Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask

[droopy]

Would this RISC based "PI" board be of interest for Amiga hardware developers in the future ?


First. I do not know very much about RISC other than there were some boards in the past made to work with the Amiga line of computers.


So when I heard about this "PI" style development board I was thinking, perhaps it would be useful for the Amiga community in the future to make some Hardware hacks on.


Perhaps a stupid question, but perhaps someone could explain if it would be of use or if it is completely out of the blue thinking that.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by droopy

Would this RISC based "PI" board be of interest for Amiga hardware developers in the future ?


First. I do not know very much about RISC other than there were some boards in the past made to work with the Amiga line of computers.


So when I heard about this "PI" style development board I was thinking, perhaps it would be useful for the Amiga community in the future to make some Hardware hacks on.


Perhaps a stupid question, but perhaps someone could explain if it would be of use or if it is completely out of the blue thinking that.

You mean like the PiStorm for example: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=107953 ?

[Jope]

Originally Posted by droopy

Perhaps a stupid question, but perhaps someone could explain if it would be of use or if it is completely out of the blue thinking that.

It's quite rare to use the title field of a post when replying to an existing thread, so it was a bit difficult at first to understand, that you are talking about an Allwinner D1-H based single board computer when you didn't mention it in your message text at all.

It is useful if someone is interested in RISC-V and is interested in hooking one up to an Amiga.

I'll be the jaded person and say that probably no-one will do anything Amiga related with this particular board, but who knows. https://d1.docs.aw-ol.com/en/ there is not much in terms of interfaces that are Amiga friendly. SPI and UART maybe.

In the end it really boils down to whether this board/SoC will become somehow popular enough and available enough at a bargain price that people will adopt it for their projects. There are tons of little SBCs based on various SoCs, that also have GPIO headers. Just 96boards alone makes dozens of different kinds https://www.96boards.org/products/

Only a few Raspberry Pi models have achieved enough market share, that they've reached the hands of people who have decided to hook them up to Amigas. As a result we currently have an ARM co processor ecosystem slowly brewing in the Amiga world.

But based on what I've been seeing, RISC-V is gaining developer mindshare, so who knows what happens in the future.

[Gernot66]

Originally Posted by Dastardly

What's an "Amiga"?

There, I've said it.

Good question, it's sorta girlfriend which lasts longer as any else girlfriend.


Back in th late '80s early '90s here in Switzerland retailers said "it's no computer" certainly not it's a toy, computers had to be very expensive, offering only the bare boned Motherboard, had a built in buzzer, shitty graphics, was clumsy and the OS had to be reinstalled every week that was a computer. But we decided to buy a toy instead of a computer.

[Firestone]

Back in the days I remember some games, demos etc displayed graphics in the AmigaDOS window.
I remember having a utility that converted iff to a textfile that when typed into the shell would generate graphics in the shell window.
(a bit hard to explain)

I remember this wasn't compatible with MS-DOS, so I guess it was some sort of Amiga specific-trick.

How did this actually work? Always been curious about that one.

[TCD]

Here's a thread about that topic: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=39795

[Firestone]

Originally Posted by TCD

Here's a thread about that topic: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=39795

Ahh there it is, yes!
Thanks a lot, well explained in that topic!

[Torti-the-Smurf]

Originally Posted by Gernot66

Good question, it's sorta girlfriend which lasts longer as any else girlfriend.


Back in th late '80s early '90s here in Switzerland retailers said "it's no computer" certainly not it's a toy, computers had to be very expensive, offering only the bare boned Motherboard, had a built in buzzer, shitty graphics, was clumsy and the OS had to be reinstalled every week that was a computer. But we decided to buy a toy instead of a computer.

Exactly !


We got our Amiga 500 in 1987, with Deluxe Paint and great Games;

I was 8 Years old and 4 years later in the "Hauptschule" we had "EDV", and the Teacher said:
"Lets Paint something on the Computers".


We sat down in front of HUGE and Ugly boxes that Screeeeched when turned on; the Monitors where Monochrome (Green&Black) and after a while we had to Type "Stuff". (load command)


Eventually the "Paint Program" came on and we had to send a Turtle via X and Y coordinates around the Screen to "draw a Line" ... a few more X & Y Coordinates and a few more lines where "painted" by the Turtle.


My 12 Year old mind just said: " WTF is this Mayhem ??? "

Where is Deluxe Paint ?, Where are all the Colours ?, Where is the Mouse?...

...this is no Computer !!!!... this is TRASH


After School i got home and did some Painting on a real Computer,

it was called ... AMIGA

[jolly11]

25-30 years ago a friend made me listen to a song made with the amiga (maybe amiga 2000), in which he could choose the words to be sung and with which he then made a video. does anyone know of the existence of this program?

