ACA500 plus?

Hello Jens,

Thank you for your response and for the superb ACA 500+

Here are the tests I have carried out:


In the Startup-Sequence: cpu fastrom cache burst.
With Whdload: DCache and Cache.

That did not change anything.
The ACA500 + card has 14Mhz is faster than the ACA 1232 at 33 Mhz even with file management under workbench.

For info, if I activate aca.resource to the boot with the card ACA1232 it does not boot the screen remains black and if I activate the MMU it is the WHDLOAD games that does not launch.
The firmware is 0.89
I tested the ACA 1232 on my Amiga 1200 and there is no slowdown.

Thank you for your help.

[Signman]

Bummed that this won't work with the 1000. Adding cf hard disk, no kickstart disk needed, would be great. Floppies fail all the time, gotek is all I have left.

[mattsoft]

Originally Posted by Signman

Bummed that this won't work with the 1000. Adding cf hard disk, no kickstart disk needed, would be great. Floppies fail all the time, gotek is all I have left.

it works most of the time and is cheap. worth it in my opinion.

[Signman]

What do you mean by most of the time. Jens says it doesn't work with the 1000

[mattsoft]

Originally Posted by Signman

What do you mean by most of the time. Jens says it doesn't work with the 1000

It's not supported, for sure. So I understand why Jens says that because he did not design it for the 1000 and doesn't want to support it.

But it does work. When you turn on the 1000, it usually just works. Sometimes, it doesn't and you have to hard boot again. Once it comes up, it works reliably through soft boots.

If you have problems, you will need to support yourself. I can shoot some video of the ACA500+ on my A1000 tomorrow and post it.

[demolition]

Just tried connecting my ACA1232/33 which is running in my 1200 to the ACA500plus but it doesn't seem to want to work, although it should be supported. The ACA500plus is working fine with the ACA1221ec but with the ACA1232 I just get a black screen and the display stops at the code '4d'. I have upgraded to boot menu 0.89.

Any thoughts?

[rshimada]

Originally Posted by Signman

What do you mean by most of the time. Jens says it doesn't work with the 1000

Jens wrote that the ACA500 is not recommended with the 1000 http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=924610&postcount=39

Since that was 3 years ago and the A1000 version (might) be done after the ACA2000, it may be worth getting an ACA500 plus now.

[mattsoft]

Another option is to put your name on the Vampire 500 v2 list. Apparently the Vampire works well on the A1000. I'm on the list, so I'll post how it goes in about 1.5-2 years.

[Signman]

He said so recently about the plus version also. Still for me, worth a shot, I have an amiga 500 also if it doesn't work well enough with the 1000.

If a 1 meg or larger trapdoor memory board is put into an Amiga 500 plus will the Aca500 plus recognize the extra memory as chip memory or is greater than 1 meg chip memory not possible. Changing the Agnus chip worked great and gave me a total of 1 meg chip memory on my regular Amiga 500.

[demolition]

A500+ can use up to 1MB memory in the trapdoor for a total of 2MB chip. AFAIK you cannot use larger expansions, e.g. those made for A500 using Gary adapters.

[tknice]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

If a chip puller is not available, you can also remove the board from the case completely (loosen all the bolts of all connectors at the back) and push the chip out through the two holes in the board. These holes line up with holes in the socket, so you can reach to the chip from the bottom side of the board with a screw driver. Be careful - you'll be surprised about how much force you need to apply!

Jens

Got the new ECS chip and I have the board out of the case. I see the holes in the back and I'm ready to try this. Any last suggestions on the best way to support the board and how to apply even pressure in both holes?

Also, I see the new chip has a dot at the top and the old one has a painted dot. Can I assume this is the correct direction of the chip? The text alignment on both chips also follows this pattern.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...%2017%20PM.jpg

Any more last minute advice!?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE: All went well. The AGNUS chip was a bit hard to unseat but I actually used the end of an RCA cable which was just the right depth to apply some gentle force while holding the socket from the other side. I also removed the little daughter board from the GARY chip and plugged the GARY chip directly into the socket.

Here was your comment on that Jens: "I can see on tknice's picture that there is a little extra board on the Gary chip, and the cable that connects it with the actual trapdoor expansion is still there.
For proper operation with 1M Chipram, this must go. Remove the Gary-chip from the adapter, remove the adapter from the Gary-socket and plug the Gary chip directly into the Gary-socket."

When I boot with the 1M Chipram removed, it comes up into the ACA500+ screen just fine. I can boot to workbench 3.1 and everything looks good.

Booting with the 1M Chipram in place shows an E5 error code on the ACA500+ or sometimes gets to 97% and then hangs. Any idea what's wrong?

