Individual Computers - New accelerator cards for A600 & A1200

[vroom6sri]

Not sure if this is relevant or not but, booting the machine up with just the CF hard drive and no accelerator and my WB screen says I've only got 1,249,104 graphics mem in my A1200. With my old (now sold on) IDE hard drive I'm sure I had something closer to 1,800,000.

I understand the startup-sequences are no doubt different but this seems like a large difference. Is it possible I've damaged something internal with all this poking around?

EDIT!!!! - Just found a bootable Amiga WB floppy and, after disabling all drives apart from DF0 with the hold-down-both-mouse-buttons-at-startup-trick I'm showing 1,739,600 graphics mem. Should I be happier? Is there still summin' wrong?

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by vroom6sri

Not sure if this is relevant or not but, booting the machine up with just the CF hard drive and no accelerator and my WB screen says I've only got 1,249,104 graphics mem in my A1200. With my old (now sold on) IDE hard drive I'm sure I had something closer to 1,800,000.

I understand the startup-sequences are no doubt different but this seems like a large difference. Is it possible I've damaged something internal with all this poking around?

EDIT!!!! - Just found a bootable Amiga WB floppy and, after disabling all drives apart from DF0 with the hold-down-both-mouse-buttons-at-startup-trick I'm showing 1,739,600 graphics mem. Should I be happier? Is there still summin' wrong?

Simple answer, before you must have had a very basic workbench and now you're running a much more pimped out OS, are you running a Classic Workbench pack now instead of plain old OS3.0/1?

Steve.

[ant512]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

Simple answer, before you must have had a very basic workbench and now you're running a much more pimped out OS, are you running a Classic Workbench pack now instead of plain old OS3.0/1?

Steve.

Memory can be quickly used up by hard disk partitions, too. Larger block sizes and more partitions = much less available memory. How many partitions have you divided your Compact Flash into, and what block size did you use?

[FOL]

A600





Be careful of the LED connector, when taking A600 apart.



ACA630/25 MHz





A600 Mobo



ACA630/25 MHz Installed



Note the jumper position. I removed the jumper, as I still have an Internal Floppy.
Jumper in first position, disables DF0: completely.
Jumper in second position, disables DF0: and shifts it to DF1: (i.e. External drive = DF0: ).
Connector (that looks like a Jumper) in third position, is for developement only (DONT USE).

Jumper on its own, will disable the card completely.



Note the plastic stand off, there is only one included.



Note the screw (no stand off), so DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN SCREW.

[Omolungo]

:d

[d0pefish]

Nice pictures FOL!

I got my tracking number last night so if FedEx make good headway up the country, hopefully I could be having some new year's ACA fun!


I thought I'd post a hint in addition to your note regarding the LED cable for first-time-A600 disassemblers.

When disassembling your A600, don't do the obvious thing, which is removing the 4 screws, flipping the machine over and then wrenching the top half off by lifting the front edge of the case. You're very likely to snap off one or more of the rear hinges that hold the back half of the case together if you do this.

Focus on carefully un-latching the side clips - one near the floppy, one near the PCMCIA port. Undo the screws, and then unlatch the two clips by gently easing the top cover's sides outwards to unhook them from the clips, one end at a time. If it's difficult, use a plastic tool, like an iPod-opening spudger, or if you must, a screwdriver covered in electrician's tape to prevent damage to the plastic.

When these side clips are released, the top half can be lifted backwards, then upwards - effortlessly away from the delicate hinges.

I've come across too many A600 cases with broken hinges. Hopefully this may help prevent more being damaged

Cheers

[Hewitson]

New 030 accel in 2010??

[amigarobbo]

Originally Posted by vroom6sri

Not sure if this is relevant or not but, booting the machine up with just the CF hard drive and no accelerator and my WB screen says I've only got 1,249,104 graphics mem in my A1200. With my old (now sold on) IDE hard drive I'm sure I had something closer to 1,800,000.

I understand the startup-sequences are no doubt different but this seems like a large difference. Is it possible I've damaged something internal with all this poking around?

EDIT!!!! - Just found a bootable Amiga WB floppy and, after disabling all drives apart from DF0 with the hold-down-both-mouse-buttons-at-startup-trick I'm showing 1,739,600 graphics mem. Should I be happier? Is there still summin' wrong?

It's not putting the ROM into chip ram is it?

[Steven]

Originally Posted by amigarobbo

It's not putting the ROM into chip ram is it?

Unlikely as he dosen't have an accelerator plugged in.

[8bitbubsy]

Very nice pictures, FOL
The daylight shining on the Amiga and its parts makes the picture look even more professional! Makes me want to buy one... But not for now, I've spent way too much money on other stuff.. .. . Must buy one next year!

