A500+ Upgrading help

[amiga1]

Hi,

I received an Amiga 500+ not too long ago. Now that I've graduated and my studies are over I started in on playing with it. I need some help on what types of upgrades I can do to this thing to get it up to date as possible. It has a GVP HD8+ 120MBscsi w/2MB, 2MB Chip, a VXL030 & ram32 W/2mb. There's a rom switch installed, too with a KS1.3 and KS2.1 (or a 2.something). I'm new to this amiga thing so I've been reading a lot about what can be changed with the hardware that I have. I've been having a great time, too lol. I always wanted one of these beasts in my younger years.

I've ordered a 68882 fpu and a micromys v3. Above that I really have no idea what would be a good update to the system that would work well. Would upgrading the SIMM's in the GVP to 8MB make a difference? Or maybe the RAM32 up'd to 8MB? Or both??? would that even work and be noticed by the Amiga?

the 120MB SCSI HD sounds like it's on it's last legs, too. Would a SCSI-IDE to CF adapter be better? I also read that a ZIP is faster than the HD because of the spinup... I've heard of ppl up'in ghte HD to 4GB and even 9GB, but that requires a new ROM or some omni.device or something like that... But sometimes it doesn't... Confuses the hell out of me trying to figure that one out.

If I install a KS3.1 ROM would I be able to install OS 3.5 or 3.9? Has anyone overclock a VXL before? Would a RAM32 upgrade to 8MB and some new crystals for the FPU and 68030 be better than just upgrading the ram in GVP HD8+?

Really, I'd like to get this thing as up-to-date as I possibly can. I'm planning on getting a KS3.1 and a floppy emulator in my next purchase. I'm having a great time with this beast, but due to the info overload I've been giving myself I'm getting a little confuses as to what would work and what wouldn't...

Thanks for your advice and help in advance!

dk

[Zetr0]

@amiga1

Hello there and welcome to these fine boards!


Now, your questions are many, and the answers complex, so in short - How much cash you got?

LOL, seriously though, this is where you need to set a budget as virtually everything is upgradeable... for a price!


So lets band this all into simple plans of attack (and cost )


First up: Knowing your Hardware.

The VXL*030 has two flavours, the 25Mhz model and the 50Mhz compatible, so do you know which you have?

The VXL is a very clever card and can place its RAM32 memory into the Z2 space so that both the SCSI adapter (like the GVP HD+ side-car) can DMA into its memory.

(this is very VERY quick disk access (as quick as a GVP530 at least), you can set this by changing Jumpers on the board. however it will limit the maximum RAM to 8MB, and the memory on the GVP HD+ will have to be removed (as its 16bit accessible only)

So that will speed up disk access for free, but it has limitations.


Next Up: GVP A500HD+.

The GVP A500 HD+ is in fact an GVP Impact Series 2 Fast SCSI controller, with the ability to be upgraded to 8MB of FAST ram, the controller is limited by its ROM to only be able to access up to 3.67GB of Hard Disk, the controller with correct software can in fact see and query devices larger than this, but cannot access Disk storage past 3.67GB point any partitions made or spanning beyond past this point are not initialized.

There are a couple of methods around this, one of them is to buy what is known as GVP Guru ROM, alas these are sought after (see pricey) and tricky to get hold of, but if you can these will allow for very large disk access and provide faster access to the disks, if you want to know more have a read of Ralph Bable's website

The other method is a little involved using another boot disk (either floppy or even another Hard-disk controller) and bind drivers.


Next Up: Adapter Upgrading

The cheapest upgrades will be RAM upgrades, the RAM32 uses 20pin DIP 256x4 chips, easy to source, if you are having troubles hit me up on PM.

The GVP 500HD+ uses 30 Pin SIMM's either 4x 1MB modules for 4MB or 2x 4MB for 8MB, there cheap enough to get hold of, but in your current configuration you must know that .

Memory on the RAM 32 is 32bit wide, as such the CPU can use Burst Mode and really speed up its operation. The memory on the GVP 500HD+ is only 16bit wide and the CPU cannot use its Burst mode on it.


