Possible (mis)using of HDD LED in A3000?

[tnt23]

My A3000 has no SCSI drives, and very unlikely will ever have any. While booting from all sorts of alternative media, from IDE to USB, I miss the front panel HDD activity indication.

The HDD LED is connected to the WD33C93 controller's BSY pin. The controller is mostly idling, so perhaps forcing it to arbitrate or perform some other useless activity on an empty bus would make it blink?

The rest then will be to disable or mask whatever unnecessary interrupts or activity it could produce, and to somehow kick the WD33C93 each time when there's a drive accessed, or to show CPU load, or just plain heartbeat, or whatnot.

Anyway, does it sound that weird?

[Loedown]

Everyone else starts with the PIC make a led flash routine, so learn PIC

[tnt23]

Nice one, Loedown How many PICs does it take to light a LED?

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by tnt23

Nice one, Loedown How many PICs does it take to light a LED?

I see a joke in this;

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light globe, only one but the light globe has got to want to change.

In answer to your question you only need the smallest 8 pin PIC to flash a led, the challenge is to understand the programming and timer setups / execution. If you ever did 6500 / 6502 Assembler you'll pick it up in no time. RISC based and very simple.

http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts...cName=en020094

[hooverphonique]

why not just connect the led to your ide controller instead?

[tnt23]

I've done a few projects with AVR and STM32, I might want to learn a bit of PIC as well. But how does this help in flashing HDD LED when Amiga accesses the drive?

[tnt23]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

why not just connect the led to your ide controller instead?

Maybe because there are none on Deneb?

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by tnt23

Maybe because there are none on Deneb?

well, you mentioned IDE, so I assumed that there was an IDE controller

[tnt23]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

well, you mentioned IDE, so I assumed that there was an IDE controller

Yep, I've got Buddha which certainly has LED outputs, and Deneb which unfortunately does not With Buddha, I'm using an external CF bracket, and that has its very own Big Red Access LED, but the bracket can only be seen from behind.

[Phantomz]

Originally Posted by tnt23

I'm using an external CF bracket, and that has its very own Big Red Access LED, but the bracket can only be seen from behind.

I've got the same problem, I've just installed a FastATA 4000 MKV & External CF bracket with it's own LED, like you said can only see it around the rear.

The FastATA card has LED pins but I'm not sure how to connect it to my hd light on the front yet, guess should be simple, but I'm a noob with a 3000.

Love using the 3000 with CF, Classic Workbench ADVSP and igame, lovely amiga for classic ECS gaming.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by tnt23

I've done a few projects with AVR and STM32, I might want to learn a bit of PIC as well. But how does this help in flashing HDD LED when Amiga accesses the drive?

If you pick up a signal from location x and send it to a PIC pin then you can have it flash any sequence you like, just do the programming.

[tnt23]

Originally Posted by Loedown

If you pick up a signal from location x and send it to a PIC pin then you can have it flash any sequence you like, just do the programming.

Thanks Loedown, I think I got it. The problem, or rather two problems are these: I cannot think of a place on Deneb to pick the signal at; another, bigger is that I would not like doing any wiring or adding electronics inside The idea was to do the trick completely in software, no soldering, no wiring, only good old software hackery

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by tnt23

Thanks Loedown, I think I got it. The problem, or rather two problems are these: I cannot think of a place on Deneb to pick the signal at; another, bigger is that I would not like doing any wiring or adding electronics inside The idea was to do the trick completely in software, no soldering, no wiring, only good old software hackery

Find where the flag for Deneb sits in the memory map and have a little routine tagged onto an interrupt that you can set a line high.

[trixster]

Has anybody actually done this with a Deneb? Not having hd led activity is a little irritating!

[grelbfarlk]

Another one!
*Sternly displays holy symbol* By the power of Persephone, back undead thread, back to whence you came!