Bridgeboard emulation (x86 CPU, for example A2286)

[Noth]

Fantastic job! What PC emulator core are you using?

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Noth

Fantastic job! What PC emulator core are you using?

Fake86. CPU core (plus some PC support chip) emulation was very easy to detach from main emulator code. First I tried 8086tiny, it was tiny but also too weird

(Don't ask about 80286+, A1060 and A2088 needs to be perfectly emulated first)

[jbenam]

Oh yes!! Can't wait for the A2386SX to be emulated. Ultima VII on WinUAE

[Toni Wilen]

Does anyone have confirmed working dos boot disk image that is Sidecar or A2088 compatible?

I managed to get (stupid) pc floppy controller and dma controller working just enough to get bios to execute first read command but it also seems to reject returned data. It does not retry reads (unless key is pressed) which probably means tested disk is not compatible. (randomly chosen 360k ibm pc dos disk)

[Kitchen2010]

Does any disks work that I linkes in this posting?
The first main link is the Commodore Germany mailbox software CD that has the official disk images (in .dms format). These are images of the untouched disks and should work (with the real bridgeboard cards).

There are also some disks in TOSEC-v2012-12-21_CM:
• A1060:
- A1060 PC Sidecar Plus II System Disk (1986)(Commodore)(A1000).zip
- A1060 PC Sidecar System Disk (1985)(Commodore)(A1000).zip
- A1060 PC Sidecar Workbench v1.2 D rev 33.56 (1987)(Commodore)(A1000).zip
- A1060 PC Sidecar Workbench v1.2 D rev 33.56 (1987)(Commodore)(A1000)[a].zip
- A1060-A2088-A2286 Janus Setup Disk v1.3 (1988)(Commodore)(DE).zip
• A2088T/A2088XT/A2286AT:
- 2088-2286 install disk (1988)(Commodore).zip
- A2088-2286 PC Bridgeboard Install Disk v1.1 (1987)(Commodore)(A2000).zip
- A2088-2286 PC Bridgeboard Install Disk v1.3 (1988)(Commodore)(A2000)[!].zip
- A2088-2286 PC Bridgeboard Install Disk v2.0 (1989)(Commodore)(A2000)[!].zip
- A2088T-2286 PC Bridgeboard Install Disk v1.02 (1989)(Commodore)(A2000).zip
- A2010-A2020 Janus Test Diagnostics Disk v1.4 (1987)(Commodore)(DE).zip
• A2386SX:
- A2386 PC Bridgeboard Install Disk (1992)(Commodore)(A2000-A3000).zip

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Kitchen2010

Does any disks work

No. Those are all Amiga side install disks that only initializes the bridgeboard. Getting DOS install disk(s) is user's problem, it was never included with bridgeboard.

[ShK]

Do you mean that PC Software disk (CBM-PCJanus.zip)?

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/a1060

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by ShK

Do you mean that PC Software disk (CBM-PCJanus.zip)?

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/a1060

No. It needs to be DOS formatted (usually .img or .ima) boot disk image that is confirmed working with A1060 or A2088.

Not an ADF, not a ZIP, not a DMS. Not an Amiga disk image.

[Amiga_CDTV]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

No. It needs to be DOS formatted (usually .img or .ima) boot disk image that is confirmed working with A1060 or A2088.

Not an ADF, not a ZIP, not a DMS. Not an Amiga disk image.

This is probably what you want. I just Zoned the .IMG file of the disk (made with Kryoflux as a 360KB disk). It works in VirtualBox and I am almost sure I have used it with my Sidecar and A1020 disk drives as well.

[ShK]

Just make blankPC Janus21.IMA and copy contents of CBM-PCJanus.zip in it?

e. Janus21.adf was used with amiga explorer or any other program that can transmit the data via a serial cable to an actual amiga drive. Right dos disk is "CBM DOS32-1".

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by ShK

Just make blankPC Janus21.IMA and copy contents of CBM-PCJanus.zip in it?

e. Janus21.adf was used with amiga explorer or any other program that can transmit the data via a serial cable to an actual amiga drive. Right dos disk is "CBM DOS32-1".

That does not make:
a) proper dos boot disk
b) confirmed working dos boot disk

Originally Posted by Amiga_CDTV

This is probably what you want. I just Zoned the .IMG file of the disk (made with Kryoflux as a 360KB disk). It works in VirtualBox and I am almost sure I have used it with my Sidecar and A1020 disk drives as well.