[Pyromania]

Amiga always did a lot of Deluxe Painting. Pity it only got to version V.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by jolly11

25-30 years ago a friend made me listen to a song made with the amiga (maybe amiga 2000), in which he could choose the words to be sung and with which he then made a video. does anyone know of the existence of this program?

Maybe the 'say' program? [ Show youtube player ]

[jolly11]

don't know..but I was looking for a program that makes both music and video..if exists!

[gimbal]

Here's one I can't find the answer to.

What the heck does the crucifix do in Horror Zombies from the Crypt? I never needed it to complete the game :/ (infinite lives yes, crucifix no).

[TCD]

The manual says this:

Crucifix - perhaps the most importand object to find, this golden cross is essential to oyur success in the mission. Tou must decide when and where you should use it.

hardcoregaming101 is also very helpful:

The final power, the crucifix… who knows what the hell the crucifix does, cause we never got far enough to see the bloody piece of copper up close.

Not intrigued enough to play the game myself, but looking forward to hear what it actually does as well.

[malko]

Sorry in advance if theses questions have already been asked (have only contradictory answers).
I always thought that there was only SLOW-RAM on the trapdoor/ranger slot.

1) BitD did exist a real FAST-RAM trapdoor memory extension (range $C00000-$C7FFFF). Was the Commodore A501 ram-extension a real FAST-RAM (Fast-ram speed access) ?

2) I have read that it is possible to have either a real CHIP-RAM or a real FAST-RAM extension plugged in the trapdoor slot (depend on the jumper settings on the extension to map the address range). Can an hardware specialist confirm or infirm this ?

[slaapliedje]

Originally Posted by malko

Sorry in advance if theses questions have already been asked (have only contradictory answers).
I always thought that there was only SLOW-RAM on the trapdoor/ranger slot.

1) BitD did exist a teal FAST-RAM trapdoor memory extension (range $C00000-$C7FFFF). Was the Commodore A501 ram-extension a real FAST-RAM (Fast-ram speed access) ?

2) I have read that it is possible to have either a real CHIP-RAM or a real FAST-RAM extension plugged in the trapdoor slot (depend on the jumper settings on the extension to map the address range). Can an hardware specialist confirm or imfirm this ?

Are talking about for the A500? I could be wrong about this, but I believe the requirements for FAST-RAM would be a 68020, right? I would have to look again, but I think the 68000 itself doesn't support such a thing. Would like more information on that. From what I can tell about the Atari ST architecture, you can only have 10mb 'slow ram' due to the TOS memory chunk being reserved above that (so you cannot hit 12mb). I want to say the Amiga 500 can address only up to 14mb? (Pretty sure that is 16bit limitation.) And that would all be considered slow ram.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by malko

1) BitD did exist a teal FAST-RAM trapdoor memory extension (range $C00000-$C7FFFF). Was the Commodore A501 ram-extension a real FAST-RAM (Fast-ram speed access) ?

I don't think you can have fast ram in the trapdoor since it is the wrong bus on those pins. You can add fast ram to the expansion port (on the left side) though.
The A501 was configured as either chip or slow ram, depending on the Amiga type and jumpers. A500+ will use it as chip, while A500 will add it as slow mem (also called ranger memory) by default.

Originally Posted by slaapliedje

Are talking about for the A500? I could be wrong about this, but I believe the requirements for FAST-RAM would be a 68020, right? I would have to look again, but I think the 68000 itself doesn't support such a thing.

Whether something is called fast ram or slow ram depends on whether that RAM has to share the bus with the chipset. This is the case with memory installed in the trap door, but if you install the memory directly in the CPU socket or the left-side expansion port then you can have proper fast ram since this bus can be fully utilized by the CPU, for example when the other bus is busy with chipset DMA.

Traditionally this could be done with one of these:
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/impact500mk2

[grond]

Was the destinction between the two types of non-chipmem, i.e. slowmem and fastmem, generally known back in the day? I never had an A500 but my friend told me he had "fastmem" installed in the trapdoor. When we coded together, I didn't know that there was a third type of mem combining the disadvantages of fast and chipmem. Actually, I am not even sure as what type of mem the ranger mem was registered by the OS. I then coded mostly for AGA which may explain my long lasting ignorance about rangermem.

[demolition]

Don't know if it was 'generally' known but it was known, hence the need for the FastMemFirst tool for WB1.2 (and early 1.3?) as mentioned here:
https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=975401&postcount=4
I think that WB1.3 didn't even use the name fast mem. It named them 'chip' and 'other'.

[grond]

Interesting. The need to provide the FastMemFirst tool seems to indicate that non-chip memory wasn't handled properly (i.e. distinguishing slowmem from fastmem) from the start. My friend had a chicken lips A500 with kick 1.2. Perhaps the slow "nature" of trapdoor memory wasn't as well known when he got his expansion.