Software Mapping 1MiB ROM - A1200
 

Hello,

My setup is A1200 + TF1260 (full with MMU). I've been trying to soft map a rom file of 1MiB (kickstart 3.2 + ehide.device for T1260) but MuMapROM tells me it has no memory available and if I try skick I have to disable checksum calculation in Remus otherwise it says wrong checksum (guess It doesn't support 1MiB kick at all) but then after reboot it bombs.

I haven't found ReKick around so haven't tried yet. What do you commonly use ?

Not too familiar with the TF1260 but ideally you want to use a MMU based mapper as skick doesn't write-protect the 'ROM' from being overwritten.

I don't think skick supports custom ROMs (unless Remus generates a patch file, I can't remember?).

Why isn't MuMapROM working? Is fast ram available when you run it?

Yes, im aware skick doesn't protect the memory as it doesn't use the MMU.

As far as I understand MuMapROM wants "motherboard" memory, as the guide suggests, meaning chip memory (or maybe expansion memory of some sort but I guess not accelerator's one), then it releases after reboot, idk. Not sure if it can map only 512KiB kickstarts, I was indeed expecting it to work easily.

Yes, TF1260 has 128MiB of fast, I even tried booting without startup, running setpach and then trying to map rom but nada.

Well, for now i can simply add "LoadModule ehide.device REVERSE" in the startup sequence and obtain the same results even though i'd prefer to test the kickstart for flashing it later.

The trouble is that it needs memory that does not go away upon reset, hence autoconf memory is excluded. This is quite natural as this RAM will contain the ROM image to boot from...


Frankly, I'm not clear about that either (-;, but there is no 1MB ROM, except for the CD32, and there it really doesn't matter too much, and the extended ROM area is really CD32 specific.



However, if you care about an advice: In almost all cases, you can go instead by replacing ROM modules with RAM-loaded ones. LoadModule does that for you, and it requires a lot less memory, needs almost no motherboard memory, is a lot more robust, and it also allows to protect the modules after loading. It is a considerably easier solution to the same problem.

TF1260 memory is not autoconfig, it's fixed at 0x08000000 for compatibility with Mediator. Is there a way to force MuMapROM to try to map the rom, even "at your own risk" ? I haven't found the switch in the command line. A "map to address x" would be nice too.

Well, i wanted to make a 1MiB rom for the A1200 with debuggers and other goodies for buring it in 27C800s, but first i would like to test it on a real Amiga :-)

Yes, LoadModule is great, as you can read from my previous post im using it for now to test ehide.device, but as TF1260 doesn't provide ehide.device to be able to boot from its IDE a custom rom is needed for first boot (same for TF1230, infact AmigaStore now sells modified ROMs with the device included, provided you give proof you own a registered 3.2).

You could try the NOMEMFKICK switch (at your own risk) :)

That's a LoadModule switch, not a MuMapROM switch. LoadModule already works perfectly.

Ah man, yes - you're 100% right :laughing Well, that will teach me to reply to posts after no sleep :sleep