Thanks. Exactly what I meant, boot disk that is confirmed working = one unknown variable removed = problem must be in emulation.

Floppy reading is now working (very tiny mistake in floppy controller reset handling, first reset returned an error but bios test didn't care about it, when dos disk boot block executed another fdc reset, it checked for the error)

(Ignore tiny 128k memory size, I set it to smallest possible to make bios memory check as fast as possible..)

[ShK]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Floppy reading is now working (very tiny mistake in floppy controller reset handling, first reset returned an error but bios test didn't care about it, when dos disk boot block executed another fdc reset, it checked for the error)

(Ignore tiny 128k memory size, I set it to smallest possible to make bios memory check as fast as possible..)

Ok, good. Nice job!

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

No. Those are all Amiga side install disks that only initializes the bridgeboard. Getting DOS install disk(s) is user's problem, it was never included with bridgeboard.

My A2088 came with MS-DOS 4.01, perhaps all did? I'll upload all the disks and a BIOS dump shortly.

Edit: Archive (~2.8MB) uploaded. Copy and paste one of the URLs below then delete the !.

http://www.4!shared.com/file/h1pkMWd0ce/A2088_XT_Bridgeboard_mark_ktar.html
http://www.media!fire.com/download/2mqtqftj357t7u7/A2088_XT_Bridgeboard_mark_k.tar.xz

[Kitchen2010]

@mark_k:
Sorry, the archive seems corrupt for me. I tried xz (5.0.7) and gtar 1.14. Only 4 files could be extracted from the archive. Could you try to extract your original and compress it in a more convenient format (.zip), please ?

Here the checksum to check:
MD5 (A2088_XT_Bridgeboard_mark_k.tar.xz) = 48f6a676beea00d8a5196aa187de715f

[Leo42]

Originally Posted by Kitchen2010

@mark_k:
Sorry, the archive seems corrupt for me. I tried xz (5.0.7) and gtar 1.14. Only 4 files could be extracted from the archive. Could you try to extract your original and compress it in a more convenient format (.zip), please ?

Here the checksum to check:
MD5 (A2088_XT_Bridgeboard_mark_k.tar.xz) = 48f6a676beea00d8a5196aa187de715f

No problem here (using 7zip), same checksum.

I uploaded the file repacked as zip.

[Toni Wilen]

I guess this can also become bridgeboard support thread..

http://www.winuae.net/files/b/winuae.7z has small update that makes use of PC disk images easier, now any image that is inserted in PC-only drive (DF2/3 "converted" to PC drive) runs full image autodetection (there is no danger of misdetecting strange adf-like image as PC in this use case). Above bin images now work without renaming.

[Kitchen2010]

@Leo42:
Thank you for converting to .zip ! Where can I get this archive file (I could not find it in TheZone) ?

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by Kitchen2010

Sorry, the archive seems corrupt for me. I tried xz (5.0.7) and gtar 1.14. Only 4 files could be extracted from the archive. Could you try to extract your original and compress it in a more convenient format (.zip), please ?

You should probably update your archive-extraction software. Maybe your tar program doesn't like the ¼ character in the directory name "PC 5¼ floppies"?

I recommend decompressing the .xz file on your PC, then using an Amiga version of tar to unpack it.

The Amiga version of tar I use is attached. It's the same as Tar/bin/tar in util/arc/tar-patched on Aminet, but with the binary bug-fix patch given in Tar/patch01/src/part01 applied.

[That particular Amiga port of tar is quite handy, since it understands/archives/restores Amiga file comments; most other Amiga tar ports probably don't.]

Edit to add: Strange. I tried unpacking the archive with GNU tar 1.27.1 on Linux, and while all files did unpack, I have to sudo to root in order to list the files in the subdirectory.

[Leo42]

Originally Posted by Kitchen2010

@Leo42:
Thank you for converting to .zip ! Where can I get this archive file (I could not find it in TheZone) ?

A2088%20XT%20Bridgeboard.zip should be in The Zone.

@mark_k: I replaced the "1/4" character at the same time

[Kitchen2010]

@ mark_k and leo42:
Yes, probably the "1/4" character let my gtar fail. Leo42's .zip archive with the replaced characters worked for me. Thanks you very much, guys, for helping me out !