Terrible Fire Accelerators

[8 Bit Dreams]

Originally Posted by plasmab

Well I am currently hunting for a serial port driver (open source). Anyone know of one?

The only project i know is:
https://gitlab.com/MHeinrichs/Zorro-LAN-IDE
Not sure is it something we can use, though

[plasmab]

it literally just needs to talk serial.

A linux driver for this would be utterly trivial.

Why why why is AmigaOS 100x more complex than any other operating system just to put a characters onto a fifo and read some back.

[CRP]

Hi,
I just did a quick test installing beta 11-03 and 11-04 on my TF530@25MHz. Amiga is a rev 6a where I also installed a 2MB trapdoor expansion with Gary adapter.

With RC2 everything works nice and smooth, with 11-03, WB 3.1 barely boots, but crashes as soon as I try to open a drawer. With 11-04 it crashes while booting, i.e. screen remains black and power led starts to blink (I believe it does so 6 times before rebooting).

What can I try to help diagnosing?

Thanks
Chris

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by CRP

Hi,

I just did a quick test installing beta 11-03 and 11-04 on my TF530@25MHz. Amiga is a rev 6a where I also installed a 2MB trapdoor expansion with Gary adapter.



With RC2 everything works nice and smooth, with 11-03, WB 3.1 barely boots, but crashes as soon as I try to open a drawer. With 11-04 it crashes while booting, i.e. screen remains black and power led starts to blink (I believe it does so 6 times before rebooting).



What can I try to help diagnosing?



Thanks

Chris

Very odd. Try without the gary adaptor.



Which ram chips do you have?

Do you know what resistor you have on the IDEWAIT line?

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by plasmab

Looks like this might do the job?

http://aminet.net/package/comm/misc/8n1

Anyone with any experience of it?

8n1 works fine as a (faster) replacement for serial.device. When you say you need a 'driver' what does that mean exactly?

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

8n1 works fine as a (faster) replacement for serial.device. When you say you need a 'driver' what does that mean exactly?

I need the support code that AmigaOS needs for a serial port device driver. I want to tear the guts out and communicate with my device inside it.

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by plasmab

I need the support code that AmigaOS needs for a serial port device driver. I want to tear the guts out and communicate with my device inside it.

Ahh.. So basically a skeletal serial device you can add your stuff to - I don't know the source code of 8n1, so can't comment on how easy it is to rip apart/reuse.

I got my TF530 rev3 fully operational!

Many thanks to this community and especially Stephen for creating and sharing all this (this project gave my A500 a well deserved 2nd life, as well as vastly improving my soldering skills in the process )!!

[kim_jorgensen]

Hi all,
I did a test of the 11_4 beta on my TF530@50MHz installed in an Amiga 500+ and it works great. Compared to the RC2, the CPU and IDE speed in Sysinfo is a tad slower.

While at it, I also did a test with my 8MB AlfaRAM side expansion (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/alfaram500). But when connected, no expansion boards are detected regardless of the configuration (disabled, 2, 4, 6 or 8MB). This is the same behaviour as with the RC2 but unlike RC2, the IDE on the TF530 now works when the AlfaRAM is connected.

I guess a special firmware is needed so that the RAM won’t collide at 0x200000, but will that also fix the board detection?

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by kim_jorgensen

Hi all,

I did a test of the 11_4 beta on my TF530@50MHz installed in an Amiga 500+ and it works great. Compared to the RC2, the CPU and IDE speed in Sysinfo is a tad slower.



While at it, I also did a test with my 8MB AlfaRAM side expansion (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/alfaram500). But when connected, no expansion boards are detected regardless of the configuration (disabled, 2, 4, 6 or 8MB). This is the same behaviour as with the RC2 but unlike RC2, the IDE on the TF530 now works when the AlfaRAM is connected.



I guess a special firmware is needed so that the RAM won’t collide at 0x200000, but will that also fix the board detection?

This is quite odd. The Alfa ram may be being naughty and just decoding the address bus and not the AS pin. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

The TF530 doesn’t assert AS, LDS, UDS or RW during a bus cycle intended for the onboard. All zorro ii space config reads fall into this category until the two onboard cards are configured. After that it allows autoconfig to make it into the Amiga and find anything lurking on the bus.

I’ve tested this with the Kipper2k card and a real zorro card on the A2000. I suspect some of the less well behaved A500 sidecar upgrades might misbehave. Are those cards available anywhere?

[8 Bit Dreams]

Yes, its a little slower cause 1ws was added,
RAM isn't working cause there is a conflict at 0×0200000 - both cards are fighting against each other, maybe autoconfig of that card tries to occupy whole 8MB Zll space despite 2/4/6 settings..

[alenppc]

Originally Posted by 8 Bit Dreams

Yes, its a little slower cause 1ws was added,
RAM isn't working cause there is a conflict at 0×0200000 - both cards are fighting against each other, maybe autoconfig of that card tries to occupy whole 8MB Zll space despite 2/4/6 settings..