Next Up: Suggestions

At this point you could easily max-out the RAM to 16MB of FAST (8MB 16bit / 8MB 32bit) and also add 2MB of CHIP RAM by installing a further 1MB in the Trapdoor socket.

however I suspect that there will be some conflicting / problems with the FAST ram setup as its not optimal for the CPU as some programs could be in 16bit accessible RAM and other will be in 32bit accessible RAM.

I would instead recommend that you remove the RAM on your GVP A500HD+ and place the VXL*030 32bit Fast RAM into the 24bit addressing area and upgrade it to 8MB. from here you will enjoy a gently speed increase in disk access / usage as well as no contention from 16bit and 32bit programs being stored and executed as it will all be 32bit with burst mode enabled (lots more speed =)).

Since the setup (even with only 8MB of RAM is quite powerful, I would look into purchasing a few other items to really make this your own!


1. Indivision ECS

This is an amazing bit of adapting yummyness and will allow you fantastic screen modes on a VGA screen as well as many awesome features Scan Doubling / Flicker Fixing, Direct ChunkyPixel writing with both the Graphetti emulation and chunky screen display.

Its very impressive indeed and I plan to buy one the moment the wife lets me have some pocket money.

2. Clock Port Adapter

A clock port adapter for your Machine... from here you could look at getting a clock port expander so that you can use

• a sound card
• an MP3 off load engine
• A USB controller

but that's where we ask..... how much you got to spend ?

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Next Up: GVP A500HD+.

The GVP A500 HD+ is in fact an GVP Impact Series 2 Fast SCSI controller, with the ability to be upgraded to 8MB of FAST ram, the controller is limited by its ROM to only be able to access up to 3.67GB of Hard Disk, the controller with correct software can in fact see and query devices larger than this, but cannot access Disk storage past 3.67GB point any partitions made or spanning beyond past this point are not initialized.

There are a couple of methods around this, one of them is to buy what is known as GVP Guru ROM, alas these are sought after (see pricey) and tricky to get hold of, but if you can these will allow for very large disk access and provide faster access to the disks, if you want to know more have a read of Ralph Bable's website

The other method is a little involved using another boot disk (either floppy or even another Hard-disk controller) and bind drivers.

Much more than 3.67GB can be accessed with FFSTD64 (or PFS3DS).

http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/ffstd64

[Zetr0]

@Hewitson

Unless I have missed something, it is the GVP driver in ROM that is a bottle neck to the access of drives larger than 3.67GB on a GVP adapter.

with the Guru ROM this limit is removed.

[Hewitson]

I have a 9.1GB on my A2000-HC+8 and have not encountered any issues. I have also personally spoken to Ralph Babel and he says that if using a Direct-SCSI filesystem there should be no limit to drive size.

Please note that I'm referring to the latest version of the ROM (v4.15).

[amiga1]

Hi, Thanks for the welcome Sorry I didn't introduce myself first

I checked out the system a little bit more and used AIBB and sysinfo. All I had was aibb6.1 without and special modules.... It reports that the A500+ is running at the same speed as an A3000. sysinfo also reports the same. It's also telling me that the MMU is not being used... I'm not sure why that is. I don't see how this can be turned on or if it needs to be used at all for that matter. The VXL is running @ 25MHz. To over clock this thing I need to upgrade the crystals? Or do I also upgrade the 68030? I'd like to set the jumpers to separate the crystals for the fpu and the mpu.

I read in another thread how to check on the ROM version in the GVP. I did this with "version gvpscsi.device" for the version number and the cli reported with a 4.5. The GVP HD is giving me a little trouble tho--the Amiga boots up with an error often--a guru message or an ASSIGN error window stating that the disk is 'busy'. I'm thinking of removing it for a 3.5 GB SCSI and hope that that will fix the boot time error. When I turn the GVP to Game and boot from a 2.1WB disk, I never get any kind of error. There are no gvp scsi assignments or anything else on the 2.1WB other than the driver for the high density floppy. It did finally boot after 20 or so retries. I have an EPROM burner and I have a couple of 27256's for the guru rom. But I do not know what the adapter consists of.

