Terrible Fire 534 68030 board.. question

[Malakie]

Hi,

I have a Terrible Fire 524 board. If I boot on a bootable floppy, the amiga power up and boots to WB just fine, so the board is working.

BUT if I plug my A2091 in, it hangs when it tries to access the HD.

The instructions are shit, crap, worthless and any other word you can think of. They basically have a few pictures how to plug it in and that's it.

Nothing about nothing else.

Does anyone have one of these and have any idea why it boots fine on my A2000 with a floppy (btw, kickstart 3.2/WB 3.2 official but will upgrade to 3.9 once I figure out what's going on).

Thanks for any help

[dalek]

I assume you mean TF534 - please go back to whom you purchased it from for support - in particular to check if it shipped with the latest firmware.

And let them know what you think of their instructions.

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by dalek

I assume you mean TF534 - please go back to whom you purchased it from for support - in particular to check if it shipped with the latest firmware.

And let them know what you think of their instructions.

I already plan on doing that.. in fact already have just before I answered this post... Now it is a matter of them getting back to me but I am USA so it will be sometime else before a reply shows.

But was hoping someone here might have a clue I can go from.. Like I said, it boots from floppy but not the HD..

BTW, being I bought it from the place that makes them, I would assume it has the latest firmware.

[utri007]

Originally Posted by dalek

I assume you mean TF534 - please go back to whom you purchased it from for support - in particular to check if it shipped with the latest firmware.

And let them know what you think of their instructions.

A2091 is using DMA to read/write. That causes problem with TF534.

I think that this is unsolvable problem, but you should use TF534's IDE not that SCSI controller, as it is much faster.

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by utri007

A2091 is using DMA to read/write. That causes problem with TF534.

I think that this is unsolvable problem, but you should use TF534's IDE not that SCSI controller, as it is much faster.

So they created this product and it does not even work on a A2000 with a standard SCSI controller? WTF?

Second issue, HOW do I use the IDE controller? Without any instructions, I have no idea what or how to set that up.

[utri007]

To use IDE controller, you need to have Kickstart 3.1 (or at least 2.05). IDE drive is 2.5" if I remember correctly? Best solution is have CompactFlash adapter instead of hard drive.

From Tools open HDToolBox, check it icon information, there should be a tool type Device=scsi.device

After that you just need to set partitions, format them etc.

[8 Bit Dreams]

TF534 is A500 accelerator, it wasn't created to be used on A2000, @utri007 is totally right, A2091 will not work
If You need more information about this accelerator I recommend You to read Exxos Forum:
https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=68

[Vypr]

Originally Posted by Malakie

So they created this product and it does not even work on a A2000 with a standard SCSI controller? WTF?

Second issue, HOW do I use the IDE controller? Without any instructions, I have no idea what or how to set that up.

It's not just the TF534, I had one of Matze's 68030TK accelerators and the IDE on that did not like the A2091 either, The A2091 would not boot at all with the accelerator plugged in.
In short, it looks like the problem is with the accelerator, it's more likely that the A2091 does not play nice with IDE controllers.

[Jope]

Most 68000 socket accelerators will not play nice with any DMA controller, so A2091 and GVP Series II will have problems.

This is how it was, this is how it is. It requires quite a bit more from the accelerator to allow for a different bus master.

I guess we should be glad that DMA SCSI was not as common in Zorro II times, only the best SCSI controllers are incompatible. ;-)

[MiaM]

A work around would likely be to us HdToolBox and set MASK to $1FFFFF.

That way the A2091 will only do DMA to chip mem and the driver will use the CPU to move data between FAST and temporary storage in CHIP.

Not sure about the TF534. The older TF530 did configure it's fast mem in the Zorro II configuration area which would disable the ram in your A2091. Showconfig should display this. If the TF fast mem is configured as Zorro II you should see 8M at address $200000 and the A2091 memory as disabled. If the TF fast mem is configured as Zorro III you should see it at a way higher address and the A2091 ram at $200000.

If the TF534 configures it's fast mem in the Zorro III address space you should be able to set MASK to $FFFFFF which would make the A2091 able to do DMA to it's own ram expansion which would be faster than chip every time you run more than 4 colors hires or 16 colors lores or use the blitter for anything.

Btw the IDE controller in the TF cards is from the software viewpoint a clone of the built in controller in A600, A1200 and A4000 so any information on using the built in interface in those Amigas will apply to the TF card too.

