ACA620 reset proof ram disk

[Toni Wilen]

ACA620 reset proof ram disk released.

http://www.winuae.net/files/stuff/aca620rd.zip

Features:

- Uses ACA620 special hardware features, hidden ~2.5M RAM used for data and protected RAM for code.
- Survives reset and practically all kinds of crashes, not like other reset proof programs that disappear when execbase gets cleared.
- Automounts, autobooting supported.
- KS1.3 compatible (including automount/boot)
- Single small executable, no mountlists or other external files needed.
- Uses ROM built-in FFS under 2.0+, OFS if 1.3.

Notes:
- Under 1.3 manual format is needed using format command. (KS 2.0+ introduced filesystem format packet support)
- ACA620 rev 2 required.

Command line parameters:

NOAUTOBOOT = disable autoboot.
BOOTPRI = boot priority value, default = -10.
HIGHCYL = high cylinder value, default = 220 (all memory).
BLOCKSPERTRACK = blocks per track value, default = 11.
Other geometry values match floppy disk (2 heads etc..), change highcyl to 79 if you want RAD like 880k floppy ram disk.

Unlike in my WinUAE news posts, bug reports are acceptable in this thread

[Amiga1992]

Useful!

[demolition]

Definately, and I'll be trying it out soon. Not sure what I can use it for though. Any ideas?

Now I'm just waiting for the freezer monitor tool.

[Bamiga2002]

Originally Posted by demolition

Definately, and I'll be trying it out soon. Not sure what I can use it for though. Any ideas?

Copy your plain WB to it and enjoy the speed!
Is this possible to have also on ACA 1230?

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Bamiga2002

Is this possible to have also on ACA 1230?

No, but you can use standard RAD: ram disk, ACA1230 has much more available RAM than ACA620

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Bamiga2002

Copy your plain WB to it and enjoy the speed!

Well, since I'm using ClassicWB, there's no way it would fit on 2.5MB.
But I guess it could be a nice solution for a WHDload gaming mode booting into a launcher.

[Amiga1992]

I suppose it would be cool to dump an image to it on bootup the first time, and always get a blazing fast "flash disk"

[alenppc]

Will this work with Rev1 boards that Jens is currently applying the stability fix to? (Btw, Jens, any parcels from Canada arrived yet? )

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by alenppc

Will this work with Rev1 boards that Jens is currently applying the stability fix to? (Btw, Jens, any parcels from Canada arrived yet? )

No, it needs rev2.

EDIT: Rev2 = rev1 board with CPLD update. Board does not change.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by alenppc

(Btw, Jens, any parcels from Canada arrived yet? )

There's one parcel from Australia waiting for me to clear it at customs - got the notification last week. Since it's a 50-minute drive to the customs office (and another 50 minutes back), I've been waiting for at least one more parcel from outside Europe to arrive.

Just today I got an eMail from Singapore. There's Amigas all around the globe ;-)

Jens

[alenppc]

Thanks for letting me know. I doubt the one I sent will require any clearance though.

[demolition]

I was just trying out this tool, but can't get it to work properly. When I run the tool, it does create a new ARD: device, but the machine crashes if I try to put anything there. I tried to copy an ADF file there and it crashed, creating garbage on the entire screen.

If I (from cold boot) run the tool in WB and warm reboot the machine it will automount, but WB will complain about a checksum error at 2431. If I then try to format it (full format) it crashes at around 60%.

Am I doing anything wrong?

I am running the tool from within ClassicWB after running acatune 1.7 with maprom.

[Toni Wilen]

Try without acatune first.

I did some tests with acatune map rom function and didn't notice any issues. (You sure you don't have any other options set?)

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Try without acatune first.

I did some tests with acatune map rom function and didn't notice any issues. (You sure you don't have any other options set?)

Also using -maxmem -vbrmove and -burst on.

Edit: Just tried putting it as the first item in my startup-sequence and did a cold reboot. When Scalos appeared it said it had found a checksum error in disk block 2431, just like before. The error pops up again when I try to open the new ram disk in Scalos.

Edit2: Tried removing -vbrmove, didn't change anything, so just maprom and maxmem left (which I both need). I thought I had burst on, but I did not. Must have been the 1200.

A600 specs are 2D MB with ACA620 rev. 2, A604 and Indivision ECS.

Edit3: It seemed to work a little better when booting into a pure WB 3.1 disk instead of ClassicWB, however still not 100%. After doing a format in WB3.1 on the ram disk, I tried copying an ADF file from my HDD to the aca ram drive and then wrote it back to a floppy. During load of the game, it crashed, so I went back to investigate. I copied the ADF file from the aca ram drive back to the HDD and then back to the PC for comparison with the original file. About 100 bytes are different in the two ADF files (about 85% in), so it's corrupting the files somehow.

[Toni Wilen]

Does attached version work? (I don't really see how the original was even supposed to work at all..)

[demolition]

That does seem to work a lot better. After running aca620rd in ClassicWB I copied two ADF files to the new drive and copied the first ADF back out to the CF card for comparison on the PC. This time it was 100% identical to the original.

However, it still fails after a warm reboot. The automounted drive has a checksum error and I cannot use it.

[Toni Wilen]

Does it work without acatune? (for example boot normally, copy some stuff to ram disk, boot without startup-sequence, check ram disk contents)

[demolition]

I removed acatune from the ss and after a warm boot it seems to work fine now in ClassicWB.

[Toni Wilen]

Does maxmem or maprom break it? or both? or just running acatune without parameters?

[demolition]

Running acatune without any parameters seems to break it (eventhough it's not supposed to do anything?).