K1208 8mb Fastmem board for the A1200 - Page 4

alenppc · 01 February 2018, 19:39

Actually the Kickstart will automatically disable the PCMCIA interface in case there is more than 4MB of ZII RAM present (which this is).

plasmab · 01 February 2018, 19:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by alenppc

Actually the Kickstart will automatically disable the PCMCIA interface in case there is more than 4MB of ZII RAM present (which this is).

Ouch. It map the registers in ZII space? I thought it came in around $A00000?

alenppc · 01 February 2018, 20:23

No, it's just that 600000-9FFFFF is reserved for PCMCIA RAM so if there is ram from another source present in that area, kickstart 3.1 will simply make the whole interface invisible to the system, so no pcmcia card will work even if you're using an I/O mapped pcmcia card instead of a RAM card.

plasmab · 01 February 2018, 20:29

Ah. I’d have preferred it if it had configured PCMCIA and then not configured ZII RAM if there was going to be an overlap.

kipper2k · 01 February 2018, 21:22

Not sure if this is correct but i believe the pcmcia slot will remain active with 8MB fastmem attached to trapdoor providing the pcmcia slot device does not reserve memory. (Nic cards etc should still be ok). Feel free to tell me i am wrong if i am

.

new test boards are arriving next week )

Jope · 02 February 2018, 08:53

For KS3.1, it disables the entire card.resource if the RAM area overlaps. This is done during initialization before it even looks for a PCMCIA card. For 3.0 and earlier, this check is not done, so you can use an IO only PCMCIA card even if there is RAM where the PC card would go.

indigolemon · 02 February 2018, 08:58

Isn't there a patched card.resource kicking about to restore the 3.0 behaviour and allow IO cards in 3.1+? Have a memory of it being mentioned in a thread, maybe about the furia?

[Edit] found it! http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=226

solidcore · 02 February 2018, 10:34

Myself and Kipper2k spent a day or so figuring this out the other month, so correct if wrong but I came to the following conclusion:

As the a1200 is a 24bit, even a PMCIA card being present (ram, ethernet or ide will conflict) on the active line? causes the amiga to automatically reserve the memory therefore conflicts with the 8mb Fastram configured address space (4mb of the 8mb Zorro-II memory address window), this will cause a crash I believe with any PMCIA inserted into the slot except with certain kickstart rom and workbench configurations which we found one particularly worked I think it was kickstart 3.0 with workbench 3.1 and not kickstart 3.1.

A hardware jumper to switch between 4mb and 8mb configurations on a k1208 would allow PMCIA cards to work harmoniously in 4mb mode at the cost of 4mb fastram.

Regardless of workbench or kickstart rom you use to get it working, ram sharing the same space will end horribly. There is really no point in PMCIA ram and z2 8mb fastram together.

However sunshine over the hills for the k1208 would be to reimagine a k1238 - an 030 card for the a1200 with even more memory (not sure how much) possibly with a FPGA since CPLD's are small and SPI support is coming at a tight squeeze. I believe the Zorro-III 32bit memory address window is a true workaround to this problem. Fortunately for us, Stephen has done a lot of work in that area and it should go without saying that this hard work could be applied to the a1200 in some way or other. Well that's if the a1200 fingers at the trapdoor AND the PCI adapter by Kipper2k offers the necessary signals, I don't know.

PR77 · 02 February 2018, 10:48

Great work guys on the advancements I'm reading about.

alenppc · 02 February 2018, 19:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jope

For KS3.1, it disables the entire card.resource if the RAM area overlaps. This is done during initialization before it even looks for a PCMCIA card. For 3.0 and earlier, this check is not done, so you can use an IO only PCMCIA card even if there is RAM where the PC card would go.

That is absolutely correct. In fact the 3.0 behaviour was considered a bug and fixed in 3.1. Back in the day, pretty much the only PCMCIA cards you could buy were RAM, so nobody thought of I/O cards.

The 90s cards behave in the exact same way. It seems that in Amigaland people consider this behaviour somewhat mystical, but it's really simple:

Is there more than 4MB of ZII mapped ram? > PCMCIA disabled.
Is the RAM mapped in ZIII space? > PCMCIA enabled.