How can I up the ESC Agnus from 1MB to 2 MB?

I think that the 16bit wide ram should be removed from the GVP in favour of the 32bit ram32 dip's. I'll PM you about that shortly. I'd like the GVP to just be a SCSI interface only. It makes much more sense now that I've ready your info.

The cost really isn't a big deal for me, actually. While I cannot afford to get everything I want for this in one shot, I can spend a little time and build on it. I would like to get as much as I can from one place, tho... I'm not a person who thinks highly of EBay for any kind of deal.

I'll be picking up some crystals and the Indivision ECS this month. I like the thought of saving some space on my desktop with an LCD. The 1084 monitor is a nice monitor, but I really like the thought of my 21" LCD running my A500+.

The clock port adapter looks like a really nice piece of kit and I'll be buying this as well in a month or two. I really can't do much until the micromys is delivered. The tank mouse I have is shot and it was really hard to just get the aibb un lha'd and executed.

Thanks for the info. It's made it a lot easier to get this kit built

dk

[Hewitson]

Hold Left Amiga and use the arrow keys to move the mouse. LMB = Left Alt+Left Amiga, RMB = Right Alt + Right Amiga.

[Jope]

Just a small addition, you can use either Amiga key. Also, press shift to make the mouse pointer move in large jumps.

[rkauer]

Originally Posted by amiga1

I checked out the system a little bit more and used AIBB and sysinfo. All I had was aibb6.1 without and special modules.... It reports that the A500+ is running at the same speed as an A3000. sysinfo also reports the same. It's also telling me that the MMU is not being used... I'm not sure why that is. I don't see how this can be turned on or if it needs to be used at all for that matter. The VXL is running @ 25MHz. To over clock this thing I need to upgrade the crystals? Or do I also upgrade the 68030? I'd like to set the jumpers to separate the crystals for the fpu and the mpu.

The 25MHz VXL cannot be overclocked because the glue logic will not cope with the new, doubled frequency. Only the CPU can be upgraded from an EC variant to the full-core MMU-equipped 030 version.

But it is one of the best accelerators made for the A500.

I read in another thread how to check on the ROM version in the GVP. I did this with "version gvpscsi.device" for the version number and the cli reported with a 4.5.

The Amiga uses a non-decimal way of showing versions: 4.5 is lower than 4.15 (the dot is only a separator, like chapters and paragraphs on a book). Read it as "Version 4, revision 5" and "version 4, revision 15". Version 4.5 is a bit old. Replace it with 4.15 if you have the image (the one available from Babel's site, NOT THE OMNISCSI ONE!) and suitable EPROM.

The GVP HD is giving me a little trouble tho--the Amiga boots up with an error often--a guru message or an ASSIGN error window stating that the disk is 'busy'. I'm thinking of removing it for a 3.5 GB SCSI and hope that that will fix the boot time error. When I turn the GVP to Game and boot from a 2.1WB disk, I never get any kind of error. There are no gvp scsi assignments or anything else on the 2.1WB other than the driver for the high density floppy. It did finally boot after 20 or so retries. I have an EPROM burner and I have a couple of 27256's for the guru rom. But I do not know what the adapter consists of.

The GURU.ROM is only suitable for a special adaptor, it will not work at all if fitted directly on the controller's board.

How can I up the ECS Agnus from 1MB to 2 MB?

An ordinary 1Mb trapdoor memory expansion is all you need. ONe suitable for the A500+. The old A500 ones are only 512kb and will give you only ¹/2Mb more.

I think that the 16bit wide ram should be removed from the GVP in favour of the 32bit ram32 dip's. I'll PM you about that shortly. I'd like the GVP to just be a SCSI interface only. It makes much more sense now that I've ready your info.

If you don't mind the slowness of the overall performance, keep both memory types. More 8Mb are never enough!

