Getting Emplant to run ...

[SimonV]

I have an Emplant in my A4000 with cyberstorm 060 and OS3.BB4. I used the Emplant's installer and I checked with the manual if everything is in place and it is.

However, it reboots twice to end up on a black screen so something goes wrong. It boots again with the line in the startup-sequence so something's wrong somewhere but what ? I attached a screengrab from my startup-sequence.

[emufan]

you can try rsrvkick from the archive attached here.
Fusion Extras.zip\F31rsv21\RsrvKick
copy it in your sys:c folder

change first lines of startup-sequence:
;BEGIN Emplant
c:RsrvKick > NIL:
;execute ...

[JimDrew]

What does SetupEMPLANT have in it?

[SimonV]

RsrvMem >NIL:

Although the manual says it should be RsrvMEMII >NIL: ... I use the original disk that came with it and it is an Emplant Deluxe with the e586dx upgrade.

I of course have no idea if my software is the latest version, what updates came out ...

[SimonV]

emufan's tip does solve the problem. I would however like to understand why it does work that way and not with the original command.

But it is still not ok. As soon as I start the emulation it resets.

[emufan]

Originally Posted by SimonV

emufan's tip does solve the problem. I would however like to understand why it does work that way and not with the original command.

But it is still not ok. As soon as I start the emulation it resets.

the other day, Jim said about the fusion emulation on a 060, you have to use RsrvKick instead of the other tools.

dunno about the new problem. does the emulation resets and quit, or does the amiga reboots?

if its just the emulation, you may run snoopdos prior to the emulation software and look for some fails or strange output from snopdos.
dunno, but there could be a log file of the emplant software aswell.

[SimonV]

it resets the Amiga instantly. Power led blinks and that's it so far. I now have Emplant v5.3 , I think I got the last update from amiga.resource.cx

[emufan]

can you switch to another cpu- 030/040 on mobo? if not try to disable cpu features, chaches burst mode.
might be a problem with the 060, i think Jim may help here.

[SimonV]

switch to another cpu ? Well I can put the card in to one of my many other miggies ... but well this one is on my desk :-)

I also installed the e586dx thing. When I start that emulation it goes back to workbench en the reserved ram is gone. But that's it. When I try to start it again it says it's running already ...

Nothing comes easy with this A4000 ...

[SimonV]

correction on the e586x module ... does boot now with another biosfile !

[emufan]

Originally Posted by SimonV

switch to another cpu ? Well I can put the card in to one of my many other miggies ... but well this one is on my desk :-)

i thought some a4000 came with cpu on motherboard. so i assumed you may disable the 060 card
and it would use the mobo cpu - well, never owned an a4000 and too lazy to look at resource.cx

Originally Posted by SimonV

correction on the e586x module ... does boot now with another biosfile !

ah, ok, good. can you give exact name of that bios file or attach it here?
for those in trouble in the future

[SimonV]

No the cpu is on a daughterboard so I can't turn it of because it's a replacement for the original.

What the bios is concerned I fiddle some more first. At first I wanted to use the bios that came with PCx but that doesn't work with the emplant software.

The one I have now seems to work fine, however it does not hold it's settings while it's not the easiest one to tell what hard drive you have.

It's all not of great importance getting the Emplant to work since I do have Fusion and PCx originals but it would be nice to figure it out.

[emufan]

ah, ok, i understand the cpu issue

there is a universal bios, was recommended for emulating bridgeboards in winuae.
maybe this XTIDE bios works somehow with your card.

#1) can you take some photos of the e586 module, front, back, big size.
there are no images of it at resource.cx or BBoAH, would be nice to have some imagery of it

[SimonV]

That XTide thing doesn't work. Most American Megatrends amibios for any 486 board does work. I also tried some Award bios but those don't work or hang. And I didn't get a bios for socket5 or 7 (pentium) working either.

But since I really don't see the point of using the e586dx software with the bios settings that are impossible to safe when PCx runs just fine I am going to quit trying. I also can't seem to find how to use a hardfile with the Emplant software. The manual states it's possible but I guess I am overlooking something.

The Mac side ... well that goes a lot better now. I took my Fusion floppy and there is a readme that states to use rsrvwarm and comment out the original rsrvmem.... that was already replaced with rsrvkick that you mentioned but rsrvwarm works also. Since fusion is better and uses the emplant also AND I am looking to an Apple screen right now asking me for a disk I guess the original Emplant software is just useless.

[JimDrew]

I am pretty sure that EMPLANT's Mac emulation does not work with the 060 - it existed before 060 accelerators did. If you have FUSION (which you said you do), just use it and select the EMPLANT hardware as the hardware to use. That gives you the best of both worlds.

ALL PC Bios ROMs should work. I tested a slew of them, but you really should be using the custom BIOS that is included with e586DX. Also note that I don't think e586DX is 060 compatible. PCx is.

[SimonV]

Well that is more or less what I concluded. I do have an original Fusion 3.1 ... I would like to upgrade to 3.2c but all I find is pirated copies that screw things up. Is 3.2c the latest anyway ? But it seems to work fine already. Only some things I do have to investigate ... switching between workbench and fusion I can't find it. Also when I selected a (wrong) screenmode so it appears in the "available" list I can't remove it ? Well just small things that probably are in the manual but I overlooked. I was actually stunned the mac emulation just booted from my macos8.1 cd without hassle to get it installed. Great piece of software that I finally can play with :-)

About e586DX ... the original floppy I have says the bios wasn't ready at the time in a readme so I don't have it and I do not find it. But e586dx not 060 compatible ? It works and the manual says under "emulation requirements" : "An amiga with 68020,68030,68040,68060 CPU" . But yes PCx gives me better results. I just wanted to run Norton SI on the both of them and compare. For no good reason.

[Magic]

@JimDrew

Do you still have a complete Emplant board for sale? Where would I look on your CBM Store?

[JimDrew]

I think e586dx had preliminary 060 support but I know we didn't have an 060 system to test it with.

I don't have any EMPLANT boards assembled. I located the CPLD programmer, thousands of chips, and about 400 brand new EMPLANT boards. I plan on putting a ton of stuff on my store early next year.