Amithlon Setup Guide

nice

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by pcotter

.

Works satisfactory with Matrox G550 PCIe. 99% runs ok!

I decided to give this card a test, the Matrox G550 PCIe, in my Amithlon system.

It runs slower than the nVidia cards I have, but is hardware accelerated, selecting it in Picasso96Mode and attaching the MATROX-1: board. I believe where is scores noticeably slower in benchmarks are things that are not hardware assisted.

Overall I'm not sure the speed differences will be that noticeable in real use but I did lose a few high resolution high color modes (1650x1080 32bit and 1280x1024 32bit) leaving only the 16bit and 8bit modes for those.

Luckily this has left me with an open PCI slot for the Catweasel when it arrives.

Hmmm....I may have to test both a PCI and PCIe video cards installed and see if I can attach both boards.....one for Workbench and one for Shapeshifter screens and run a dual monitor setup

[prowler]

Originally Posted by SnkBitten

Has anyone ever used a Catweasel Mk4 PCI with their Amithlon system? Curious to setup/config. I'd like to add an Amiga floppy drive to my Amithlon. I've found a Catweasel for sale.

I have both Catweasels Mk3 and Mk4 (plus a Mk1 ISA ). I have experience of setting up the PCI cards in a Windows XP environment only, but I also own a genuine Amiga OS XL package, so could theoretically help with troubleshooting the setup and config of the PCI Catweasel in the Amithlon emulation if nobody else volunteers.

[SnkBitten]

Cool. From basic reading it's using OpenPCI to initialize the PCI card and then basically mountlist for the type of floppy you want (Amiga dd/hd, PC dd/hd, etc.).

But any help is greatly appreciated, especially since you have some experience.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[prowler]

Originally Posted by SnkBitten

Cool. From basic reading it's using OpenPCI to initialize the PCI card and then basically mountlist for the type of floppy you want (Amiga dd/hd, PC dd/hd, etc.).

It's a long time since I've had any experience with Amithlon, but what you say there rings a few bells, and I'm sure I downloaded everything I will need back then.

[SnkBitten]

So Catweasel's "multidisk.device", OpenPCI.library and the appropriate mountlist is the bulk of what I've read online.....though there didn't seem to be a lot of Amithlon users using a Catweasel.

Maybe you can look at the mountlist files I've found..

TD1: Amiga DD

/* multidisk filesystem entry
*
* This mounts a logical device on catweasel unit 0 for reading and
* writing Amiga DD Disks. Create mountlists for other units
* by changing the number behind 'UNIT = ' to 0, 1 or 2.
*/

Device = multidisk.device
Unit = 1
Flags = 0 /* format #0 = Amiga DD */
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 11
Reserved = 2
mask = 0x7ffffffc
MaxTransfer = 0x00200000
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0
HighCyl = 79
Buffers = 5
BufMemType = 0
StackSize = 4096
Priority = 5
GlobVec = -1
ACTIVATE = 1

and

TH1: Amiga HD

/* multidisk filesystem entry
*
* This mounts a logical device on catweasel unit 0 for reading and
* writing Amiga HD Disks. Create mountlists for other units
* by changing the number behind 'UNIT = ' to 0, 1 or 2.
*/

Device = multidisk.device
Unit = 1
Flags = 1 /* format #1 = Amiga HD */
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 22
Reserved = 2
mask = 0x7ffffffc
MaxTransfer = 0x00200000
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0
HighCyl = 79
Buffers = 5
BufMemType = 1
StackSize = 4096
Priority = 5
GlobVec = -1
ACTIVATE = 1

[SnkBitten]

Heh... a little fun. I like having a 6,752 MHz 68040



and check out those MIPS



Some nice dhrystones too



I recompiled the kernel the other day re-adding Matrox and ATI Radeon support which made the kernel a tiny bit bigger and just a tad slower, but this allows me to swap in/out my nVidia card, Matrox card and soon a Radeon 9250 PCI to do some graphics benchmarking all on the otherwise same hardware.

I'll make modules in SysSpeed for all the configurations and make them available for download once completed.

[SnkBitten]

My Catweasel is scheduled to be delivered today. I guess that means I need to get that second video card installed first and test running two at the same time (PCI and PCIe).

I'm also waiting on a ATI Radeon 9250 PCI card to arrive so I can test it, the AGP version works I've been told so I'm hoping the PCI version works as well. Unfortunately it hasn't even shipped yet......and I really don't want to setup/configure the Catweasel and then pull it to test the Radeon card.....so the Catweasel may have to wait a few days.

Hopefully this evening I'll test a PCI nVidia FX5200 installed along side the PCIe Matrox G550 card. Workbench on one and Shapeshifter on another....though in reality I don't see any advantage. The mouse isn't going to move off one to the other, I'll still have to do an Amiga + M key (or in this case Windows + M) to "switch" display control.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by SnkBitten

My Catweasel is scheduled to be delivered today. I guess that means I need to get that second video card installed first and test running two at the same time (PCI and PCIe).

