The definitive Macrosystem Casablanca hack thread!

[djkoelkast]

Here's the video I made. If there is a lot of interest in English CC let me know, I'll try and make them.

[ Show youtube player ]

This video is entirely made on the Casablanca Turbo with 48mb (3.0.12X)
No edits were done afterwards.

[gulliver]

@djkoelkast

Thank you very much for supplying this new information.
I have fixed the firsts posts with what you have told us.

The video you made is really cool.
I never knew the Casablanca had an option for 16:9 video format.

I dont understand much of your language, but liked the video anyway.

Thanks again

[djkoelkast]

I think 128mb isn't correct (which I stated in one of my previous posts). But 64mb should be correct.

[Locutus]

wat een geweldige publieke tv achtergrond muziekjes en commentaar :-))

[djkoelkast]

Originally Posted by Locutus

wat een geweldige publieke tv achtergrond muziekjes en commentaar :-))

Haha dank je, het is allemaal librarymuziek, van eigen platen (moest zo analoog mogelijk)

or in English: thanks, those are all library tracks, I've recorded them from my own records (I wanted the video to be as analog as possible)

[LuigiThirty]

I picked up a couple Casablancas with working HDDs recently from a gutted video production studio. Have there been any updates on hacking them since last January?

[Locutus]

Don't hold your breath

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by LuigiThirty

I picked up a couple Casablancas with working HDDs recently from a gutted video production studio. Have there been any updates on hacking them since last January?

No new infos as it seems there are not enough people wishing to share their software or willing to hack their units.

So unless this changes and people start to contribute we will be hitting the same problems.

It is a pitty, since a hacked workbench could eventually work. AmigaDOS and Toccata audio drivers work out the box. Getting the framebuffer video output to display something is the biggest obstacle.

[Toni Wilen]

Nothing will happen as long as nearly all machines are owned by collectors.

[LuigiThirty]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Nothing will happen as long as nearly all machines are owned by collectors.

They're that rare? I didn't think they sold for that much on Amibay. I got 3 for $10 from a local government surplus property auction - they emptied out a high school's SD video production studio. I didn't know what they were until I booted one up to see if it worked and was greeted by Topaz-8.

[SimonV]

Sorry to revive the thread but I see no need to make a new one. Is there someone here that can get me the english locale of the casablanca ? I checked the file on EAB but there's only German in the Casablanca/locale folder. I would like to try to ad English to a BENELUX system that only contains Dutch, French and German

That said ... I am a collector but that doesn't stop me from tinkering with things. I can easily remove the working hard drive and put another one in there to mess around. Not that I can contribute a lot ... I am no programmer.

[gulliver]

Hi SimonV, email me:

kurq (at) yahoo.com

[mrluff]

Hi, I will get a Casablanca in the mail tomorrow and I am going to try and contribute as me and others also want to "crack" the platform and use it as an accelerated-RTG-like-amiga.

What do you need from the system? Never made an image of an amiga-disk to be used in WinUAE, what tools is used? Other things that are useful as a start?

It's the 060@50, 36GB SCSI, "Casablanca Motion II" version.

I'm situated in Norway and have a few other Amigas and Commodores from before.

[gulliver]

Hi, thank you from coming forward on this.

A copy of the Amiga side of the Casablanca harddisk would be highly apreciated and useful. That is where the Casablanca software is installed, the other two partitions only contain video and audio footage (if any).

It is not an easy task to backup the contents of the Casablanca system partition.
You will need a PC with WinUAE, and that PC needs to have a SCSI II adapter to be able to plug-in the Casablanca HDD.

Then it is just a matter of running WinUAE and configuring it to access the Casablanca HDD whilst booting WinUAE from another AmigaOS system drive from where you can perform the backup.

For backing up Casablanca floppy disks, the procedure is a bit more complex (although it involves the same hardware requirements), but if there is something worth saving from the floppies that is not present in the Casablanca HDD, then we can also tackle it.

