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Author Topic: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)  (Read 10309 times)

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Offline VingtTrois

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #14 on: March 22, 2010, 11:23:37 PM »
Quote from: cv643d;549162
Finally there is proper need for 7-slot Zorro 3 busboards :)


Hehehe ! 7-slot ZORRO 3: it's not enough for my A3000(T): see picture http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=3081.

If I calculate well, 7 x 256MB, it would make a total of 1.792MB !!!!!!!!!!!!! Incredible, but I don't think it will works fine!
-A3K(T)040@35MHz/78MB/KS3.1/OS3.9/Buster11/PICASSO II/GVP IO/A2088XT/DENEB/HDD18GB
-A3K(D)030@25MHz/134MB RAM/KS3.1/OS3.9/Buster11/RETINA Z2/OKTAGON 2008/VLAB YC/MIDI/DKB3128/HDD18GB
-A2K/ROM 1.3-3.1/2MBCHIP/8MB/A2091/OKTAGON 2008/A2058/TANDEM IDE/FlickerFixer-Scandoubler/Genlock
-A1200/KS3.1/2MB+9MB/CF2GB A1200[/
 

Offline whiteb

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #15 on: March 23, 2010, 12:20:23 AM »
Quote from: jiminy;549241
Will it require a certain Buster or Ramsey revision?


Well Buster 9 has DMA issues with Zorro 3, No problem for me, I have Buster 11.
A4000D - CSMKII//128MB/IDE CF/Indivision Scandoubler
A1200
A1000

(And now a Minimig) :>)
 

Offline mongo

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #16 on: March 23, 2010, 12:25:48 AM »
Quote from: whiteb;549261
Well Buster 9 has DMA issues with Zorro 3, No problem for me, I have Buster 11.


DMA issues are not a problem. A RAM card doesn't do DMA.
 

Offline whiteb

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #17 on: March 23, 2010, 12:31:37 AM »
Quote from: mongo;549263
DMA issues are not a problem. A RAM card doesn't do DMA.

True..

but read what David Hayne tells us about it.

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1454

Quote

 The Rev 9 part has two bugs that can cause problems with Zorro III cards. One can affect some kinds of bus slave cards, it depends on the card design. This is due to a small flaw in a synchronizer stage in the Level II chip (Level II runs a slightly faster bus protocol than Level I, and also supports burst). The other is a flaw in the Zorro III bus arbiter -- there's a small window in which a Zorro III slave cycle just starting can confuse a bus registration command, locking the bus. Rev 11 solves both problems, so you need it for DMA devices.

« Last Edit: March 23, 2010, 12:35:08 AM by whiteb »
A4000D - CSMKII//128MB/IDE CF/Indivision Scandoubler
A1200
A1000

(And now a Minimig) :>)
 

Offline joetee

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #18 on: March 23, 2010, 08:15:37 PM »
Thank you for making yet another great idea, for a great computer: and keep it go/growing!
Joe Torre .  . ...X Hardware Engineer @ Amiga Inc... .  .
 

Offline RMK305

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #19 on: March 23, 2010, 08:52:53 PM »
How will the speed of a zorro RAM card access will compare to CPU card RAM access?
Amiga 4000, Warp Engine 040/40MHz, CV643D with scan doubler module, Tocatta soundcard, Deneb, 72Meg fast ram, 18 gig scsi hard drive.

3xA500, 1xA1200, 1xCD32
 

Offline Jose

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #20 on: March 23, 2010, 09:07:03 PM »
@RMK305
Surely much slower than the WarpEngine's I'm afraid. The fastest known ZIII card with memory transfers is the Cybervision64 (the non 3d version), it reaches around 16MB/s.
We'd need a new Buster...

José
\\"We made Amiga, they {bleep}ed it up\\"
 

Offline Dandy

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #21 on: March 23, 2010, 11:35:26 PM »
Quote from: Tumbleweed;549146
Another great development for ZorroIII Amiga's.

Will you be able to use more than one card at onnce to give 256MB, 512MB and 1GB Ram?

Are there any bigger versions planned ie 256MB?

