ACA500 plus?

[ovale]

Hello Jens,

Do you know if the aca500+ is compatible with eyefi sdcard or flashair sdcard when inserted in an CF adapter in the second slot?

Thanks
Ovale

[Schoenfeld]

It's worth a try: I have one of those SDXC Type I "Extreme CF Adapter" CF cards, and that works fine with any SD card inserted that I've thrown at it. Please note that it's not a matter of the ACA500plus supporting it; key is the CF card adapter which must translate properly to IDE commands.

It will only work in the AUX slot for FAT-format, as I'd expect these Wifi cards to be FAT-only.

Jens

[klx300r]

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.

just tried today and very happy to report it works great at the end of my scsi car train so very easy to keep my original classic config and also use the modern features the A500+ gives without the hassle of messing with my side cars. Also I know many Amiga 1000 users had issues of having to restart their miggies many times until the ACA500 kicked in but so far every time I boot up the ACA500+ comes rightup...maybe luck or maybe that's due to the upgrades in the + ?

ACA500+ working on Amiga1000 with side cars

quick vid: [ Show youtube player ]

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by klx300r

just tried today and very happy to report it works great at the end of my scsi car train so very easy to keep my original classic config and also use the modern features the A500+ gives without the hassle of messing with my side cars. Also I know many Amiga 1000 users had issues of having to restart their miggies many times until the ACA500 kicked in but so far every time I boot up the ACA500+ comes rightup...maybe luck or maybe that's due to the upgrades in the + ?

Could you include ACA500plus autoconfig menu screen photo (TAB-key twice) and some details of SCSI controllers? (model etc..)

[Schoenfeld]

Toni, I doubt that it's a SCSI controller. This looks very much like the old MFM harddrive controllers.

Everyone,
I have uploaded an intermediate version of the menu system and HRTmon to the Wiki. Those of you who are still having trouble with user-flashed Kickstart ROMs might want to try this one: Erase all slots forst, then re-flash your ROMs with name. The new LIST option will help identifying any problems.

HRTmon got some love: The Action Replay hardware emulation is now used to save/restore chip registers, which already has been tested positive for the WHDload version of Gianna Sisters: You can enter HRTmon and go back to the game without getting a blank screen. The "wi" command now also works.

HRTmon and the menu system come in separate update files. Both are needed, but they are separate for licensing reasons (HRTmon is GPL).

http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/ACA500plus_Firmware (intermediate version at the bottom of the page)

Jens

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Toni, I doubt that it's a SCSI controller. This looks very much like the old MFM harddrive controllers.

Makes no difference. As long as it is Amiga HD controller that has not yet known boot rom or is not autobooting but official boot/install disk exists: I want it

[amigoun]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

HRTmon got some love: The Action Replay hardware emulation is now used to save/restore chip registers, which already has been tested positive for the WHDload version of Gianna Sisters: You can enter HRTmon and go back to the game without getting a blank screen. The "wi" command now also works.

Many thanks for making this possible! I can confirm it works perfect (no more gfx corruption upon HRTMon exit - tested Titus the fox and First samurai).
Also WI, WSM, WLM commands work great.

Is this ACA500plus exclusive feature or could the changes be made to HRTMon standalone too?

Now we desperately need HRTMon integrated in ACA's for A1200 too

[demolition]

Originally Posted by amigoun

Is this ACA500plus exclusive feature or could the changes be made to HRTMon standalone too?

Since it uses AR hardware as far as I understand, such a modified HRTmon would only work in machines which have an actual Action Replay installed, and then it may not even be possible with a real AR if those features are inaccessible from outside the AR environment.

An ACA12xx with HRTMon integrated would be nice yes, but it should already be possible if you put HRTMon inside a custom ROM. Not sure if any of the ACA12xx have the interrupt hardware implemented or you need extra hardware to get access to it, but on the ACA620 there are header pins for it.

[amigoun]

Its not completly clear if those enhancements are bound to AR3 emu or independent. That is why I asked, but you may be right it is.
And yes, I know its possible to use HRTmon on ACA12xx too, I actualy use it (it doesnt need to be in rom). But that new AR based save/restore chip registers feature would make it much better & useful.

[Toni Wilen]

Standalone hrtmon can't do it, it needs external hardware that snoops CPU custom register writes and stores them to RAM. (Many required custom registers are write-only). Aca500plus originally only used it to support action replay but it is now also used by hrtmon.