Anyway, if and when you manage to get both the Casablanca and the PC with scsi interface, feel free to contact me for any assistance you might require or post here, as I visit this site several times on a daily basis.

Thanks again.

[mrluff]

Hello, machine arrived and everything ok, just one question; i cant get my keyboard to work, it's a 5-pin DIN PC-keyboard, so should be right type, but no keys are reacting when at the "you have the wrong harddisk and it is illegal" etc. I only get response from one arrow-key and it gives a errormessage on screen "0x00027f09 internal error" and reboots. Read online about the errormessage that I must plug keyboard out and in etc. but nothing works. Do you know what to do?

Have no mouse yet, thats why I try keyboard.

[gulliver]

Hi, hope it helps:

7fO1OOOx MMU error
7fO2000x interrupt error
7fO3000x Access to Custom chip registers
7fO30001 Access to blitter
7fO30002 Access to Amiga-Audio Hardware
7fOSOOOx Error accessing the clock or the nonvolatile memory
7fOSOOOl Battery-backed memory can not be read (This message may, for example, after the exchange of battery on the CPU board occur)
7fOSOOO2 Battery-backed memory can not be initialized
7fOSOOO3 Serial number can not be read
7fOSOOOS Clock is not running
7fO7000x Various messages
7fO70002 bus timeout
7fO70003 Watchdog timer
7fO9000x keyboard failure
7fO900ql Wrong keyboard (not MF-II keyboard)
7fO90002 Faulty data from the keyboard

In your case, it is indeed a keyboard error. Remember that the keyboard must not be a PC XT one or first generation PC AT one, but the PC AT Multifunction II or also known as extended keyboard.

You should try with another keyboard to properly isolate the issue.

On the other hand, the message "you have the wrong harddisk and it is illegal" means that the HDD of your Casablanca is not the one that came with the unit. Most likely the vendor just took it away and put other one, or the HDD is failing. Anyway, that message can be fixed, by adding the proper serial number codes to the HDD, but that again means taking the HDD out and plugging it in a PC with a SCSI II interface.

[mrluff]

Thanks, that makes sense as the keyboard I'm testing with is a Commodore PC-20 (PC-AT clone), and it's pretty small so not extended AT-thing probably.

Will need to source AT Multifunction II keyboard (and serial mouse).

I've tried A4k, CDTV keyboards and amiga mice for fun but none work, they dont even give an error so I guess they're not compatible at all (like most places online says), they do light up though and caps lock light works etc.

I knew about the reason of the harddisk message I just told to make you understand where in the process I was. I wont use the software and it's also in German so I don't care about it for now, internet says it's just a warning and can be clicked away.

While I wait for peripherals to be sourced I will set up an old computer with SCSI-interface and WinUAE.



Lars

[mrluff]

Gulliver do you have a short instruction on setting up winuae for the Casablanca disk image, and what tools do you use to make the image?



Lars

[emufan]

Originally Posted by mrluff

Gulliver do you have a short instruction on setting up winuae for the Casablanca disk image, and what tools do you use to make the image?

just start winuae --> F12 --> CD & HDrives --> Add Hard Drive
here you choose your disk and use [Create hard disk image file]

maybe this is all you need.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by emufan

just start winuae --> F12 --> CD & HDrives --> Add Hard Drive
here you choose your disk and use [Create hard disk image file]

maybe this is all you need.

Yes, that is it.

Or you can set this Casablanca HDD as a secondary drive in WinUAE whilst you boot from another preset AmigaOS installation that you might have, and then from this OS, directly access the Casablanca HDD. Remember though, three partitions will show up in the Casablanca HDD. One will be the System: partition which will be the AmigaOS one (and this contains all the software), and the other two will be non accesible and belong to the audio and video footage.

I can provide you with a new set of Casablanca system files in english if you prefer (I have some other languages too), and guide you on the process of validating that HDD so that the system doesnt complain that it is illegal. This is done by modifying the Casablanca System: partition by using AmigaOS.