Removed my A600 internal floppy, how to patch?

[Photon]

As the irc server seems down (haven't checked news if it has moved tho) I posted a thread.

I removed the internal floppy to make room in my A600 for some mods, and I get 4 seconds or so wait time on bootup, since it checks for a non-existing drive.

Can I patch that by telling the hardware that "there is a drive, but it has no disk"?

After the wait it goes on to boot normally.

Maybe there's even a way to make the external drive port DF0: with a patch? But it would maybe cause the same wait if no drive is connected?

I looked on the second pinout here, http://pinouts.ru/Storage/InternalDisk_pinout.shtml

Is it as easy as pulling pin 2 (diskchange) low?

[FOL]

Buy a floppy terminator. It will do the job.

Originally Posted by Photon

As the irc server seems down (haven't checked news if it has moved tho) I posted a thread.

I removed the internal floppy to make room in my A600 for some mods, and I get 4 seconds or so wait time on bootup, since it checks for a non-existing drive.

Can I patch that by telling the hardware that "there is a drive, but it has no disk"?

After the wait it goes on to boot normally.

Maybe there's even a way to make the external drive port DF0: with a patch? But it would maybe cause the same wait if no drive is connected?

I looked on the second pinout here, http://pinouts.ru/Storage/InternalDisk_pinout.shtml

Is it as easy as pulling pin 2 (diskchange) low?

[Photon]

Not that it's expensive or anything, but I'll give some serious though to soldering a standard TTL diode between DCD and DS0, especially since I already have diodes here

A nice PCB is ofc more plug and play, no unsoldering needed when you want the floppy drive back!

If I need something else for my A600 I'll be sure to get one, atm it's very tempting to do it immediately and save a week of shipping

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Photon

Not that it's expensive or anything, but I'll give some serious though to soldering a standard TTL diode between DCD and DS0, especially since I already have diodes here

A nice PCB is ofc more plug and play, no unsoldering needed when you want the floppy drive back!

If I need something else for my A600 I'll be sure to get one, atm it's very tempting to do it immediately and save a week of shipping

lol, indeed.

Let us know if it works, .

[prowler]

@FOL:

What is a floppy terminator, exactly? I can guess what it does from what Photon has said he wishes to do.

Could you enlighten me and/or provide a link, please?

prowler

[amigakit.com]

Here is the floppy terminator:

Amiga DF0: Floppy Terminator

[Photon]

Yeah, I didn't even know such a thing existed, or maybe I would have seen it right there on AmigaKit

Anyway, ARGH it's too late, I couldn't wait! I found a square-pin 5x2-pin connector in my bits box and soldered a 1N4148 diode (any similar TTL level diode (or even pulldown resistor or a wire??) should do, tho) across the first and fifth pin, and when I turned it black stripe (ground) towards pin 10 and put it on the connector, I shaved not only 4 seconds, but a whopping 10 seconds off my boot time. Nerd goes yay, hehe. Maybe it checks it twice, dunno.

(I'd have used one of my staple inventions, one of my fave inventions of all time: pin strips, but the ones I have have round sockets. I guess they would have worked also.)

So, either the solder way or the plug and play way should work fine. On a spree I rummaged through my latest box from Amigakit (in the hope to find a long 2.5" IDE cable, actually) and found my PCMCIA Ethernet kit It will have to wait tho, I have to do some kBps-testing with misc buffer settings and CF cards first... I want to see what it takes to boot as quickly as possible on a mere 68000.

[prowler]

Hmm... So the same thing really can be achieved by connecting a 1N4148 or some such diode between /DCD (pin 2) and /DS0 (pin 10) of the internal floppy header.

[Photon]

On second thought DS0 is an output pin ofc. So either diode or simply a pulldown resistor (on one-drive systems) on the DCD pin should do it, dunno if the output is able to pull DCD all the way low if you connect the two with a resistor, diode or wire if you know the internals is the way to do it.

And software might set DS0 to high first and expect some result on an input, maybe (not likely). But software could definitely look for/require a high before a low on the DCD when checking, which would be hard to do with just a wire or pulldown :P Certainly, an unconnected DCD will be floating unless pulled down in the chip or mobo, just as the DS0 output could be. No way to tell without measuring.

A bit tired now, so no schematics lookup or multimeter action from me But a diode, or one of those plugin PCBs, makes sure DCD goes low only when DS0 does, and so will make copying etc work if you have external drives connected.

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by Photon

Not that it's expensive or anything, but I'll give some serious though to soldering a standard TTL diode between DCD and DS0, especially since I already have diodes here

A nice PCB is ofc more plug and play, no unsoldering needed when you want the floppy drive back!

