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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Michele31415 on October 16, 2021, 01:23:19 AM
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Now that my A2000 seems to be working again I thought I'd try throwing in my GVP Spectrum EGS 28/24 so I could get some decent graphics out of it. Sadly though the preboot expansion board diagnostics report it as "defective". So does anyone have a recommendation for something more or less equivalent that's still available today? I'd like to be able to drive my Samsung 1600x1200 LCD monitor in some video mode greater than the native 2000 supplies.
There's a similar thread here http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=78260 but that's six years old now and they never came to any definite conclusions there.
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At the very least, try gently cleaning the card edge pins of the Spectrum and try it in a different slot. Maybe it’s just a bad connection. And I’ve had other Zorro boards report as defective when they actually weren’t due to a separate hardware issue. And if you do give up on the card, don’t throw it away. I’m sure someone will want it for parts/repair.
As far as replacements go, I believe the ZZ9000 (https://shop.mntmn.com/products/zz9000-for-amiga-preorder) is the only graphics card that can currently be bought fully assembled. A few others are available as kits. Otherwise you’re looking at the second-hand market.
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Thanks. I cleaned the card edge connectors but that didn't help. I can't easily move it to a different slot because the only free slot I have left is the leftmost Zorro+PC Bridgeboard slot. But I did put the Deneb in that slot and it was reported as working.
Then I looked at my old post https://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=62988.0 where I apparently had trouble with this board incident to 2632 issues nine years ago (completely forgot about that). Apparently, the Spectrum has 2MB of RAM on it (4x 4C16257) and reported 2M in the showconfig I did in the previous post.
So that puts me over the Zorro II 8M limit* since I already have 4M on the GVP 2000 HC+8 and 4M on the A2630, But would that be enough to cause the preboot diagnostics to report the Spectrum as defective? It looks like it was working enough to show up in showconfig last time around.
The ZZ9000 looks like exactly what I want. If I can't get the Spectrum to work, that may be the solution. There is currently nothing at all on Ebay. Do you have a pointer to a kit for this? My search turned up nothing.
* Maybe. http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/impact2000hc8 says about the GVP 2000:
accepts SIMMs in groups of two, giving 2, 4, 6 or 8 MB configurations
this memory is technically not Zorro II memory - data is DMA-d from the HD as normal, but not via the Zorro bus for added speed
so then I'd only have 6 MB (4 on the 2630 and 2 on the Specturm).
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IF you have a PC Bridgeboard, that would also require some 4mb free Zorro II memory space.
I think that you have 4mb + 4mb + 4mb + 2mb, wich is way too much 100% sure would cause troubles.
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Thanks. I cleaned the card edge connectors but that didn't help. I can't easily move it to a different slot because the only free slot I have left is the leftmost Zorro+PC Bridgeboard slot. But I did put the Deneb in that slot and it was reported as working.
Then I looked at my old post https://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=62988.0 where I apparently had trouble with this board incident to 2632 issues nine years ago (completely forgot about that). Apparently, the Spectrum has 2MB of RAM on it (4x 4C16257) and reported 2M in the showconfig I did in the previous post.
So that puts me over the Zorro II 8M limit* since I already have 4M on the GVP 2000 HC+8 and 4M on the A2630, But would that be enough to cause the preboot diagnostics to report the Spectrum as defective? It looks like it was working enough to show up in showconfig last time around.
The ZZ9000 looks like exactly what I want. If I can't get the Spectrum to work, that may be the solution. There is currently nothing at all on Ebay. Do you have a pointer to a kit for this? My search turned up nothing.
* Maybe. http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/impact2000hc8 says about the GVP 2000:
accepts SIMMs in groups of two, giving 2, 4, 6 or 8 MB configurations
this memory is technically not Zorro II memory - data is DMA-d from the HD as normal, but not via the Zorro bus for added speed
so then I'd only have 6 MB (4 on the 2630 and 2 on the Specturm).
