TF536 on Amiga 500 - What should I expect?

[Calab]

I've just received both an rev 6A Amiga 500, and a TF536. I believe I have the v1.3 KS ROM (v34.5?). The jumpers on the mainboard have been modded to make the 512KB trapdoor memory appear as CHIP RAM.

I did some tests on the 500 to make sure all was working, and it seemed to be, so I opened it up, pulled the 68000 and installed the TF536.

I booted up the machine, and all seems normal. Upon closer examination, I don't see any memory increase (895368 free) or speed increase (only .54 MIPS), nor do I see the CF card plugged into the IDE port.

What should I expect with my current configuration? Is my 1.3 KS keeping the TF536 from doing anything?

Any assistance is appreciated!

[pipper]

The TF536 is mapping its RAM into ZorroIII address space via auto config. This is only supported from KS 2.0 onwards.
So the RAM does not get added to the system. Additionally, the card slows down to 7Mhz whenever it needs to access any RAM that is not onboard fastmem. In your Situation, this means the TF536 will run at 7MHz all the time, because everything is loaded into chipmem (or slowmem for that matter).

Once you install a later kickstart, you should notice the effect immediately. Additionally you should then install MMULibs and in particular it’s ‚MuFastRom‘ Tool. Otherwise all kickstart routines will run out of the slow ROM.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by pipper

The TF536 is mapping its RAM into ZorroIII address space via auto config. This is only supported from KS 2.0 onwards.
So the RAM does not get added to the system. Additionally, the card slows down to 7Mhz whenever it needs to access any RAM that is not onboard fastmem. In your Situation, this means the TF536 will run at 7MHz all the time, because everything is loaded into chipmem (or slowmem for that matter).

Once you install a later kickstart, you should notice the effect immediately. Additionally you should then install MMULibs and in particular it’s ‚MuFastRom‘ Tool. Otherwise all kickstart routines will run out of the slow ROM.

I don't think any of this is accurate.

A 68030 would cache things and run many times faster just using it's caches.

The IDE controller doesn’t work to boot from because KS1.3 doesn’t contain the driver. You can load it after you’ve booted from another drive. Or inject it into KS1.3 and burn a new ROM (but you may as well use KS3.1 or later)

[utri007]

Originally Posted by Calab

Any assistance is appreciated!

You need to upgrade Kickstart!

[Calab]

Originally Posted by utri007

You need to upgrade Kickstart!

I've got a 3.x v45.064 ROM ordered and awaiting delivery.

Is there anywhere that explains which drivers I need and how to install them?

Thanks for all the help folks!

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Calab

Is there anywhere that explains which drivers I need and how to install them?

The TF356 IDE is compatible with the Gayle scsi.device device driver in the ROM from KS v2.05+

To get the IDE working in KS2.04 (or lower) you have to use loadModule from another drive

http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/LoadModule

If you cannot get scsi.device to work via LoadModule you could try IDE.device which is supposed to be compatible

https://gitlab.com/MHeinrichs/AIDE

If for some reason you want to keep KS1.3 (dual KS?) you might want to modify the ROM to add scsi.device (http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/kick13scsipatch)

[utri007]

Originally Posted by Calab

I've got a 3.x v45.064 ROM ordered and awaiting delivery.

Is there anywhere that explains which drivers I need and how to install them?

Thanks for all the help folks!

Just install Hard drive with Workbench 3.1 install disk. No need drivers.