If I need something else for my A600 I'll be sure to get one, atm it's very tempting to do it immediately and save a week of shipping

Yah, like me, i am sooooo impatient... 3 weeks shipping for me . I think a diode between pin 2 and 10 should work, i'll try it later on my test board later tonight when i get a chance.

btw, a regular cut down floppy cable with the diode bridge between 2 and 10 is probly the best solution for a homemade jobbie

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Photon

Yeah, I didn't even know such a thing existed, or maybe I would have seen it right there on AmigaKit

Anyway, ARGH it's too late, I couldn't wait! I found a square-pin 5x2-pin connector in my bits box and soldered a 1N4148 diode (any similar TTL level diode (or even pulldown resistor or a wire??) should do, tho) across the first and fifth pin, and when I turned it black stripe (ground) towards pin 10 and put it on the connector, I shaved not only 4 seconds, but a whopping 10 seconds off my boot time. Nerd goes yay, hehe. Maybe it checks it twice, dunno.

(I'd have used one of my staple inventions, one of my fave inventions of all time: pin strips, but the ones I have have round sockets. I guess they would have worked also.)

So, either the solder way or the plug and play way should work fine. On a spree I rummaged through my latest box from Amigakit (in the hope to find a long 2.5" IDE cable, actually) and found my PCMCIA Ethernet kit It will have to wait tho, I have to do some kBps-testing with misc buffer settings and CF cards first... I want to see what it takes to boot as quickly as possible on a mere 68000.

From what I have experienced. When you turn the miggy on, it checks HDD, then floppy, then boots HDD, then checks floppy again.

I have observed this only with the floppy completely disconnected.

[Photon]

Ah. Sounds logical, so both 5-second waits disappear. First is probably a pre-check to show correct units in the ROM boot menu, and then on boot the DOS does the same.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

btw, a regular cut down floppy cable with the diode bridge between 2 and 10 is probly the best solution for a homemade jobbie

My thoughts exactly.

[kipper2k]

I hooked up a header with the diode to the floppy port and now my 3.1 KS on my test board boots in 5 seconds with no HD or floppy attached . (IDE terminator also added)

[Photon]

kipper2k:

What the hell does it boot to, if you have TERMINATED (achtung baby!) both floppy and IDE?? *scratch of head*

[Photon]

If DF0 is removed and DF1 is used as DF0 (such as with the ACA630 accelerator) you can make a DF1 Terminator.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Photon

If DF0 is removed and DF1 is used as DF0 (such as with the ACA630 accelerator) you can make a DF1 Terminator.

Im alittle confused, why terminate DF1?

I done tests yesterday, removed my DF0, set nodisk and boot select.
It booted very fast. I removed nodisk and jumpered pin 1&2 of internal floppy header. Same result, booted very fast.
With nodisk jumper or pin1&2 jumper. It booted the same. Very fast.

Now with nodisk and bootsel removed, it takes longer cause it checks for DF0: twice.

Originally Posted by Photon

kipper2k:

What the hell does it boot to, if you have TERMINATED (achtung baby!) both floppy and IDE?? *scratch of head*

He was just testing, IDE terminator iliminates the 35 sec HDD delay.
However the 5 sec delay is normal if no Floppy connected. So the diode trick he done didnt work.

[Photon]

Originally Posted by FOL

Im alittle confused, why terminate DF1?

I use BootSel only, so DF1 becomes DF0 and must be terminated to save 4.9 seconds (see the linked post).

Using NoDisk and BootSel together kills PCMCIA (regarding your test there) so that's not an option for me.

If you can confirm that closing NoDisk makes floppies bootable via AOS 3.1 bootmenu, and accessible after booting (and not just disables all floppies completely, as product description on Individual Computers homepage suggests), a better solution would be to make a DF1-DF0 swap mod on the mobo and enabling NoDisk.

I'd be happy if you can confirm NoDisk only affects booting FOL! Because then I could connect a switch to it and boot fast 'always' - except the rare times when I really do need to boot from disk. Switch will only work in 68030 mode, so no quickboot in 68000 mode, but that could be acceptable.

Time from 'powerup' (LED on) to 'WB/CLI screen shows' changed from 11.88 to 6.96 seconds with the DF1 Terminator.

[Amiga1992]

Can you give me some help with this? Perhaps I used the wrong thing.
I conencted an LED (only diode I had lying round :P) between pin 2 and 10, and t doesnt terminate DF0, seems like it takes the same time, actually is accessing it like normal (LD lights when something happens there)

Should I change the diode or did I wire the wrong pins?

[prowler]

Change the diode. LEDs drop about 1.7V compared to a signal diode's 0.6V, so Pin 2 is probably not being pulled sufficiently low.