Weed



And how will this card co-operate with my 128 mB CSPPC - will I have 256 mB alltogether?

Are there differencies between the access times of the CSPPC-Ram (70 ns)  and the ZoRAM?
If yes - how much difference will there be?
And how will it affect the system?

My system:
Towered A4kD with CSPPC, Mediator with Voodoo4 & Terratec 512i digital & 10/100 mBit NIC, DENEB, ...
OS 3.9 + BBs I & II (OS 4.0 classic)
All the best,

Dandy

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Offline Crumb

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #22 on: March 24, 2010, 01:21:35 PM »
@VingtTrois

IRC expansion.library had some bug that had to be fixed to allow that.
The only spanish amiga news web page/club: Club de Usuarios de Amiga de Zaragoza (CUAZ)
 

Offline Zac67

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #23 on: March 24, 2010, 01:50:26 PM »
Quote from: VingtTrois;549255
Hehehe ! 7-slot ZORRO 3: it's not enough for my A3000(T): see picture http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=3081.


Even the towers have no more than 5 slots, so you're maxing out at 1.25 GB. But I'm sure there are several problems before you get that high. X-ray's tried 3x DKB3128 but only got up to 512 MB:
http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=2741
 

Offline joetee

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #24 on: March 24, 2010, 07:41:12 PM »
I cant to wait to play with this card:  Mounting similar geometry disk/Bernoulli partitions on it and disk-copying HD partitions to it - then optimizing them in solid state - then disk-copying them back.  Auto booting from a RAD based Sys: should be quite fast too!
I did all of the above with using a DKB 2632 and with Phase5 boards a decade ago and its cool and fast as freaking blit!  (Thanks Dean and Wolf!)

Since its Zorro3, I know it should work in a Zorro2 system, but I'm curious:  The AutoConfig (TM) of RAM should count up to 8MB of the 128 MB - will there be a hack to use the rest of the SDRAM as some sort of virtual SSD(s)?  8MB is overkill in size for a blazing fast Sys: partition anyway!
Joe Torre .  . ...X Hardware Engineer @ Amiga Inc... .  .
 

Offline Zac67

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #25 on: March 24, 2010, 07:57:38 PM »
Quote from: joetee;549539
Since its Zorro3, I know it should work in a Zorro2 system, ...


Nope, it won't. Where are you taking this from?
 

Offline save2600

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #26 on: March 24, 2010, 08:34:29 PM »
Quote from: Zac67;549541
Nope, it won't. Where are you taking this from?

I think he might have meant if it were a Zorro II card, that it should work in a Zorro III slot. That would be a logical assumption, but not the other way around. Else why have different standards?  :lol:

@Joetee... are you talking about BigWolf out East? Is he still selling Miggy stuff I wonder?
 

Offline hardlink

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #27 on: March 24, 2010, 09:14:44 PM »
Quote from: save2600;549545
I think he might have meant if it were a Zorro II card, that it should work in a Zorro III slot....
@Joetee... are you talking about BigWolf out East? Is he still selling Miggy stuff I wonder?


I thought it depended on how much work the card designer wanted to do; the GVP Spectrum implied that it made use of the ZIII environment when plugged into an A3000/A4000, but that may have been marketing.

Which BigWolf are you referring to - Big Wolff Porno & Computers maybe? :)
 

Offline Orphan264

Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #28 on: March 24, 2010, 09:17:13 PM »
Wooot! for new hardware for my 4000! :-)
 

Offline Zac67

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Re: ZorRAM SDRAM Memory Card (www.amigakit.com)
« Reply #29 from previous page: March 24, 2010, 09:53:09 PM »
I know there are quite a few PICs out there auto-sensing Z III or Z II. There are designed to work that way, Usually Z2 functionality is somewhat reduced and performance is lower.

However, designing a 'large' RAM card in that manner wouldn't really make sense as Z2 could only make use of a tiny fraction of the memory. As joetee suggested, including a way to use it for fast mass storage would somewhat make sense, but there are more common and much cheaper solutions available for that - why increase manufacturing and/or development cost?