I'm also waiting on a ATI Radeon 9250 PCI card to arrive so I can test it, the AGP version works I've been told so I'm hoping the PCI version works as well. Unfortunately it hasn't even shipped yet......and I really don't want to setup/configure the Catweasel and then pull it to test the Radeon card.....so the Catweasel may have to wait a few days.

Don't worry, I'm sure you won't have any trouble initializing the Catweasel with OpenPCI and configuring it to recognize your floppy drive(s) using those mountlists as a template.

In addition, the Handbook for the Catweasel Mk2 includes comprehensive notes on mountlists, so may be worth a read while you're waiting for the Radeon PCI card to arrive.

There are two English versions of the Catweasel Mk2 User Manual:

The 1997 Edition, and the 2006 Anniversary Edition.

My apologies if you've already seen them.

[SnkBitten]

It's the MKIV card, not the MK2, I did find that manual online.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[SnkBitten]

No, two cards are not working. picasso96 start (on boot) just locks the machine. That's with powerfb and powerfb2 in libsicasso96 and a PCI and PCIe card installed. Without powerfb2 the machine booted with both cards installed and the one configured (MATROX-1) was functioning as normal.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by SnkBitten

It's the MKIV card, not the MK2, I did find that manual online.

I mentioned the Mk2 manual specifically because it offers more information about Amiga-side settings than the Mk4 manual.

[SnkBitten]

Okay, thanks

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[SnkBitten]

Catweasel installed and working. Created my mountlist and then popped in an Amiga floppy and it's icon popped up on the Workbench and opened to show the files inside.

My Amithlon box is near complete


EDIT:
And there's that annoying drive click......
Is their a noclick app that work with multidisk.device?

[SnkBitten]

Even more fun....I didn't have any Amiga formatted HD floppies, so I booted my A4000T (which has an HD floppy drive) and formatted a disk. I had mounted both TD1: (Amiga DD) and TH1: (Amiga HD) on my Amithlon, so I ejected the DD disk that was in my Amithlon and replaced it with the Amiga HD disk I had just formatted.....and the icon for it popped up on my Amithlon's workbench. Excellent!

I copied a file from my Amithlon to the floppy disk, then put the disk back in my A4000T and copied the file from the disk to one of my harddisk partitions. Double Excellent!!

The Catweasel is VERY cool! I disconnected my floppy cable from the motherboard of my Amithlon system and plugged it in to the black connector on the Catweasel. I then used the supplied white cable and plugged it in from my motherboards connector to the white connector on the Catweasel. Openpci.library in Libs:, multidisk.device (3.65) in devs: and my two mountlists (TD1: and TH1. Access to both Amiga DD disk and Amiga HD disk from the drive I already had in my PC.

[prowler]

Wizard!

So you don't need any help from me then, apart from the small matter you PM'd me about.

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by prowler

Wizard!

So you don't need any help from me then, apart from the small matter you PM'd me about.

I thought I'd give it a try based on what I thought would be needed....and it worked. I had my doubts but felt it was worth a try.

[SnkBitten]

Copying the mount file created for Amiga HD disk, I modified it and created PH1: for PC HD floppies.

My Radeon card arrived yesterday.....I hope to test that out this weekend.

[SnkBitten]

Thanks to prowler for pointing out some of the utilities I was looking for were on the CatWeasel 2 install disk which you can grab from Individual Computers site.

Prefs utility allows for "no click" on the drive.....so that solves that issue, and there were mountlist for everything, Amiga DD/HD, PC DD/HD and some others. There were also formatMAC and formatXTRA commands.

Plus a patch for CrossDOSFileSystem to use multidisk.device instead of mfm.device. There was also a replacement mfm.device.....

Now with the "no click" I can move the Amiga DD and HD mountlist into DEVSosdrivers instead of keeping them in Storage/Dosdriver and activating only when needed.

[SnkBitten]

Good news, another PCIe card for Amithlon has been tested. The IntelPRO-1000 desktop card. It seems to be a good deal faster than my Realtek 8169 too (both are 10/100/1000).

I compiled a kernel last night with the Intel in it, adding another "built-in" device in my kernel (so far, RTL8168 and IntelPRO and video framebuffers ATI, Matrox and nVidia). I noticed as I add more devices the SysInfo speed test drops a bit. RTL and nVidia - consistently 238 (x A4000 04/25). RTL, nVidia, Matrox - consistently 237. RTL, Intel, nVidia, Matrox, ATI - consistently 235.

I'll be keeping the IntelPRO1000 PCIe card installed, not sure if I'm staying with the Matrox card or going back to the nVidia 5200 yet. Which ever, I'll be compiling a new kernel with just the IntelPRO1000 and the video card framebuffer I decide on.

We have two confirmed PCIe cards working with Amithlon.

IntelPRO1000 10/100/1000 network card.
Matrox G550 video card.

Bad news...the ATI Radeon 9250 PCI card did not work The AGP Radeon with the same chipset works so I was hoping this one would too. I've tried 4 different ATI Radeon 9250 PCI cards with the same results. DOS boots so the cards work, as soon as Amithlon starts booting....."uncompressing kernel.gz........" then repeated "no framebuffer available" over and over until powered off.