[Toni Wilen]

It didn't show full A2024 viewable area, that was the broken part. It still detected the mode correctly.

Make sure your Display panel mode is not set to lores (or possibly single line mode). A2024 can't work if internal resolution is too small.

[Azvareth]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

It didn't show full A2024 viewable area, that was the broken part. It still detected the mode correctly.

Make sure your Display panel mode is not set to lores (or possibly single line mode). A2024 can't work if internal resolution is too small.

Ok!

Then it is just not working... I put this aside for a while, it was a bit of headache to get this working, apparantly (from previous screenshots it is working - but not for me)


//Have a nice weekend

[Tomislav]

To enable monochrome in Display settings tick "Monochrome video out". That option will affect only A2024 mode.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Azvareth

So it is a change in resolution by only copying A2024:devs/system-configuration file ?

Seems the A2024 system-configuration has interlace turned on. This can be changed with preferences on the 1.3 disk.