Memory and softkick question

[Tolgod]

Hi there,

Dunno if I chose the right section, but I'm having some questions in regard to memory and wb2.1 and softkicking.
First question I'm having is about STAT-RAM: I've used wb3.1 previously, but for the time being I'm bound to wb2.1. Why does stat-ram apappear and what is it. It cuts into normal memory space and I don't see the logic or purpose behind it.
Another thing that's buggin me is that I don't see all my memory.
I have an A500 with a KCS Powerboard v2 (adding 1mb) and a A590 providing 2mb of ram.
Now once I'm booted into wb2 all I see available is around 310k graphics memory (what's left of the 512kb chip I presume and around 2,2mb other mem. When I take out the KCS Powerboard, it shows only 300kb less rather than 1mb less. Could anyone shed some light on this.
Now I get, trying to make a twin kick disk, messages that I wouldn't have enough ram. Quite annoying when there's 3,5mb inside and the program says to need 880kb.
Now I understand that might be a program issue, if it for unappearant reasons would only support chip, but still.

I do not expect twinkick to work however as it is designed for a1000 and that's what my final question is about. Is there soft kick software out there that will allow me to softkick an A500 to a 3.1 rom via floppy?

Hope someone can make me a bit wiser here and in any case grtz to all here....

[Daedalus]

What does Showconfig tell you when the boards are fitted?

[Tolgod]

Wow that's fast...tnx 4 thinking along with me. Showconfig says that fitted is 2mb fast, 0.5mb , fast and 0.5mb chip. That does confirm what I'm noticing that half a meg is unused. Now I vaguely remember having read somewhere that the KCS v2 adds .5m fast and would offer the rest as ramdisk. I'm not entirely sure about that, but I think that is the case. However, when I put something on the ram disk, it cuts into the free memory reported by wb. Showconfig doesn't mention the KCS as a board btw. Under board's all I see is CBM A590/A2091 HD controller and CBM A2052/58.RAM:

[demolition]

skick supports KS3.1 and that should work for you:
http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/skick346

[Tolgod]

Hi there, I have come across skick, however it won't do for me. It needs os2. Now I have one machine running that, however I would still need a wb2 partition to skick to 3.1 and then activate a wb3 partition and boot into that. Given that I have an A590 with original 20mb hdd, a separate wb2 partition just to softkick seems to great a sacrifice. Also I would like to be able to skick my ks1.3 machine. Now with the A1000 I see many options available, as obviously it will always be in need of a KS disk, but I doubt those solutions would work on a 500 machine. What I'm looking for and hope that will exist is a way to skick a 1.3 machine via floppy. A way to skick a 2.04 machine via floppy would already be helpfull though.

[demolition]

skick should work fine from a floppy as long as you have KS2.0. It doesn't require WB2.x.
You just need a bootable disk with skick and kick40063.A600.RTB and your KS3.1 ROM named kick40063.A600 and then add skick to s/startup-sequence if you want it to kick automatically.

skick won't work from ks1.3 unfortunately though. I am assuming that since you are using WB2.1, you have a KS2.0 in your A500?

[Tolgod]

Hi there and tnx 4 the clarification. I didn't know skick would also run from bootable floppy. For my machine with ks2 rom, which I indeed have, that will do. I do however really would like a way to kick a rom in my 1.3 machine. Is that even possible (apart from on a A1000 obviously)?

[demolition]

Not sure that you can softkick a KS1.3 machine unless you have some addon installed with a hardware maprom function, like an ACA500 or other accelerator.

[Jope]

MKick works from 1.3 http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/MKick19

[Tolgod]

Hi there and tnx 4 the input. I've tried it yesterday and it does seem to be what I'm looking for. I quickly tried some stuff under wb2 and the program reports you have to be on ks1.x . So that looks very promising. Now it's just for me to find out how to use the software. As I am new to the whole softkicking business, I'm very unaware of the workings of this type of program and it is a bit less straight forward than I expected. Tonight I'll be googling tutorials about it. In any case all of you have been a great help. As to the first part of my question here, is there anyone that might be able to shed some light on the fact that I'm missing half a meg of ram from my KCS Power board V2 trapdoor expansion ?

[demolition]

It could be that they have overlapping memory regions. The first 512k on the KCS is probably located at $C00000 but is the next 512k located at $C80000 or perhaps in the ~$200000~$400000 range where the A590 is?

I think that the stat-ram volume could be the 512k ram disk that the KCS board contains (besides the system ram) as describes in this ad?

[Tolgod]

Hi there and tnx for brainstorming along...I was aware of this fact and pointed to that earlier in the thread. the stat-ram disk however says its 836kb large and when I put something in there it directly cuts into the free 'other memory' reported by wb. The normal ram disk doesn't state a size, but if I put things there, it also cuts into the memory reported by WB. So both ram locations are tied to the memory as it is listed in showconfig. Now what might indeed be the case is that there's overlapping memory and the a590 memory overlaps where the kcs would normally address the ram disk. For now I'm just gonna presume that's the case as the card works fine and all memory shows without a590 connected under wb1. So whatever it is, nothing died on me. Overlapping memory seems the most likely and will probably be it. Tnx

[demolition]

Did a little googling and it looks to me like stat-ram comes from some shareware program that uses fast/chip ram like RAM: but is reset-proof like RAD:.

http://amr.abime.net/review_29606
http://www.amigareport.com/ar114/p6.html

So this program must be installed in your WB?

[Tolgod]

Hi there, really nice of you to dig into that forgotten part of my question.
As the machine in question only has .5M of chip ram and the stat-ram drive indicates 836kb free, it won't be a certain type of usage of chip ram.
Besides that it is a clean install of wb2.1. The drive is already there after installation before I've even added as much as lha . My own Google searches haven't made me any wiser so far. I initially figured it to be a standard working of wb2, but that clearly doesn't seem to be the case. Now I do have to admit my wb2.1 disk were made with adf's downloaded on 'the old computer.com' but I chose the most generic sounding titles and doubt there's any third party patches included. As to the legality, I own 7 amiga's and am very sure that in between the hundreds of floppies I have, there are iterations of all three workbench versions. So it's just for convenience I download. Apart from that, it obviously is a ridiculous notion that generic oem software that old made for a for all intends and purposes obsolete system is still under copyright. But yeah, that's a notion and unfortunately legally it is the current reality.

[demolition]

On your system it is using fast ram only since you have it. Most software should use fast ram over chip ram since it has higher priority.

I have used WB2.1 before and have never seen that volume name. I'm pretty sure it is not standard. In that case, it must be created by some hardware. You could find out by booting A590 only and then KCS board only if you want to check if one of those are creating it.
Is STAT-RAM: persistent through resets, i.e. if you copy a file there, does it stay there after a reset?

[Tolgod]

Hi there...I will test it without A590 attached and report back here. If anything I'm also suspecting it possibly has to do with the device. The memory isn't persistent btw. What I put there is gone after ctrlAA