PCMCIA's memory range

[ppill]

What's the memory space(start and end) allocated for this port? I know it's 4MB in total but I want to check if there's an addressing clash when I use an 8meg expansion from Elbox.

[Chain]

5.0 A1200 Memory Map

AddressSize
000000 to 1FFFFF 2 MBChip RAM(or system ROM overlay)
200000 to 5FFFFF 4 MBZorro II expansion space
600000 to 9FFFFF 4 MB Credit Card memory if CC present
A00000 to A1FFFF 128 KB Credit Card Attributes
A20000 to A3FFFF 128 KB Credit Card I/O
A40000 to A5FFFF 128 KB Credit Card Bits (similar to CDTV)
A60000 to A7FFFF 128 KB PC I/O
A80000 to B7FFFF 1 MB System ROM selected
B80000 to BEFFFF4 48 KB Not used(Reserved for CDTV)
BF0000 to BFFFFF 64KB 8520CIAs
C00000 to CFFFFF 1 MBC00000 Memory
D00000 to D7FFFF 512 KB PC memory
D80000 to D8FFFF 64 KB SPARE chip select
D90000 to D9FFFF 64 KB ARCNET chip select
DA0000 to DA3FFF 16 KB IDE drive
DA4000 to DA4FFF 16 KB IDE reserved
DA8000 to DAFFFF 32 KB Credit Card and IDE configregisters
DB0000 to DBFFFF 64 KB Not used(reserved for external IDE)
DC0000 to DCFFFF 64 KB Real Time Clock(RTC)
DD0000 to DDFFFF 64 KB RESERVED for DMA controller
DE0000 to DEFFFF 64 KB Not Used
DF0000 to DFFFFF 64 KB Chip Registers
E00000 to E7FFFF 512 KB System ROM(lst half if 1MB ROM)
E80000 to EFFFFF 512 KB Configuration and I/O card space
F00000 to F7FFFF 512 KB Flash ROM space
F80000 to FFFFF 512 KB System ROM(2nd half if 1MB ROM)

[ppill]

Thanks Chain!

[ppill]

Yep a clash. An 8 meg simm is allocated between these two adresses $00200000-$009FFFFF making it imposible to access the PCMCIA's memory range $00600000-009FFFFF. An 4mb simm works fine ($00200000-$005FFFFF exactly where it should be).
So if anyone wants to use this card together with PCMCIA make sure you use =<4mb simm or disable the card before trying to use any peripherials connected to this port.
I wonder if it is possible to allocate a single 8meg simm in a PCMCIA-friendly way with the onboard's 68020?

[alexh]

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/elbox1208

with 8 MB RAM installed, the memory address space can be set either continuous or PCMCIA compatible

Is there a jumper somewhere?

There seems to be loads of jumpers in the top corner near the connector.... can you provide a good photo of them?

[ppill]

There you go:


The '1 Bank' switch doesn't make a difference.

[alexh]

I think that '1 BANK' jumper is supposed to be off for PCMCIA friendly operation.

Looking at the other photos of this board, it is always depicted off.

Although I am not sure, IMHO this is the PCMCIA friendly jumper and when off (and RAM jumper is set to 8MB) the RAM is *SUPPOSED* to be configured into multiple banks.

You could try setting the RAM jumper to 4 perhaps?

[ppill]

Originally Posted by alexh

I think that '1 BANK' jumper is supposed to be off.

Looking at the other photos of this board, it is always off.

That is IMHO the PCMCIA friendly jumper and when off the RAM is *SUPPOSED* to be able to configure the RAM to multiple banks.

All I can suggest is try setting the jumper off and set the RAM jumper to 4Mbyte.

It works alright with an 4mb simm and the jumper set accordingly. It's just a shame I can't use an 8meg one together with the CF adapter I've got. The computer fails to boot if I use set the 4meg jumper with an 8meg simm which I guess is normal.

[Retro-Nerd]

@alexh

I have a M-Tec 1230 with 8 MB, even the manual says you should only use 4 MB with this card. Tried it with 8 MB and it boot & works fine (CF-Card), but very unstable. Is there really no way to use the full 8 MB together with the PCMCIA port?

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/t1230

[alexh]

That is a different card mate. We are talking about the A1200/8 which CLAIMS to be PCMCIA friendly (with a jumper setting).