No, Stephen removed the wait state in the final beta. But once again, do not rely on SysInfo for measurements, it is NOT accurate.

I only have the Microbotics side ram expansion for the A1000 to test with and that one works fine with the TF530.

The kipper card stubbornly tries to configure the ram in the same ZII space as the TF530 ram, so that one won't work without patching

[kim_jorgensen]

Originally Posted by plasmab

This is quite odd. The Alfa ram may be being naughty and just decoding the address bus and not the AS pin. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

The TF530 doesn’t assert AS, LDS, UDS or RW during a bus cycle intended for the onboard. All zorro ii space config reads fall into this category until the two onboard cards are configured. After that it allows autoconfig to make it into the Amiga and find anything lurking on the bus.

I’ve tested this with the Kipper2k card and a real zorro card on the A2000. I suspect some of the less well behaved A500 sidecar upgrades might misbehave. Are those cards available anywhere?

I'm not sure if these are available anywhere, but you can have mine if you like. I got it really cheap and was planing to use it as housing for an ACA500, but it does not fit very well. If it goes up in flames, that fine with me.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by kim_jorgensen

I'm not sure if these are available anywhere, but you can have mine if you like. I got it really cheap and was planing to use it as housing for an ACA500, but it does not fit very well. If it goes up in flames, that fine with me.

I’d only need to run for a hour or so. Wonder if anyone in Glasgow has one.

[CRP]

Originally Posted by plasmab

Very odd. Try without the gary adaptor.

Hmm so the situation is as follows: my TF530 does not like the new beta bus JEDs at all. I have tried with every possible hardware combination (with/without trapdoor expansion, with/without gary adapter, with/without chipmem mod etc., all permutations). But there is no setup where it works.

So I went back to the RC2 bus JED. At that point I programmed only the ram cpld with 11-4 beta JED and, lo and behold, the TF530 works perfectly and it recognizes all memory without issues. I ran systest on the 1MB chip mem, on the 2MB fast mem, and on the 1.5MB slow mem, and they all apparently work fine.
The other odd thing I noticed is that IDE has become slower. According sysinfo, now I have speed around 800-900kB/s. Previously I had around 1.6 MB/s.

Does this make sense to you?

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by CRP

Hmm so the situation is as follows: my TF530 does not like the new beta bus JEDs at all. I have tried with every possible hardware combination (with/without trapdoor expansion, with/without gary adapter, with/without chipmem mod etc., all permutations). But there is no setup where it works.

So I went back to the RC2 bus JED. At that point I programmed only the ram cpld with 11-4 beta JED and, lo and behold, the TF530 works perfectly and it recognizes all memory without issues. I ran systest on the 1MB chip mem, on the 2MB fast mem, and on the 1.5MB slow mem, and they all apparently work fine.
The other odd thing I noticed is that IDE has become slower. According sysinfo, now I have speed around 800-900kB/s. Previously I had around 1.6 MB/s.

Does this make sense to you?

Maybe. Can you confirm the resistor value you have on the IDEWAIT line?

I would try the 11-4 beta bus code with the RC2 ram. If that doesnt work there is a hardware fault of some kind.

[CRP]

Originally Posted by plasmab

Maybe. Can you confirm the resistor value you have on the IDEWAIT line?

Please excuse my ignorance, but can you please explain what I have to measure? One multimeter probe on IDEWAIT and the other where?

Oh, and you asked about the ram chips, I have Alliance AS7C4096A-12TCN.

I have left systest's all memory (=4.5MB) test running for quite some time, and it is going along without problems.

I will try to reprogram the cplds tomorrow, the wife's already complaining

[dalek]

what?!?!? who nuked all your posts?

[Jope]

It was his decision and he did it himself.

I guess I'll lock this thread for now, we'll reopen it if he decides to come back. Any meta discussion around him leaving should happen in another part of this forum.

[DH]

He did, because he doesn't know how to conduct himself on a forum properly and when confronted, reduces himself to childish behaviour by deleting his posts which is against the rules.

They will be returned soon.

EDIT: All of plasmabs posts throughout EAB have now been restored, however, because of his childish behaviour and severity of his actions of deleting all his posts he has been given a permanent ban.

Threads vandalized

Once a user has either created a thread, or posted within a thread on the EAB Forums, regardless of when or how long ago, and the thread/post came to be removed through unforeseen circumstances/attacks/sabotage, or has either been edited beyond its original understanding, or has simply been deleted by the user, the EAB staff have the right to either restore it, restore it to a previous edit, restore it via Google cache or restore it via any other means possible. The thread/post is part of the EAB forum community, and although it may be your thread/post, EAB reserves the right to delete, re-edit or restore any thread/post we deem fit for the purposes of normal forum rules and the security of the EAB forums.

Depending on the severity and whether the attack was viably performed by the member, could result in the member being issued with a permanent ban.

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