The cost really isn't a big deal for me, actually. While I cannot afford to get everything I want for this in one shot, I can spend a little time and build on it. I would like to get as much as I can from one place, tho... I'm not a person who thinks highly of EBay for any kind of deal.

Then go to Amibay, which is a community-oriented site! NO AUCTIONS, just buy-it-now and from the community itself.

I'll be picking up some crystals and the Indivision ECS this month. I like the thought of saving some space on my desktop with an LCD. The 1084 monitor is a nice monitor, but I really like the thought of my 21" LCD running my A500+.

A LCD TV with a SCART cable will be much better than the 1084. But hardly you'll find one in Canada (NTSC land).

But the Indivision ECS is much more than that: it is a scandoubler (will make the 15kHz Amiga modes showing on your 31kHz pc-world monitor, and that FLICKER-FREE).

The clock port adapter looks like a really nice piece of kit and I'll be buying this as well in a month or two. I really can't do much until the micromys is delivered. The tank mouse I have is shot and it was really hard to just get the aibb un lha'd and executed.

Thanks for the info. It's made it a lot easier to get this kit built

dk

[amiga1]

Thanks so much for the input. It's really appreciated.

I've been reading about 2mb agnus mod and I have to look and see what this A500+ has under the hood. There's some trap door ram, but I can't remember what the sysinfo screens said what was where.

I was hoping to up the vxl to 50MHz as this page talks about: http://members.iinet.net.au/~davem2/...ock/vxl30.html

I understand about the guru rom. The Babel site has a 4.15 hex image that I can use.

Looks like the only thing that I really up is the Indivision ECS, ram, and perhaps the clock port adapter.

Everything I've been reading about the RAM is that this Amiga won't use 16MB. Am I reading this wrong?

[Zetr0]

@Amiga1

in terms of Games, 8 MB will be plenty for anything ECS, even DOOM when you get your Indivision!!!

(yes DOOM in 256 Colour! on your ECS Amiga!)

Althogh it may struggle a little as a 25Mhz 030 is a bit weak for DooM, unfortunately, as rkauer mentioned earlier, to upgrade the VXL you would need new PAL logic, I am unsure where you might find this.

If you where moving into ray-tracing, rendering and DTP applications, then the more RAM the better, while 8MB will give you a good taste of these applications, more memory will seriously improve performance of this applications when doing BIG projects.

In saying all that the most I ever used in Imagine was 38MB for one scene, and 24MB for a complicated Page Setting document with lots of hi-res graphics.


To be honest, an 8MB Fast, 2MB chip 030@35 Mhz is a fearsome machine in Amiga terms. its got what it counts in terms of games (WHDLoad), Casual use of Imagine, Vista, Octamed, Wordsworth, infact a whole load of applications!

When you strap on the Indivision ECS, its an amazing bit of kit and will breath a new lease of life into the aged machine!

which reminds me, I wonder if a mode-promotion tool would work for Imagine on the HiGFX modes of the IECS? hmmmm


Anyway, you have a fantastic start to your project, I am still looking for an 020/030 for mine, alas the VXL*030@40 I had, had hardware / firmware issues =(

without any time to really devote to repairing I released it back into the wild, I wish only the best for the new owner.

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I have a 9.1GB on my A2000-HC+8 and have not encountered any issues. I have also personally spoken to Ralph Babel and he says that if using a Direct-SCSI filesystem there should be no limit to drive size.

Please note that I'm referring to the latest version of the ROM (v4.15).

My friend, I have tried SFS, and I got no luck... any partition I created past the 3.67GB barrier was not initialized, and anything that spanned past the 3.76GB barrier wouldn't initialize either.

I created a 400MB SD0: Partition under SFS via a PC (as well as an Amiga) and then proceeded to create further partitions on a 9.1GB SCSI disk, in fact two 4.1GB Partitions SD1: and SD2:

the Partitions *under the PC and CSMk2* were created and setup with SFS using Classic Workbench OS3.9, I have done this countless times before for 40GB IDE and the two 18.1GB SCSI's on the CSMk2 SCSI, all work fine.

