New product: MNT ZZ9000

[IvanEBC]

Hi guys

I've always had minor issues with my ZZ9000 on my Amiga 4000 (Dopus freezing when scrolling, solveable by not using the ZZ9000 Fast Ram).... solvable but not ideal.
Side Note: My Z-Surf 1000 also only works in Z2 mode and not Z3) So i decided to get a new Daughterboard thinking this may solve some problems from Amigastore.eu which arrived today.... but i can only get an initial boot with NO RTG.... (which is normal) but when i do the first reboot which would show me my RTG workbench...... with the new daughterboard, i get nothing, she isn't even booting ...
Is the ZZ9000 known to be fussy with 3rd party daughterboards? I picked this one as it was a replacement board and not trying to be fancy.

I swear i saw a 3rd party FAQ once but i cannot find it now as if it was listed as such, it would be there.

This is the one i got... https://amigastore.eu/en/760-amiga-4...ard-b-v12.html

EDIT: I put the original Commodore Daughterbaord back in and everything works again with the original issues.
So my simple question is if others have tried the same daughterboard and had success or failures...

Thanks.

[Jope]

https://source.mnt.re/amiga/zz9000-firmware/-/releases

ZZ9000 Amiga Driver Installer Package 1.12 (LHA) is visible there. Unfortunately Gitlab is not at all Amiga web browser friendly. You could of course check the url from there and then use aget on the Amiga to download directly to the Amiga.

The driver package installer is still written to replace the Altais driver you selected when installing P96. Unfortunately P96 doesn't have a better officially supported way of installing a 3rd party card driver, so you can just install with Altais and then run the ZZ9000 installer.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

Okay. So my Amananet A4K Daughterboard arrived from Amigastore.eu. Unfortunately mine didn’t get the extra floppy power connector soldered on. So luckily I had one spare and did that job myself. Have now got connected a ZZ9000 in the bottom slot with the Video native board connected. A Gottagofaster 256MB Z3 RAM card and a Phase 5 FastLane Z3 SCSI card (minus the 16MB extra RAM removed from the board). 16MB Fast in the motherboard and the standard 030 CPU board plus FPU at 25mhz. So far so good. Still trying to find the drivers for the RTG side. Downloaded the latest Firmware download. Have Version 3.34 of P96 from Individual Computers (Paid for). Instructions I have found are to install P96 with the “altais” card driver. Then run the ZZ9000 install. Instructions being used here
https://mntre.com/media/ZZ9000_info_...-manual-r2.pdf

Any help on the drivers would be appreciated. Any chance if anyone has them to put up on the Zone perhaps?

Tbh, I had to do it a couple of times before it started working, can't really say what I did right or wrong, but I followed the instructions in the printed manual that arrives with the card. Some stuff is better installed in the right order.

[pixie]

Is there any problem with scandoubler? It has been showing some flickering on retrocengo YouTube channel in apidia.
Retrocengo YT:
[ Show youtube player ]

[Jope]

No known epidemic problems I'm aware of.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by pixie

Is there any problem with scandoubler? It has been showing some flickering on retrocengo YouTube channel in apidia.
Retrocengo YT:
[ Show youtube player ]

I am not going to watch that whole thing but skimming through it, I didn't notice any flickering issues. He rants about some 'glitches' with the moving flowers which is clearly how the game was designed. And if the scrolling is not smooth, perhaps he didn't configure it to 50 Hz and is playing a PAL game?
Out of the box, the scandoubler will default to 60 Hz but if you have a 50 Hz capable monitor, enabling this will allow for scandoubling without frame rate conversion for perfect smoothness and low latency.

[eXeler0]

My 34-pin "scandoubler" cable that goes between the ZZ9000 and the small Video Slot board broke. Anyone knows a good source for an appropriately short 34-pin flat ribbon cable?
MNT shop has one for €10 but for some reason €20 shipping is the only option for a 10cm piece of cable....

Edit: Ordered five 10cm 34-pin (Female/Female, type B) cables from AliExpress for $10 incl shipping.. but thats probably gonna take a month or so..

[demolition]

If you have a three-connector floppy drive cable around, you can cut off the end that has the twist in it and then the remaining two connectors should works since that is just straight-through.
It will probably be a bit longer than 10 cm though.

If you only have a regular two-connector floppy drive cable for a single drive, it is also possible to remove one of the two connectors and reattach it at the position where you want it (eliminating the cable twist). It does require a fine flat head screwdriver, a vice and steady hands to get the connector off without breaking it. Reattaching it is relatively simple in the vice.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by demolition

If you have a three-connector floppy drive cable around, you can cut off the end that has the twist in it and then the remaining two connectors should works since that is just straight-through.
It will probably be a bit longer than 10 cm though.

If you only have a regular two-connector floppy drive cable for a single drive, it is also possible to remove one of the two connectors and reattach it at the position where you want it (eliminating the cable twist). It does require a fine flat head screwdriver, a vice and steady hands to get the connector off without breaking it. Reattaching it is relatively simple in the vice.