See for example the M-Tec/Viper 1230 cards. ZII mapped ram, disables PCMCIA regardless of 68030. Blizzard MK-IV? ZIII mapped ram.

t3v6 · 05 February 2018, 18:14

Pfft, this post edited as total waste of bandwith. My question was answered on all of page4, which I missed.

Yes, 8MB fast and PCMCIA RAM would be a waste, but I/O functioning would still be great.
So the answer to my question: K1208 with 4MB jumper, or loss of PCMCIA, at current engineering stage.

FREEMILK · 16 February 2018, 23:53

a few revisions have passed (left/right)
Yellow 2nd test, Green MK2 with SPI, Original test red.
latest revision marks the advancement of 2x spi + sd

solidcore · 16 February 2018, 23:56

@t3v6 as pmcia works fine in 4mb we'll either go with a 4mb/8mb jumper OR a software toggle (open application, set 4mb/8mb option in UI, reboot amiga) to a read/write flash chip of some kind. .

@freemilk gotta love prototypes.

IF anyone wants to chip in , let me know we're having fun. that's what matters.

FREEMILK · 17 February 2018, 00:00

FREEMILK · 17 February 2018, 02:14

We are now able to boot 4mb or 8mb, this will be great for PCMCIA users.
Simply Jumper to choose.

Awesome work guys.

Amiga is not about going fast, its about working with its limitations to get the best out of our beloved Amiga, the best computers ever made.

emufan · 17 February 2018, 23:58

I'm sort of impressed by the SPI bus added lately to new cards.
with all the SPI based addons now available, commdore should have used those
instead of the proprietary clockport.
nice work

FREEMILK · 18 February 2018, 03:16

[IMG]https://u

AwoLStill · 18 February 2018, 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by FREEMILK

Now THAT is what I like to see

P.S. Once the SPI Ethernet works, I have no more need of PCMCIA, so a jumper for 4MB / 8MB would do me, I'd probably never use it.

FREEMILK · 23 February 2018, 19:40

kgc210 · 23 February 2018, 20:04

Do you have a github for the SPI device drivers and software?

16 February 2018, 23:53	#72
FREEMILK Registered User Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: North Bay, Ontario, Canada Posts: 67	K1208 progress a few revisions have passed (left/right) Yellow 2nd test, Green MK2 with SPI, Original test red. latest revision marks the advancement of 2x spi + sd

16 February 2018, 23:56	#73
solidcore Registered User Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: birmingham, uk Posts: 548	@t3v6 as pmcia works fine in 4mb we'll either go with a 4mb/8mb jumper OR a software toggle (open application, set 4mb/8mb option in UI, reboot amiga) to a read/write flash chip of some kind. . @freemilk gotta love prototypes. IF anyone wants to chip in , let me know we're having fun. that's what matters. Last edited by solidcore; 17 February 2018 at 02:19.

17 February 2018, 00:00	#74
FREEMILK Registered User Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: North Bay, Ontario, Canada Posts: 67	Yes having FUN !!

17 February 2018, 02:14	#75
FREEMILK Registered User Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: North Bay, Ontario, Canada Posts: 67	Friday Night progress We are now able to boot 4mb or 8mb, this will be great for PCMCIA users. Simply Jumper to choose. Awesome work guys. Amiga is not about going fast, its about working with its limitations to get the best out of our beloved Amiga, the best computers ever made.

18 February 2018, 03:16	#77
FREEMILK Registered User Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: North Bay, Ontario, Canada Posts: 67	SPI wi-Fi [IMG]https://u Last edited by FREEMILK; 19 February 2018 at 19:46.

01 February 2018, 19:39	#61
alenppc Registered User Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Canada Age: 44 Posts: 910	Actually the Kickstart will automatically disable the PCMCIA interface in case there is more than 4MB of ZII RAM present (which this is).

01 February 2018, 20:23	#63
alenppc Registered User Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Canada Age: 44 Posts: 910	No, it's just that 600000-9FFFFF is reserved for PCMCIA RAM so if there is ram from another source present in that area, kickstart 3.1 will simply make the whole interface invisible to the system, so no pcmcia card will work even if you're using an I/O mapped pcmcia card instead of a RAM card.