However when I transplant this disk to my A2000 that is using GVP 4.15 on the GVP Combo 040@33Mhz with 16MB (4x4MB) RAM, it only boots the 400MB partition, and will not initialize the other two.

I have tried this many.... many...... oh so many times.... so either I am doing something fundamentally wrong, or I need to install a TD64 FS

so... how does one install FFSTD64?

[Hewitson]

I can only assume you weren't using SFS in Direct SCSI mode. Instructions for installing FFSTD64 are in the readme, you simply patch your existing L:FastFileSystem and copy it into your RDB.

[Zetr0]

I shall have a go at this over this week =)

Out of curiosity, how would it be possible to use SFS in a non-SCSI direct mode yet still have safe working 40GB disks with only a few partitions?

for instance.

I have just setup a 40GB IDE device with 4 partitions using SFS and installing SFS to the RDB.

DH0: (2GB) - [ AmigaOS ]
DH1: (8GB) - [ Games ]
DH2: (8GB) - [ Applications ]
DH4: (10GB) - [ Other ]

All works perfectly fine in my A1200 setup. can access everything and use everything.

However when attempting the similar on a SCSI drive - it works fine under emulation and on the CSMk2 SCSI controller, however fails miserably on the GVP controller of the 040 Combi 040

[Hewitson]

It wouldn't be possible unless you had either a TD64-compatible controller or a controller which is supported by NSDPatch.

[Zetr0]

@Hewiston

would you know if the gvpscsi.device is supported by NDSPatch... I believe that omniscsi.device is... but I dont believe that gvpscsi.device is compatible.

This would explain a lot since I am using NSDPatch setup on both the Classic Workbench 3.9


now, with FFSTD64, can I have partitions larger than 4GB (say 8GB or 12GB) ?

obviously using the patched Fast File System, would it be possible to use SFS with TD64, if so has anyone got a guide /how to?

[cosmicfrog]

yes zetro u must try harder also make sure u are using the direct to scsi version
I know it works on my GVP Combo 040@33Mhz as I have a 9gig scsi drive working though I failed get the 36gig working
I`ll have to check if I`m useing nsd patch but I have a feeling I don`t

[Hewitson]

gvpscsi.device is not supported by NSDPatch.

I have absolutely no idea what the maximum partition size is with FFSTD64 but I do recall making a 9GB one and using it successfully, however I deleted it because I hate the free space not showing up correctly in WB.

[Zetr0]

@Hewiston

What Amiga OS where you using at the time of the 9GB partition?

[Hewitson]

3.1 mate. Not sure why SFS didn't work for you as I just found this in the documentation:

Originally Posted by SFS_OLD.guide

- There is no seperate SCSI direct version of SFS anymore. SCSI
direct will be used automatically when no NSD 64-bit or TD64
support is found (SCSI direct users: please let me know if this
works correctly for you -- use the SFSquery tool to find out if
SCSI direct is being used).

[amiga1]

I opened up this beast to see what mobo it was for a KS3.1 type (it's a rev6a). I also had a look at the vxl-30, as well. There's a 68ec030 mpu living on it with a 25MHz crystal.

I went to look for the manual and in the vxl-30 box was a set of upgrade PALs. So I'm thinking that this daughter beast can be up'd with the a real 68030 @ 50MHz ... What would the addition of an MMU do for the board? It's a Rev2 vxl-30, btw. Where would I get a 68030 @ 50MHz?

I'm still waiting for the 68882 FPU and micromys to arrive. When I order the indivision ecs I'll order two 50MHz crystals. I've soldered a fan from the Power interface and positioned it on top of the 68ec030.

The clip for the rom switcher came off tho... It was attached to the PAULA. all the switch has for IDing is a DKB ..... I wasn't counting pins when the thing came off, but I would say it came from somewhere of pin 10 to pin 15... in there somewhere's. I have no manual for this thing. Would anyone know?

way fun!

Cheers :P