Dual-ROM gvpscsi.device for GVP Series I SCSI controllers - testers wanted!

[mark_k]

Hi,

Do you have a real GVP Series I SCSI controller? You might like to test out this dual-ROM version of gvpscsi.device 3.15. Burn a pair of 27C64 EPROMs with the data in the attached archive, install them in the controller and test it out. It seems to work fine in WinUAE emulation, but I don't have real hardware to test it on. Excerpted from the .txt instructions in the archive:

Remastered dual-ROM gvpscsi.device for GVP Series I SCSI Controllers
====================================================================

2015-02-24: First release for testing

IMPORTANT: This version has only been tested in emulation, not on real Series I
hardware. Please report any problems you encounter!


Introduction
------------
GVP Impact Series I SCSI controllers have two sockets for auto-boot EPROMs.
Later boards originally shipped with V1.0 ROMs (scsidev.device 1.1.6) and a set
of EPROMs could be plugged into the empty sockets on earlier boards.
Unfortunately the old V1.0 ROM has many problems:
 - It only supports disks with 512-byte sectors.
 - There is a capacity limit of 1GB (for 512-byte sectors).
 - No removable media/disk change support.
 - It only supports mounting and booting from OFS and FFS (DOS\1) partitions.
 - It does not support HD_SCSICMD, so is incompatible with partitioning
   programs like HDToolBox, SCSI-direct-capable filesystems, or anything
   else which uses HD_SCSICMD. The only partitioning software which will
   work is GVP's own.
 - The driver expects DOS drive names in the RDB to be in a non-standard
   format, so it won't boot from disks partitioned on another controller.
   Conversely, other controllers won't mount/boot from a disk which was
   partitioned using the old GVP software.

Later on GVP introduced a new driver, gvpscsi.device, which is much more
compatible, probably has fewer bugs and better performance. The last version
which works with Series I hardware is 3.15, which can be obtained from Ralph
Babel's web site: http://babel.de/amiga.html

If you don't need to auto-boot, you can remove or disable your current auto-
boot ROMs and use the BindDrivers version of gvpscsi 3.15. But if you *do* want
to auto-boot, there is a problem. With gvpscsi.device 3.15, the ROM data is all
on a single chip. Some or all Series I hardware requires an updated PAL chip in
order to use the single ROM. Nowadays that updated PAL is probably difficult or
impossible to obtain.

This "remastered" dual-ROM version of gvpscsi.device is intended to work
around that problem.


Warning
-------
If you have partitioned your hard disk using the original GVP software,
gvpscsi.device will not understand the original partitioning scheme. Your
partitions will not be accessible once you change ROMs. For advanced users, it
is possible to manually edit the RDB to allow gvpscsi.device to recognise it.

An easier alternative will be to, before changing ROMs, note the partition
layout (LowCycl, HighCycl, BlocksPerTrack etc.). You can manually set the
partition layout to match that using HDToolBox etc. after changing ROMs.

In any case, you should make a complete backup of all files on your hard
disk before changing ROMs in case something goes wrong.


How To Use
----------
There are three files:
 - gvpscsi_315_EVEN.bin (8KB)
 - gvpscsi_315_ODD.bin (8KB)
 - gvpscsi_315_wordwide.bin (16KB)

gvpscsi_315_wordwide.bin is only of use with an emulator like WinUAE, *not*
real Series I hardware.

Obtain two blank 27C64 EPROM chips. Program gvpscsi_315_EVEN.bin into one, and
gvpscsi_315_ODD.bin into the other. Replace your original V1.0 ROMs with the
EPROMs you just programmed. The gvpscsi_315_EVEN.bin EPROM replaces the
original ROM which has EVEN on its label, and similarly for gvpscsi_315_ODD.bin.
Be careful to insert the new EPROMs with the same orientation as the old ones.

[Jope]

I actually have a Series 1 card, mine happens to support the single ROM.

Which GAL is the upgraded one, out of curiosity? It could potentially be brute forced.

[mark_k]

Ralph Babel's web page mentions U42, but only some Series I controllers have a chip position U42.

Would you be able to upload a pic of your card? Did it originally come with the old V1.0 GVP ROMs?

[Jope]

http://jope.fi/amiga/gvpseries1.jpg

And yes, it came with the 1.0 ROMs.

[mark_k]

Thanks for that. I don't suppose you have the original software/installer disk which came with it, do you?