Thanks!

Tom

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by amigoun

Does this rule out possibility of adding more slow-ram by ACA or still possible?

We now have an internal version that allows re-mapping the trapdoor expansion to $c8, resulting in 1MByte in the "slow-ram" area. Please contact me if you want to give this a test run.

Originally Posted by tknice

When I boot with the 1M Chipram removed, it comes up into the ACA500+ screen just fine.

I don't understand what that means: "remove 1M Chipram"? Do you mean the trapdoor expansion without the Gary-adapter causes the machine to not boot? If so, please either try a plain 512k expansion or post a close-up picture of both sides of the trapdoor card; I may be able to give you modding instructions about how to reduce it to a 512k expansion.

Jens

[amigoun]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

We now have an internal version that allows re-mapping the trapdoor expansion to $c8, resulting in 1MByte in the "slow-ram" area. Please contact me if you want to give this a test run. Jens

Perfect! I sent you an email I found at icomps website about page.

[tknice]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

We now have an internal version that allows re-mapping the trapdoor expansion to $c8, resulting in 1MByte in the "slow-ram" area. Please contact me if you want to give this a test run.


I don't understand what that means: "remove 1M Chipram"? Do you mean the trapdoor expansion without the Gary-adapter causes the machine to not boot? If so, please either try a plain 512k expansion or post a close-up picture of both sides of the trapdoor card; I may be able to give you modding instructions about how to reduce it to a 512k expansion.

Jens

I didn't mean to say 1M Chipram, sorry. I meant the 512k trapdoor expansion. Here's a picture of both sides of my expansion and also the Gary adapter I removed. My goal is to be able to play some of the 1MB required games and I was hoping the ACA500+ can allow use of my Trapdoor card to total 1M of usable ram for these games.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...%2017%20AM.jpg

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...%2032%20AM.jpg

Tom

[demolition]

The AdRAM 520 board you have has 2MB memory (512kB chip + 1.5MB slow) when fully populated like yours, but without the Gary adapter, it will only work as a 512kB slow ram expansion (or 512kB chip if remapped).

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

We now have an internal version that allows re-mapping the trapdoor expansion to $c8, resulting in 1MByte in the "slow-ram" area. Please contact me if you want to give this a test run.

Would it not be possible to use the trapdoor memory as chip and use 1MB of the ACA memory @ $c0 so you could keep 1MB chip?

[tknice]

Originally Posted by demolition

The AdRAM 520 board you have has 2MB memory (512kB chip + 1.5MB slow) when fully populated like yours, but without the Gary adapter, it will only work as a 512kB slow ram expansion (or 512kB chip if remapped).


Would it not be possible to use the trapdoor memory as chip and use 1MB of the ACA memory @ $c0 so you could keep 1MB chip?

This is all a bit over my head. Should I try adding the Gary adapter back? How can I get these 1 MB required games working?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by tknice

This is all a bit over my head. Should I try adding the Gary adapter back? How can I get these 1 MB required games working?

If you leave the Gary adapter out, it should be able to function as a plain 512k expansion which the ACA can then remap to chip so you have 1MB chip in total. The ACA can then provide 512k of its memory as slow ram for maximum compatibility with old floppy games.

You might need to change some jumpers on your memory expansion though to reconfigure it to 512k, so check its manual.

[tknice]

Originally Posted by demolition

If you leave the Gary adapter out, it should be able to function as a plain 512k expansion which the ACA can then remap to chip so you have 1MB chip in total. The ACA can then provide 512k of its memory as slow ram for maximum compatibility with old floppy games.

You might need to change some jumpers on your memory expansion though to reconfigure it to 512k, so check its manual.

Thanks demolition--so then that's good news. Unfortunately, the manual for the 512k adapter is long gone. I only see one jumper on the expansion and I tried all three combinations (including removed) and the ACA500+ stalls at 97% on the LED with all 3. Sometimes I get the E5 error.

I think I counted 3 jumpers on the Gary adapter so many more combinations there..

[Schoenfeld]

Demolition,

the "no Gary adapter" solution applies to most other 2M-expansions, but obviously not to this one, as it lacks the typical F139 chip. Given the visible traces, I am assuming that it does not split the CAS lines, but the RAS lines: The RAS0 line goes to pin#1 of the connector to the Gary-adapter, and four lines are going away from that 10-pin connector. Most even pins are grounded.

tknice may be able to reduce it to a 512k expansion by putting a jumper on pins 1 and 3 of the connector, and only populating one of the four banks. Which one? I'd need a higher-resolution picture of the front side to save you from trying the four possibilities.

Jens