I know nothing about that M-Tec card.

http://amigahardware.mariomisic.de/c...cgi?HARDID=142

Originally Posted by bboah

It is not PCMCIA compatible if more than 4MB is installed on the card

[ppill]

with 8 MB RAM installed, the memory address space can be set either continuous or PCMCIA compatible

...or maybe I'm using a SIMM that's somehow incompatible with this feature. It's double-sided with sixteen 512kb chips.
I think I'll just e-mail Elbox and see what they have to say.

[Retro-Nerd]

Ok, no problem. I thought it could be possible, somehow.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by ppill

...or maybe I'm using a SIMM that's somehow incompatible with this feature.

I dont see how, all I think that jumper does is frig an address bit(s) on the address decoder on the board.

So that instead of responding to addresses between 600000 to 9FFFFF (when the PCMCIA is responding) it responds between ooo I dont know... somewhere else

Are there any PLD chips? Or are they all discrete logic chips? If they are all discrete logic chips then it SHOULD just work. If there is a CPLD there... it is possible that they never implemented this feature.

You're 100% sure that with this "1 BANK" jumper off it still interferes?

Did you get anything with this card? Disks / Manual?

Might be worth writing to Elbox.

[ppill]

You're 100% sure that with this "1 BANK" jumper off it still interferes?

That's the setting (together with the 8MB one) I've used in the 4th post in this thread. As you can see it overwrites PCMCIA's memory range.

[ppill]

Originally Posted by alexh

Are there any PLD chips? Or are they all discrete logic chips? If they are all discrete logic chips then it SHOULD just work. If there is a CPLD there... it is possible that they never implemented this feature.

PLD chips, discrete ones... ughhh. No, not my lingo I'll try to make a decent photo for you to have a look at

Originally Posted by alexh

Did you get anything with this card? Disks / Manual?

I got this card ages ago (96 I think, before I even bought the A1200 itself ). I have no idea where the manual for this card is.

[alexh]

This is a very interesting puzzle. I have wondered about it before and no-one has ever(?) found a working PCMCIA friendly 8Meg A1200 RAM card

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=24918

[ppill]

Can't make a decent photo so here's a lit of the chips:

Two of these:

PC74HC393P
852960T
Hnn9314PA Y

I guess that's the RTC:

OKI Thailand
M6242B
4242B02

Three of these:

3373 3 CK
SN74HC157N

...and three of these:

PALCE20V8H-25PC/4
9609BBB J

[ppill]

Originally Posted by alexh

This is a very interesting puzzle. I have wondered about it before and no-one has ever(?) found a working PCMCIA friendly 8Meg A1200 RAM card

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=24918

So the last address the on-board CPU can acces is $FFFFFF?
The Apollo 68040/40 I've got starts the allocation from $01000000 and ends at $01FFFFFF (for a 16mb SIMM).

A guy from a Polish Amiga board is experiencing similiar problems with his Blizzard 68030 card. I've asked him to check the memory ranges for his card and he says its $68000000-$68F7FFFF. Is that possible? Why would the card allocate the memory that far?

[alexh]

The 68EC020 in the A1200 has a 24-bit address bus.

2^24 = 16Mbytes = $0 - $00FFFFFF

68030 has a 32-bit address bus.

2^32 = 4Gbyte = $0 - $FFFFFFFF

he says its $68000000-$68F7FFFF. Is that possible?

Yes.

Why would the card allocate the memory that far?

Because it can?

[ppill]

Just worked it out on the Window's calculator. Duh'. Should think before writing

[Zetr0]

I have a ton of spare 4MB modules... just PM if ya want on ppill.

[ppill]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

I have a ton of spare 4MB modules... just PM if ya want on ppill.

Ta Zetro, but I've got one already (see post #4 in this thread). Thanks for the concern anyway

[Zetr0]

@ppill,

sorry about that... i lost that numeric in all that hex

[ppill]

Just got an e-mail from Elbox regarding this card and the 1BANK jumper has nothing to do with PCMCIA. Most of 8 meg SIMMs are dual-banked (that's not the same as single/doubled sided but how the memory is organised internally) and that switch informs the card that it's dealing with a single-banked one. Still waitng for a definite answer as to whether this card is compatible with the PCMCIA port when using 8 meg SIMMs. I'll keep you posted...

[alexh]

Good to know.... I'll add this information to the BBoAH.

Let me know if you get a definitive answer.

However I suspect that there is an error on Amiga Hardware Database.