Sounds like Ill be waiting for the delivery from China ;-)
For the record, the shortest floppy cable I found was much too long for what I need

[eXeler0]

Some more digging in the basement actually resulted in a useful find. Found an old A500 floppy drive that still had the 34 pin cable attached to it and it was pretty OK length, about 12cm. Seems to work (although its a bit stiff.)

[emiespo]

Originally Posted by stevelord

I don't know about now but for the entire time I've had my ZZ9000 (I stopped updating firmware before 1.9 as I had a steady state and 1.9+ got a little weird) I've never been able to run custom ARM apps. Even the demo apps don't work <1.9 (at least on my A4K).


If it did, I would've been writing stuff for this a couple of years back.

Same, that’s possibly the same reason I bought it, have a relatively cheap (and modern) CPU that could be used instead of a super-expensive 1993 one (68060). I even wrote a basic C project (posted in gitlab) to make it easy to communicate with the arm side (without weird params to be given to the exec).

My understanding is that the current firmware has an issue when dealing with the second arm core. It works sometimes, but then it also gets randomly locked out due to some interrupt not being properly acknowledged. Fixing this requires fiddling with the firmware, which is definitely out of my interests, and should’ve been fixed by the author, as the board has been marketed with the ARM co-processor available. It seems development almost stopped, there have been a few peeks of a 2.0 firmware, but I guess this board was more a hobbyist project than a critical one (core business of the company is to produce open arm-based laptops).

[klx300r]

does the ZZ9000 support SHRES screen modes ?

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by emiespo

Same, that’s possibly the same reason I bought it, have a relatively cheap (and modern) CPU that could be used instead of a super-expensive 1993 one (68060). I even wrote a basic C project (posted in gitlab) to make it easy to communicate with the arm side (without weird params to be given to the exec).

My understanding is that the current firmware has an issue when dealing with the second arm core. It works sometimes, but then it also gets randomly locked out due to some interrupt not being properly acknowledged. Fixing this requires fiddling with the firmware, which is definitely out of my interests, and should’ve been fixed by the author, as the board has been marketed with the ARM co-processor available. It seems development almost stopped, there have been a few peeks of a 2.0 firmware, but I guess this board was more a hobbyist project than a critical one (core business of the company is to produce open arm-based laptops).

I tried asking some questions at the MNT forum but its just radio silence. Occanionally there will be some other confused user asking some questions that no one ever answers.
Its similar with the Audio card add on. Very limited info & support.
It would be cool if we got some development going for the ARM chips, but it is what it is.

[Calabazam]

When you have specific ZZ9000 problems, a good place to asj is the ZZ9000 Facebook group where members are active and helpful.
On my ZZ9000, i am still in rev 1.7 and i am fine. It works fine, except the 320*200 res where the lower part of the screen flickers, it is stable, i don't have the FastRAM i don't want, i can't utilise the AX addon but i have no where to put it on my A4000 desktop case, it boots straight into the WB. Only thing i would upgrade for is scanlines emulation but it never appeared in the upgrade until now.

[Orionis5]

Excellent card and additional information that it also works on Amiga 4000TX by Hese.

[ShadowRider]

I have just received my zz9000 from MNT, love the cards video output, still working the network setup (awaiting the Roadshow software). having trouble USB to work. the manual that came with the unit says to us the hd tools program (change the device to zzusb.device) which i have and the program sees the 4gb stick, but i have not been able to part ion the USB... thoughts?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by ShadowRider

the program sees the 4gb stick, but i have not been able to part ion the USB... thoughts?

I use a FAT32 formatted stick and mount that using fat95. If you partition it with hdtoolbox, you will not be able to use the USB stick in your PC (outside of WinUAE).

[ShadowRider]

@demolition: (this is from the manual on the web sight)(my manual does not say this...)
5. You can use a USB stick to exchange files between your Amiga and other computers via ZZ9000USBStorage.device included in the Installer. On your PC, create partitions (<4GB recommended) and format the stick on your PC to FAT32.
Plug the stick into ZZ9000's USB port before switching on the Amiga (or resetting).
Use fat95 and MountDos to easily mount the USB partitions:
• http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/fat95 (Copy fat95 to L
• http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/MountDos12 (Copy mountdos to C
Enter in a Shell: mountdos ZZ9000USBStorage.device fat95 mount


(i dont have a scanned version of the manual that was sent with the card, will update later)

[Jope]

In my experiments with ZZ9000 USB, a reset or cold boot after inserting and if you change pen drives, a cold boot (power off) is needed.

4GB max as far as I can tell.

The USB side of things would definitely need more love, but there are not that many developers around.

[demolition]

According to the manual, USB devices should not be hot swapped - the system should be powered off when inserting/removing.

And yes, it is quite picky about the type of USB key used. I have only had success with older USB 2.0 ones, and all my newer ones do not work. But if the device is showing up in HDToolBox it indicates that the hardware part is probably working so it is just a matter of mounting it.

Originally Posted by ShadowRider

Enter in a Shell: mountdos ZZ9000USBStorage.device fat95 mount

Yes, this is exactly how I do it, although I have that line in a script that I can just execute.