From the pic it looks like your board was probably updated/repaired at some point. The SCSI chip is a WD33C93A with date code 9040 (week 40 of 1990). Other chip date codes are significantly earlier, e.g. 8904 on one of the Motorola chips. And Series I boards probably all came with the earlier WD33C93 chip originally, at least judging from the pics at amiga.resource.cx. Their pic of an Impact A2000-2/X shows a rev. 2 board (yours is rev. 1) which has a WD33C93 dated 8909.

[Jope]

Just the card I'm afraid.. I have no recollection of where I even got it, I've had it since the late 90s. Probably it came with some of the A2000s that have passed through my hands.

Could be that I swapped the SCSI chip myself with a leftover from upgrading some other machine, could be that a previous owner has done it. :-)

I can say that the ROM works as far as the driver is visible in the system device list + the board is visible in the early startup board diagnostics. Unfortunately the board does not allow my test A4000 to boot up if a SCSI device is also connected, so I have no idea whether it works any further. I've successfully relieved myself of any Zorro II machines years ago. :-)

[mjnurney]

just trying these in my series one gvp hc2 2000

[ahandyman59]

I realize this thread is dated, but here is some more information. The installation disk image can be located on amiga hardware database here:

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/impact2000hc2

[ahandyman59]

I just burned the pair or roms and installed them in my GVP HC2. They did not work. The GVP Series 1 software (v1.3) still says there are no autoboot rom. I even checked to see if it would install. It does not, unless a boot disk is created.

EDIT: The pair I initially burned were defective. I dug up another pair of eproms and burned them and it works perfectly now! This does work!

[mark_k]

Ummm... why are you trying to use the old GVP software with your (hopefully actually working) gvpscsi.device 3.15 EPROMs?

scsidev.device is completely different to gvpscsi.device. There's a link to a Series II (i.e. gvpscsi.device) install disk at http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/impact2000hcmk2

[mark_k]

By the way, I think (this was a while ago) I created an alternative EPROM set which runs the driver code directly from ROM. That saves memory compared to the original single-ROM gvpscsi.device which has to copy itself to RAM. I can hunt around for that if anyone is interested. E.g. if you don't have any true fast RAM, that might possibly work faster than the original single-ROM which runs its code from chip or slow RAM.

[dalek]

I have one of those series I cards - just ordered 2 EPROMs from China (none populated) to give it a go (in 4-6 weeks :_( )

[mark_k]

Update!!!

The other day I noticed that Ralph Babel has made his own dual-ROM version available on his web site. Judging from the file datestamps in gvpscsi3dual.tar.bz2, those EPROM images were built back in 1991 (but presumably never publically released until recently).

I mentioned above about an alternative dual-ROM version which runs code directly from the ROMs, instead of copying to RAM. Well Ralph's "official" dual-ROM version does just that so I don't need to waste my time duplicating the effort.

I attached an archive containing the official ROM images padded to 8KB and a combined 16KB one for WinUAE use to this posting.

So, which version should you burn for use on your series I board, mine or Ralph's? If you have an unaccelerated (68000) system use Ralph's; that will save a little RAM and the code will run faster if you don't have any true fast RAM. In that respect, Ralph's dual-ROM set is better than the original single-ROM version (which also copies itself to RAM at boot time).

If you have an accelerator with 32-bit auto-configuring fast RAM, or your board is installed in an Amiga 3000 or 4000, my copy-to-RAM version should be better, because the driver code will run from fast 32-bit RAM.

[ahandyman59]

Actually I did some additional testing on this. These dual ROMS do work for the HC2! The original roms I burned were defective. I dug out 2 new ones and burned them and all worked perfectly this time. I have been searching for an autoboot solution for this card for a couple months now. This actually works!

Regarding the software, I tried the card out with 3.10 install disk, then 2.04 install disk, but none of them would find the hard drives. Hard drives I KNEW worked. I'm still looking for a good hard drive setup program, for use with KS 3.1, but until then, this does work.

I also tried Ralph Babel's single rom and never was able to get that to work. I even tried his dual roms in this card and was not successful either. I have 5 A2000s and now have hard drive controllers for all of them.

I'm running out of problems to solve... Sigh... Time for more hardware, muahaha!

[mark_k]

HDToolBox does support non-Commodore SCSI controllers, you just need to tell it which device name to use. See this page: http://www.pjhutchison.org/uae_hdtoolbox.html

Add a tooltype SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=gvpscsi.device to the HDToolBox icon.