[amigoun]

Thanks for explaining. Would it be also possible (when compiling) to enable IDE in ACA's HRTMon? I believe most likely ACAs IDE is compatible to A600/1200 Gayle interface, so it should work.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by amigoun

Would it be also possible (when compiling) to enable IDE in ACA's HRTMon? I believe most likely ACAs IDE is compatible to A600/1200 Gayle interface, so it should work.

Yes and no. No, at this point, IDE commands are not enabled because we could not get them to work (no devices found -> useless to activate).

Yes, the IDE registers are in the same place as those of the A600/A1200, so most drivers will work. This really means "most", as in "not all". The way the two CF card slots are wired are "IDE-fix like", which means that two registers of the IDE register set are completely unavailable: That's the alternate status register and a reset-register if I remember right (someone correct me here if I'm wrong, haven't looked at the original AT-bus mem layout in over a decade).

I can only assume that HRTmon's IDE access routines require these additional registers. It may therefore be a lot of work to get this feature functional. The good news is: HRTmon is GPL, and all changes that Toni has applied will be published at the current home of HRTmon: The WHDload pages. If someone wants to take a closer look at the IDE routines, he/she can do so "now", any help is appreciated.

Originally Posted by demolition

An ACA12xx with HRTMon integrated would be nice yes, but it should already be possible if you put HRTMon inside a custom ROM. Not sure if any of the ACA12xx have the interrupt hardware implemented or you need extra hardware to get access to it, but on the ACA620 there are header pins for it.

As others already wrote, a ROM is not required. I also believe that the interrupt hardware is not required, because 68010+ have the vector base register. Most (if not all) programs on the Amiga are unaware of the VBR, so it should already make a solid freezer if you move the vector base to your own location, point the L7-IRQ to HRTmon and be done with it.

We also thought about a freezer for the A1200 Reloaded, but since the CPU is "external" on the accelerator card, it will have to be the same idea as outlined in the paragraph above: Move vector base, bend L7-pointer. One thing will be easier, though: We can mirror the chip register writes in a small chunk of memory on the A1200 Reloaded, so you will have an improved freezer for an AGA machine.

Jens

[amigoun]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Yes and no. No, at this point, IDE commands are not enabled because we could not get them to work (no devices found -> useless to activate).

In fact it works, but Driver update has to be off in ACA menu. Thanks to loadmodule I can load my hrtmon (compiled with ide support) and it can see IDE as A1200 interface, with correct CF recognition. SA / LA commands reading/writing to CF is ok.
But I can not enter WHDLoad (NMI autovector when activated).

[softiron]

Hi,
A3, A4 what these errors stand for?
My A500 has some occasional keybord problems (blinking CAPS) and I was wondering if that's connected to it?
When it occurs I got also white/grey stripe across black screen and CAPS is on, it does not turn off upon hitting.

Vito

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by softiron

My A500 has some occasional keybord problems (blinking CAPS) and I was wondering if that's connected to it?

Blinking Caps-LED means that the keyboard controller has found a problem. The ACA500plus can do nothing about that - it's purely in your A500/keyboard/power supply combination. Fix that first, then connect the ACA500plus.

Some power supplies have problems when loaded a little higher, and the keyboard controller is the first to act up if power is not OK. The rest of the Amiga is pretty tolerant against power fluctuations, but a high-speed design like the ACA500plus (main clock just over 85MHz) will also get in trouble with poor power and/or bad grounding.

Jens

[softiron]

ok but what is this error/state A3, A4?

[Toni Wilen]

They are not errors (errors are flashing numbers), it is simply last status code shown before system crashed/hung. A3/4 is when CPU speed gets changed to configured speed (if >14MHz).

[softiron]

ok, guys, this card is really idiot-proof. I've managed to put it up and running again. It just needed recovery ADF. All good now

[softiron]

my joy was premature...
It worked the day I flashed the rom with new soft. 0.97. Next day it went cold again.
Is there a way to reset the card to its factory settings but without accessing the boot menu?
I've set up Profile with 28Mhz (I know, no support with it). I've set this profile to boot from as default (3.1 KS, CF card, no AR, rest of the settings set on automatic wherever possible)
Symptoms:
after cold start
screen goes
Purple
Blue
Green
Black
then the following text:
Kickstart v3.1 40.63
Copying ROM image from flash
Checksum (check packed data)
Unpacking ROM image
Checksum (check unpacked data)Copying ROM to MapROM
KS Rom patched, updating ROM image checksum

and then screen goes dark grey and thats all... nothing further happens. DisMo display shows nothing, Led light is blue.

Any comments and suggestions highly appreciated.

[mattsoft]

drop down to 14mhz and see if it boots consistently.