New products for C64 and Amiga from Individual Computers

[FOL]

Well the ACA500 is going to suprise alot of people.
It suprised me, been testing it for little under a day now and its like using an A1200.
Speed is awesome and all the features, you are really spoiled. Makes me want to have an A500 again just to play with one.

The boot menu is cool, so many options, you can even boot with no physical KS ROM in socket, very cool.

It brings the A500 up to the standard of an A1200 (minus AGA), no null cables, just jam in your FAT CF card and transfer your files, as you would with a A600 and A1200.

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by FOL

Well the ACA500 is going to suprise alot of people.
It suprised me, been testing it for little under a day now and its like using an A1200.
Speed is awesome and all the features, you are really spoiled. Makes me want to have an A500 again just to play with one.

The boot menu is cool, so many options, you can even boot with no physical KS ROM in socket, very cool.

It brings the A500 up to the standard of an A1200 (minus AGA), no null cables, just jam in you FAT CF card and transfer your files, as you would with a A600 and A1200.

hi fol.

was that just the aca500 or did it have a another aca12xx card plugged in?

oh,any chance you could put up a sysinfo benchmark with raw transfer speeds,mips etc aca on its own and with a aca12xx of your choice when youve got a sec.i know its not tottaly acurate but its just to see in general.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by roy bates

hi fol.

was that just the aca500 or did it have a another aca12xx card plugged in?

oh,any chance you could put up a sysinfo benchmark with raw transfer speeds,mips etc aca on its own and with a aca12xx of your choice when youve got a sec.i know its not tottaly acurate but its just to see in general.

ACA1232 connected. MIPS report as virtually the same on ACA500 as they do on a ACA1232 / A1200.

Will double check though. Will post some pics later, but bare in mind these are only beta pics. Things could and may change.

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by FOL

ACA1232 connected. MIPS report as virtually the same on ACA500 as they do on a ACA1232 / A1200.

Will double check though. Will post some pics later, but bare in mind these are only beta pics. Things could and may change.

no probs fol,just like to see some transfer speed tests as well if its ok.

it dont matter if its a beta or not,im only looking for a rough guidline,do you have a aca1220 as well knocking around?

[elpiloto]

i just cant wait to have one!

[fitzsteve]

@Roy ACA1220 needs a fix to work with the ACA500, Jens has said he will apply this for anyone that needs it done (just raise a ticket on his site)

[FOL]

Originally Posted by roy bates

no probs fol,just like to see some transfer speed tests as well if its ok.

it dont matter if its a beta or not,im only looking for a rough guidline,do you have a aca1220 as well knocking around?

On its own;
1.50 MIPS / 1437 Dhrystones / @14.10 MHz
HDD Speed;
1,362,967 BYTES/SEC

With ACA1220;
3.42 MIPS / 3281 Dhrystones / @17.60 MHz
HDD Speed;
1,791,416 BYTES/SEC

With ACA1232;
7.74 MIPS / 7423 Dhrystones / @34.50 MHz
HDD Speed;
2,412,368 BYTES/SEC

This is using FastFile System.

[roy bates]

thanks both.

[bubbob42]

Originally Posted by FOL

With ACA1232;
7.74 MIPS / 7423 Dhrystones / @34.50 MHz
HDD Speed;
2,412,368 BYTES/SEC

Try PFS\3 and a different card. I measured up to 3,95 MB/s with the above ACA500/ACA1232 combination and a Sandisk Extreme III.

Best regards,

Marcus

[demolition]

I thought it was PIO0 like Gayle?

If it is PIO0, then the theoretical maximum would be 3.3MB/s and 2.4-2.5MB/s is as much as you can ever get in real life, even with a 060.

And for some reason, I get lower speed with PFS3 on Gayle on my 1200. With FFS it is around 2.4MB/s, with SFS around 2.2MB/s and for PFS3 it is 1.9-2MB/s.

[Toni Wilen]

Sysinfo speed test reads direct from device driver. Filesystem can't and won't have any effect.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Sysinfo speed test reads direct from device driver. Filesystem can't and won't have any effect.

Yes, you wrote that earlier, but apparently Sysinfo wasn't told about it as the difference is consistent on my 1200. After making an image, I repartitioned my SFS formatted CF card to PFS with similar sized partitions, and copied the entire contents over to the new partitions. Thus, the software is the same. What else would cause this difference?

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by demolition

Yes, you wrote that earlier, but apparently Sysinfo wasn't told about it as the difference is consistent on my 1200. After making an image, I repartitioned my SFS formatted CF card to PFS with similar sized partitions, and copied the entire contents over to the new partitions. Thus, the software is the same. What else would cause this difference?

Lots of differences. Partition position, "geometry" can cause differences due to way scsi.device works.

Only change filesystem of existing partition and reformat it and I will guarantee speed won't change. Boot from floppy disk that only has sysinfo.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Lots of differences. Partition position, "geometry" can cause differences due to way scsi.device works.

Only change filesystem of existing partition and reformat it and I will guarantee speed won't change. Boot from floppy disk that only has sysinfo.

I have to agree, I have only ever seen speed increase when using an accelerator.

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by FOL

I have to agree, I have only ever seen speed increase when using an accelerator.

exactly,thats why i was asking for a rough guidline.
but those figures are more than respectable for me.no matter what filesystem is used.

[Schoenfeld]

FOL,

please remember that you have a debug-software in that ACA500, which sends out information over serial. Not sure what log level is set for that version, but you might want to use some higher quality cards to get closer to the 4MB/s limit that can be reached with Sandisk Extreme III for example.

Jens

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

FOL,

please remember that you have a debug-software in that ACA500, which sends out information over serial. Not sure what log level is set for that version, but you might want to use some higher quality cards to get closer to the 4MB/s limit that can be reached with Sandisk Extreme III for example.

Jens

Still need to set it up. Will try and do it when I get some more spare time.

[Schoenfeld]

ACA500 will also get a "bigger brother": A version for the A2000 with IDE port and separated CF card slot, which has an additional circuit to support hot-plugging for a lot more CF cards.

That funny spoke on the card is meant for protection against inserting it reversed. It'll push against the front case if you try to insert it the wrong way round, keeping you from pushing it in.

Also, the 34-pin cable that connects the CF card adapter (meant to be installed in place of the second disk drive) has reverse-polarity tolerance: The computer will start up fine, nothing will break, but some software will be able to tell you that the cable should be connected the other way round.

Jens

[moijk]

Will there be a distant cousin for the cd32?

(One can only hope)

[roy bates]

Originally Posted by moijk

Will there be a distant cousin for the cd32?

(One can only hope)

thats a thought,theres nothing for the cd32 at the moment.