A500 Zorro Slot Adaptor

[durniplot]

Interested, too!


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[Amiga4000]

Actually, I would like to request two please....

[Jope]

Originally Posted by DrBong

Has anyone tested something more meaty like a Blizzard 2040/2060, GVP G-Force

None of these are Zorro boards. The A2000 DMA slot requires a different kind of adapter. It is possible to create such an adapter, though, and get an 060 A500.

or DKB Rapidfire/Spitfire?

These will probably work fine, they are rather boring PIO SCSI controllers.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

When you say not automatic - you mean a menu option to enable it, or more detailed manual config needed?

Menu option (new option in already existing menu) or autodetect (only if autodetection can be made 100% reliable)

[Daedalus]

Thanks guys It's taking a good bit longer than I had hoped, between the Autoconfig incompatibility issue (which I can't complain about to be fair - attaching an A1200 accelerator to an A500 with a Zorro card installed is so far beyond the design intention of the A500 that it's amazing it works at all!) and having a baby, progress has been slow.

Yep, adding an A2000 style CPU slot to the A500 would be possible, and I'm sure that has also been done in the past, but for now I'm only looking at Zorro devices. So far I've tested the following cards:

- A2058 RAM expansion with 2MB RAM installed (Working fine)
- A2090 hard drive controller with boot ROMs (Working fine)
- MultiFaceCard 3 serial/parallel port expander (Working fine)
- Ariadne ethernet card (detected fine but haven't run a TCP stack yet)
- Catweasel Z-II S-Class / Buddha floppy & IDE controller (Working fine)
- GVP HC+8 RAM/SCSI combo card (RAM works fine but couldn't get SCSI working - not sure if that's an issue with my SCSI disk, a DMA issue or some other incompatibility)
- Picasso IV graphics card (detects fine, but won't work with the ACA due to lack of Z-II address space, and won't work without it due to a lack of an 020+ CPU)

I've also tested it with my Blizzard 1260 and it seems to be fine on my setup, but that could be just luck with a borderline condition working for me and not for Toni. It could also be a power issue as Toni suggested, or something else we haven't thought of...

[E-Penguin]

I intend to test it with the A1K.org/Matze graphics card and an ACA1221 the very second I get my hands on it and a compatible firmware from Toni.

Amazing work.

[Amiga4000]

I am hoping to test it with a IDE4 Zorro 2 board and a Buddha Flash Phoenix Edition board.

[BadHatGamer]

I reckon I'll be all over this if it can be made to play nice with the ACA1233n.

:

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

I intend to test it with the A1K.org/Matze graphics card and an ACA1221 the very second I get my hands on it and a compatible firmware from Toni.

Amazing work.

To the Mirth Mobile!



(Had to be said.........)

[Daedalus]

Slow going, I know, but I've finally finished all the testing I needed and the boards work with the ACA500 and most accelerators, pending a software update for the ACA. Early testing shows it also seems to work with an A590, but I have more testing to do there.

Again, huge thanks to E-Penguin for the long-term loan of the ACA500Plus (now on its way back), and to Toni Wilen for his huge help resolving Autoconfig issues with A1200 accelerators.

Now, here's a short video of my test setup:

[ Show youtube player ]

It's An A500+ playing an MP3 directly from a Zip disk. Attached are an ACA500+, Blizzard 1260, Z-500 and Buddha Zorro-II card.

I will be selling the rest of these cards off for £35 each plus shipping, which is typically somewhere between £6 and £12 depending on where you are. I'll PM people in this thread first with details...

[E-Penguin]

I don't suppose you left the Blizzard 1260 attached when you sent it back, did you?

[Daedalus]

Haha, not even in my sleep-deprived state

[Amiga4000]

[E-Penguin]

Well, it's arrived!



Here it is plugged into my A500, with an ACA500plus on the pass-through with an ACA1221 on that. Plugged into the Zorro II slot is a GBAPII++ graphics card, the one developed by Matze from A1k.org.

For what concerns the Z-500, that worked out of the box. The GBAPII++ had / has a few issues, which I am still tracking down. Any video setting higher than 800x600x8bit gives a weird ghosting and other artefacts. I'm not yet sure where the problem lies, but I'm pretty confident it isn't the zorro adapter.



I'll do a full review writeup this evening or next.

[Acill]

I have done some testing with mine as well. Rob waqs kind enough to send me this in kit form so I could build it myself. (I just love doing it, noting more to it than that) and I can happily say it works very well on the NTSC A1000 with an ACA500 Plus (Not working with the original ACA500) and it will auto boot off an ADSCSI A2000 card with an SCSI2SD on it and powered by the connector on the adapter. It will not supply cable power, but I think thats the card and not this adapter.

Now my plan is to design a 3D printed case that will close up all of this and make it look a bit cleaner.

[E-Penguin]

Let me know if you make a case for the whole lot. It's pretty precarious having the Zorro cards stuck up in the air (not a criticism of Daedalus's, rather an unfortunate consequence of gravity).

In case anyone was interested, here's the link to the full write up I did. https://amigadventures.tumblr.com/po...-the-amiga-500

[Amiga4000]

Got mine too! It's a beauty! Everything is so professional & and the nylon supports are just the ticket! Haven't had a chance to play with it yet though - soon! Thanks Rob!!!!

@E-Penguin

You probably already know about this nice P96 file but in you don't have it, instead of adding or editing screen modes you can use this Picasso96setting File.... extract it to DEVS:

The only thing to do is to attach your Board.....in p96Mode.

It contains all known VESA Standard Resolutions and works perfect with this GBAPII++ graphics card.

BTW, nice blog!

[E-Penguin]

Yes, hitting "attach" was a step I missed for a while. I'm sending the board back to matze to take a look at the memory, it's consistently giving memory areas in the upper area. I'm glad you liked the blog

The little plastic feet are just right. I had been worried about having such a mass dangling on the expansion port but with the feet it's not a problem.

[Amiga4000]

Hmmm, I had a file attached in the previous post but it seems to have been removed... maybe that's against the TOS. You could always grab it from this post on Amiga.org also. http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost...&postcount=105

[Legionary]

Can i see a Picture of the prototype? i might be interrested in one as well...

[McTrinsic]

Regarding the ghosting. I had something similar when using the GBA++ at the front slot of my Phoenix board. The GBA++ works flawless in the ZII - slot.
So I would rather assume the Z500 as a root cause there.