Access PCMCIA with Viper 1230/28 (A1200)

[Scyphe]

Thanks for all the info. I'll stick with this card until I can afford/find a better card that supports up to 128MB Fast.

[whitebird]

Has anyone patched their A1200 Kickstart 3.1 image so the PCMCIA slot is not disabled with >4MB fast RAM?

As per my understanding upon booting, Amiga OS 3.9 replaces the ROM version of kickstart 3.1 by one loaded into RAM.

Does it actually solve the PCMCIA issue? Maybe a workaround is includes in the latest boing bags.

[Mrz]

Originally Posted by whitebird

As per my understanding upon booting, Amiga OS 3.9 replaces the ROM version of kickstart 3.1 by one loaded into RAM.

Does it actually solve the PCMCIA issue? Maybe a workaround is includes in the latest boing bags.

nope
there is no pcmcia fix for 3.1 roms in OS 3.9
add this manually to your startup sequence

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=864287#post864287

if you don't want a reboot you must use roms 3.0 in your A1200 motherboard

[whitebird]

Ok but I don't like the fact you have to reinsert the card each time you reboot

[whitebird]

Lengthening the period of the CC_RESET signal through a slightly modified version of the pcmcia reset fix may be a solution for maintaining the card in the reset state long enough to let the patch load from disk...

[whitebird]

Initiating a software reset with CardReset may be even better.

[whitebird]

As I plan to add a PCMCIA 3COM EtherLink III board to my M-TEC 1230/28 equipped A1200, had a look again to this topic, and it seems to me there is no final conclusion about the issue discussed herein.

Also had an overall look to different discussions over the internet most of them being from 2011-2012 with no final solution/workaround.

As per my understanding, boards that add more that 4MB of memory within the ZORRO-II space make kickstart 3.1 disable the PCMCIA port.

Inhibition of the PCMCIA port occurs whenever the PCMCIA card requires the CPU to address the $600000 to $9FFFFF space or not.

That is, even cards which don't need the space generally dedicated to SRAM PCMCIA card, will not work.

This constraint doesn't exist with kickstart 3.0. However, it doesn't solve the address conflict and it is up to each computer's owner to not use PCMCIA cards requiring $600000 to $9FFFFF accesses along with expansion boards falling within the same address range.

Also there is no solution from remapping Fast-RAM ranging from $600000 to $9FFFFF outer to zorro-II space as most of the boards only manage the lower 24 address bits so that no chip select can be generated for addresses above ZORRO-II space.

That was about my understanding from the context.

So now my question: is there a valid patch that can be added to startup sequence so that the system behaves as kickstart 3.0 ones? As far as I know, some attempts have been made, however feedback reported unreliable behavior. So I would like to know what status has been reached and if I need to change for a board with Fast-RAM outside ZORRO-II space or if some workaround exists.

Don't know how tough it is to find where the "PCMCIA disable" function actually resides within kickstart 3.1, maybe some former kickstart developers may help. Then it would be possible to rebuild a kickstart 3.1 image without that disable function...

[Misclegend]

Originally Posted by whitebird

So now my question: is there a valid patch that can be added to startup sequence so that the system behaves as kickstart 3.0 ones?.

yes but will work after a reboot

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...0&d=1359292756

[whitebird]

OK, thanks.

After upacking I get two files card.resourcev1 and card.resourcev2, where shall I copy those files?

[Jope]

You can choose the place. L: might be a good choice.

Then load the one you need with loadmodule.

[whitebird]

Don't know which one I need. I thought that card.resourcev2 is a newer version of card.resourcev1

And I suppose it shall be added to startupsequence. Also noted there is already a card.resource within the startupsequence file.

[Misclegend]

Originally Posted by whitebird

Don't know which one I need. I thought that card.resourcev2 is a newer version of card.resourcev1

And I suppose it shall be added to startupsequence. Also noted there is already a card.resource within the startupsequence file.

insert in the startup-sequence before setpatch
loadmodule card.resourcev2 or v1
try both to check which one works

alternatively a you can use skick to remap kickstart 3.0 into fast ram and then of course PCMCIA will work
http://aminet.net/util/boot/skick346.lha
you need the A1200 rom3.0 file correctly renamed and copied to devs:kickstarts/

anyways
yet the best solution is the use of kickstart 3.0
if you still have the originals roms 3.0 of your A1200, Id recommend you to installl them and throw away the roms 3.1 because they are useless

[solarmon]

I haven't tried it myself, as I don't have Kickstart 3.1, but there is meant to be a patch that can be applied to remove this 'feature' of disabling the PCMCIA slot:

http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1172678

[whitebird]

Thanks for those precious information.