01 February 2018, 20:29	#64
plasmab Banned Join Date: Sep 2016 Location: UK Posts: 2,917	Ah. I’d have preferred it if it had configured PCMCIA and then not configured ZII RAM if there was going to be an overlap.

01 February 2018, 21:22	#65
kipper2k Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Thunder Bay, Canada Posts: 4,323	Not sure if this is correct but i believe the pcmcia slot will remain active with 8MB fastmem attached to trapdoor providing the pcmcia slot device does not reserve memory. (Nic cards etc should still be ok). Feel free to tell me i am wrong if i am . new test boards are arriving next week )

02 February 2018, 08:53	#66
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,861	For KS3.1, it disables the entire card.resource if the RAM area overlaps. This is done during initialization before it even looks for a PCMCIA card. For 3.0 and earlier, this check is not done, so you can use an IO only PCMCIA card even if there is RAM where the PC card would go.

02 February 2018, 08:58	#67
indigolemon Bit Copying Bard Join Date: Jan 2017 Location: Kelty, Fife, Scotland Age: 41 Posts: 1,293	Isn't there a patched card.resource kicking about to restore the 3.0 behaviour and allow IO cards in 3.1+? Have a memory of it being mentioned in a thread, maybe about the furia? [Edit] found it! http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=226

02 February 2018, 10:34	#68
solidcore Registered User Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: birmingham, uk Posts: 548	Myself and Kipper2k spent a day or so figuring this out the other month, so correct if wrong but I came to the following conclusion: As the a1200 is a 24bit, even a PMCIA card being present (ram, ethernet or ide will conflict) on the active line? causes the amiga to automatically reserve the memory therefore conflicts with the 8mb Fastram configured address space (4mb of the 8mb Zorro-II memory address window), this will cause a crash I believe with any PMCIA inserted into the slot except with certain kickstart rom and workbench configurations which we found one particularly worked I think it was kickstart 3.0 with workbench 3.1 and not kickstart 3.1. A hardware jumper to switch between 4mb and 8mb configurations on a k1208 would allow PMCIA cards to work harmoniously in 4mb mode at the cost of 4mb fastram. Regardless of workbench or kickstart rom you use to get it working, ram sharing the same space will end horribly. There is really no point in PMCIA ram and z2 8mb fastram together. However sunshine over the hills for the k1208 would be to reimagine a k1238 - an 030 card for the a1200 with even more memory (not sure how much) possibly with a FPGA since CPLD's are small and SPI support is coming at a tight squeeze. I believe the Zorro-III 32bit memory address window is a true workaround to this problem. Fortunately for us, Stephen has done a lot of work in that area and it should go without saying that this hard work could be applied to the a1200 in some way or other. Well that's if the a1200 fingers at the trapdoor AND the PCI adapter by Kipper2k offers the necessary signals, I don't know.

02 February 2018, 10:48	#69
PR77 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2017 Location: Germany Posts: 193	Great work guys on the advancements I'm reading about.

05 February 2018, 18:14	#71
t3v6 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: Bremen, Germany Posts: 13	Pfft, this post edited as total waste of bandwith. My question was answered on all of page4, which I missed. Yes, 8MB fast and PCMCIA RAM would be a waste, but I/O functioning would still be great. So the answer to my question: K1208 with 4MB jumper, or loss of PCMCIA, at current engineering stage.

17 February 2018, 23:58	#76
emufan Registered User Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: #DrainTheSwamp Posts: 4,545	I'm sort of impressed by the SPI bus added lately to new cards. with all the SPI based addons now available, commdore should have used those instead of the proprietary clockport. nice work

23 February 2018, 19:40	#79
FREEMILK Registered User Join Date: Jan 2016 Location: North Bay, Ontario, Canada Posts: 67	hehe

23 February 2018, 20:04	#80
kgc210 Registered User Join Date: Jun 2016 Location: Stoke-On-Trent, England Posts: 450	Do you have a github for the SPI device drivers and software?

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