[mfilos]

Yey! Despite FedEx Tracking said 3/1/2011 as estimation date... Items arrived today

Just a quick pic of the Awesomeness (ACA630@30 / ACA1230@56) attached! This is gonna be indeed a good start for the new Year.

Thanks once again Jens & AmigaKit

[Riempie]

Do I see a floppy-disk with ACAtune on it? I didn't receive a floppy-disk Not that I need one though

[vroom6sri]

FitzSteve & AmigaRobo - The 4gb CF card was prepped by Amigakit with the SFS system with 3 partitions which seem to be about 40% - 40% - 20% split. I just used my standard original Workbench floppies with Amigakits pre-prepared install program.

When the accelerator is in I have over 2,000,000 Graphics I think and about 65,000,000 other.

I've cleaned the contacts on the A1200 motherboard with some Isopropyl alcohol so maybe this will sort it. I hope!

[d0pefish]

Arrived today!

The inclusion of ACATune on floppy was a good effort - thanks AmigaKit!

So far, first impressions - VERY FAST.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by vroom6sri

FitzSteve & AmigaRobo - The 4gb CF card was prepped by Amigakit with the SFS system with 3 partitions which seem to be about 40% - 40% - 20% split. I just used my standard original Workbench floppies with Amigakits pre-prepared install program.

When the accelerator is in I have over 2,000,000 Graphics I think and about 65,000,000 other.

I've cleaned the contacts on the A1200 motherboard with some Isopropyl alcohol so maybe this will sort it. I hope!

Nothing wrong with it, its perfectly fine.
It will be the buffers and filesystems.

I get less than what you stated on our test board.
I thought something was up the first time I saw that too.

Originally Posted by Riempie

Do I see a floppy-disk with ACAtune on it? I didn't receive a floppy-disk Not that I need one though

Some must have slipped the net.
As its not part of the original package we have to add them.

Originally Posted by d0pefish

Arrived today!

The inclusion of ACATune on floppy was a good effort - thanks AmigaKit!

So far, first impressions - VERY FAST.

Let me know how you get on with ACATune, as Im having problems with it.
Be interesting to know if anyone else does.

Note for ACATune V1.0, for FastMEM, you need to use switch -fastram.

[d0pefish]

So far I have been successfully booting my machine with ACATune as provided on floppy in the startup-sequence with all of its turbo and cache options turned on, and MapROM. So far it's been stable, but time will tell as I test various software.

What kind of problems have you been experiencing?

[fitzsteve]

Looking great guys, must say I'm starting to get a tad envious now

@d0pefish, would love to see a photo of your machine innerds with Mika's CF-IDE against the ACA630?

If you have a TV that will show High Res Laced without flicker checkout CWB ADV (but lower from 16 to 8 colour) it runs a treat on an accelerated A600 and looks really classy.

Enjoy all your ACA fun guys and nice one Amigakit for taking onboard the suggestions in these posts and including the ACA Tune on disk, very impressed with you guys

Now if I can stop myself going and ordering an ACA630/25

Steve.

[d0pefish]

Steve - I'm finishing the writeup on Amibay as we speak, plenty pictures! Will be a matter of minutes

I currently have CWB Green Amiga Alien Edition - on stock it was bearable, but with the ACA it boots in seconds and blisters through the Workbench desktop! I'm totally in love with this machine at the moment

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by d0pefish

Steve - I'm finishing the writeup on Amibay as we speak, plenty pictures! Will be a matter of minutes

I currently have CWB Green Amiga Alien Edition - on stock it was bearable, but with the ACA it boots in seconds and blisters through the Workbench desktop! I'm totally in love with this machine at the moment

Do you have 2.x Rom then?

I've been running CWB Full with my Apollo 620 and its pretty slick, just in the process of copying CWB ADV to my CF to see how that performs on the 020, I never took a Vid from the Apollo 630 which is a shame but it was pretty slick in 8 colour but a little slow in 16 colour.

I even ran CWB OS3.9 on that bad boy but to be honest it was a joke speed wise, cool to see it running though on an A600

Lookin' forward to the write up will be hitting refresh a few times over at Amibay

Ahh man you guys, now you make me want one more!!!!

Steve.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by d0pefish

What kind of problems have you been experiencing?

Can you post your exact startup-sequence command line for ACAtune.

If I add it to the start up of my startup-sequence, it just gives a rainbow flash, boots then resets, rainbow flash, boots and resets.

Thats all I get, with everything enabled.

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

I even ran CWB OS3.9 on that bad boy but to be honest it was a joke speed wise, cool to see it running though on an A600.

Runs quite quick even without ACATune running, well OS3.9 with BB2.

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

Do you have 2.x Rom then?

Thats what the ROM feature is for, so you can kick into 3.1 ROM.