So there are actually 4 potential solutions to overcome this issue:

1)Use card.resourcevX from card.lzx
2)Soft kick kickstart 3.0 so that disabling PCMCIA does not occur
3)Replace kickstart 3.1 by the original 3.0 chips
4) Use the patch from the link you provide solarmon

A fifth method might be rewritting a card's driver so that it directly accesses the port without caring about card.resource library. However that would mean doing that individually for each driver.

1) Will try it as per your description

2) Will try it too. I run OS 3.9 with boing bags installed, and as far as I know it loads kickstart in RAM and reboots after a few seconds. Is it some kind of soft kicking? Do not see any skick command line in startupsequence, so maybe OS 3.9 implements a specific method for soft kicking. Also have a kick40068.A1200 in kickstarts folder. Don't know if it is the file that actually loads in RAM and where it is invoqued. Maybe just replacing the file with kick 3.0 and keeping same name might be a solution.
If I use skick does it mean it will reboot twice? I am afraid of skick interfering with OS 3.9 soft kicking.

3) Still have the original chips. However, as I run OS 3.9 isn't it that Kickstart 3.1 is required?

4) Will also give it a try.

[Misclegend]

Originally Posted by whitebird

3) Still have the original chips. However, as I run OS 3.9 isn't it that Kickstart 3.1 is required?

in OS3.9 kick 3.1 is required because they inserted a hack in the workbench.library when detects roms 3.0 it crash

this is solved using the new workbench.library v45.132 by peter K
then OS3.9 will work with kickstart 3.0
also you must replace the ASL.library for an old one because it checks for kick3.1 as well

more info here

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=65735

[whitebird]

Thanks for the tip about workbench 3.0.

In the meantime I tried cardres.ld.strip along with cardres_loader which can be found from here:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=89383&page=2

After boot, had a look at resources through Sysinfo. There was no "card" entry. Then after running cardres_loader, went back to Sysinfo and "card" resources was displayed as the last item.

Then I ran CardReset and the green LED attached to the network cable blinked each time the reset was issued. Without runing cardres, CardReset displayed error 10 every time. Now, only when no card is inserted (obvious).

As CardRes does not require rebooting, seems to be an efficient solution.

Now that everything seems to be going well, how can I check the system recognizes the network card? Have installed the 3C589D driver from Aminet, but do not see any networking device reported.

[whitebird]

Tried Genesis, upon depressing the "Online" button, green LED blinks on card's cable, and on router side I can see the LED relating to the Ethernet cable going green. However genesis reports "cannot obtain local IP address".

Is it that my genesis version has an outdated version of the DHCP protocol that the router does not understand?

[Jope]

Try setting a static IP in the same address space with the same hostmask as your routers' DHCP server provides, then attempt to ping the router.

[whitebird]

Just tested. Now it goes online and I am able to ping the Amiga from a PC attached to the same network. For some unknown reason, don't find the ping utility in Genesis/serv, but the ability to ping the Amiga from other entities is definitely the proof of being able to run PCMCIA port along with VIPER 1230 and kick 3.1.

Thanks a lot

[Misclegend]

Originally Posted by whitebird

Tried Genesis, upon depressing the "Online" button, green LED blinks on card's cable, and on router side I can see the LED relating to the Ethernet cable going green. However genesis reports "cannot obtain local IP address".

Is it that my genesis version has an outdated version of the DHCP protocol that the router does not understand?

genesis sometimes reports errors like can't obtain local ip adress or can't obtain dns servers etc

to connect to internet try miamidx instead genesis which have lot of bugs
but better try miami 3.x because is more stable/user friendly and have less options to config

last time I tried to connect to internet in my A1200 was using a pcmcia 56k modem, for some unknown reason I couldn't connect using miamidx or genesis ,but miami 3.0 worked