A thing that you need to know is that both the A2091 and the built in IDE driver in kicktsart 2.05 and upwards are called scsi.device and if more than one are present at the same time everyone except the first will get renamed. Use showconfig or sysinfo to tell what the devices are called and set the tool type for running HdToolBox from WB (or IIRC give it the correct command line parameter from CLI/Shell) to instruct it to access the correct controller. This way you can run both controllers at the same time. Uness you have some really crappy slow IDE disk and one of the best SCSI disks, it's most likely that you will want to use the IDE interface and only have both installed while copying your files from the SCSI disk to the IDE disk. You sure can have both installed if you want to run som other SCSI peripheral or if you want the vintage feel of running an older SCSI disk too.

Edit: Re the argument that TF534 is an A500 accelerator: The A2091 and the A590 is the same device except for physical dimensions, how the power supply is hooked up and so on. All the chips are the same and they are connected to the bus in the Amiga the same way and it all behaves the same way, so any problem TS has with TF534+A2000+A2091 would also show up with TF534+A500+A590.

[Chucky]

the TF5xx is for A500. working with A2000 is a bonus..
also all TF cards is build by a hobbyist.. you cannot expect compability with all hardware. unless you supply him with that said hardware to test it. 534 is a dropped project you might maybe get help with the 536 that is way better anyway..
(queue no fpu whining....)

[patrik]

From a user perspective, it is extremely annoying if accelerator memory is added in the Zorro2 range but cannot be DMA:ed - non-working hd-controllers at best, but crashes are common. Doesn’t matter if it is A500 or A2000, there are plenty of common DMA controllers for both (A590/A2091 and GVP* for example).

Was under the impression that the TK accelerators from Matze could handle Z2 DMA?

And just because there have been products in the past doing this, we should not create more of the bad unless we really have to, it is just incompatible and causes problems for users.

[Chucky]

well.. "do it yourself then"

you must understand that all those cards are made by a hobbyist. you cannot expect them having all combinations of hardware to test on.

534 is fully open sourced. so feel free to fix it.. if you do not know how to do it. then it is a great time to learn. but you cannot demand stuff.. Project is closed and I cannot see why people are still building it...

[Chucky]

Originally Posted by Malakie

So they created this product and it does not even work on a A2000 with a standard SCSI controller? WTF?

Second issue, HOW do I use the IDE controller? Without any instructions, I have no idea what or how to set that up.

IDE controller. you put in a IDE drive.. partition it and boot. done..

nothing more. nothing wizadry. you cannot expect every hw manufacturer need to teach basic operatings of that computers operatingsystem?

and again 534.. the 5 meaning Amiga 500. not 2000... so why the attitude?
working on an 2000 is a bonus..

if it doesn't fit your expectations. return it and be with it. get another 030 card. most likly more expensive as it is older and not available. there are even boards made specific for the A2000..

[patrik]

Not demanding anything, was just asking in general to not create any more of the bad ones. In general terms - we know it is bad, we will be better of not repeating the bad.

[Chucky]

create as design? or create as solder the existing design that "is a bad one"?

[patrik]

Both will lead to users having problems.

[Chucky]

well it is not that it is designed as "hehehe lets fuck around with those with...."

no. it would require the designer having ALL different equipment at home.. this is a unrealistic demand.

let me say like this: before the TF53x cards there was NO open 030 solution..
with thisthere is.

so what you say is: better not have a open 030 solution. better to have only the old cards that cannot be produced anymore as all data is lost since ever..

so welcome to 030 card costing many many hundreds of euros..


but I guess people are not thankful what there is...

[MiaM]

I would say that whoever is selling premade TF cards and not informing about DMA mask and similar things is the bad guy here. Seems like this is a "post the same thing over and over again on repeat" thread, so I'll chime in and reiterate that having an old disk controller and wanting to copy the content to a new disk would likely be a rather common use case and some hints on how to do that ought to come with any pre built TF card.

Malakie: Did you try the MASK thing in HdToolBox? That would likely solve the problem.

[chucsmom69]

Originally Posted by MiaM

I would say that whoever is selling premade TF cards and not informing about DMA mask and similar things is the bad guy here

Not really - the information is all readily available online the onus is on the person purchasing the device to know what it is and how it works... I spend many hours researching products before commiting to purchasing it... others should to.