UPDATE:
I thought maybe the expansion board diagnostics are confused so I tried booting the system with the Spectrum in it, and it worked:
1.FS3:> showconfig
PROCESSOR: CPU 68030/68882fpu/68030mmu
CUSTOM CHIPS: ECS NTSC Agnus (id=$0030), ECS Denise (id=$00FC)
VERS: Kickstart version 40.63, Exec version 40.10, Disk version 45.3
RAM: Node type $A, Attributes $605 (FAST), at $200000-$9FFFFF (8.0 meg)
Node type $A, Attributes $703 (CHIP), at $400-$1FFFFF (~2.0 meg)
BOARDS:
CBM A2630 68030/RAM card: Prod=514/81($202/$51) (@$200000 4meg Mem)
Board + ROM (HD?) (Great Valley Products): Prod=2017/11($7E1/$B) (@$E90000 64K)
RAM (Great Valley Products): Prod=2017/10($7E1/$A) (@$600000 4meg Mem)
Board (Individual Computers): Prod=4626/23($1212/$17) (@$EA0000 64K)
Board (unidentified): Prod=3643/18($E3B/$12) (@$EB0000 64K)
Board + ROM (HD?) (unidentified): Prod=3643/19($E3B/$13) (@$EC0000 64K)
Board (Viona Development): Prod=2193/1($891/$1) (@$0 2meg)
1.FS3:>
So at least something is working. Now I have to make a jumper cable to connect it to the Amiga's video out since I can't find the one that supposedly came with the Spectrum.
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Heads up, the ZZ9000 has 4MB mem in Zorro2 mode.
Chris
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Heads up, the ZZ9000 has 4MB mem in Zorro2 mode.
Chris
Thanks, that's good to know. I guess I could just pull the 4MB out of the GVP 2000 in that case.
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IF you have a PC Bridgeboard, that would also require some 4mb free Zorro II memory space.
Anh, I should update my profile. I do have a Bridgeboard but it is not currently installed.
I think that you have 4mb + 4mb + 4mb + 2mb, wich is way too much 100% sure would cause troubles.
Right now I *think* I have 4MB on the 2630 and 4MB on the GVP 2000. The 2MB on the Spectrum is supposedly not Z-II RAM. If I'm reading the showconfig right, the "(@$0 2meg)" there means 2MB starting at address 0. Then there are three chunks of 64K from the Denise and x-surf at $EA0000, $EB0000, and $EC0000. I'm going to solder up a connector and try installing the Spectrum software. If that doesn't work, I'll remove the GVP 2000 RAM.
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I think that first thing you should do it test it only with 2630.
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I think that first thing you should do it test it only with 2630.
If you mean "don't enable the 2632" then yes, that's the plan.
Just out of curiosity, can I use the Spectrum without that 23 - 9 pin jumper cable? It's not clear form the manual. They talk about a "multi-monitor" setup but they seem to mean more than one Spectrum in the same machine, not a VGA monitor on the Spectrum and my NTSC CRT on the Amiga video port.
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I agree with others above that the problem was your Zorro II bus being maxxed out.
As for the 9-pin adapter cable, it's for passthrough if you want to run the Spectrum and native Amiga video on the same monitor and autoswitch between them. If you want to run Amiga native modes on a 1084 (or similar) and Spectrum modes on a VGA monitor you don't need the adapter.
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Oh, that's good to know so I decided to try it without the jumper. I have my CRT connected to the Amiga 23 pin port and my LCD connected to the Spectrum VGA out. I installed the software and it said it was successful. But when I rebooted I got a pop-up on teh CRT about "Only half LEGS installed" and an error in the startup-sequence:
Error: unknown video node in: LINK LEGSa:mux.map2video LEGSa.monitor
There's no signal at all on the LCD. The startup-sequence now looks like this:
FS3:S> type startup-sequence
PsdLoadModule DEVS:input.device QUIET ;Added by Poseidon-Installer
; $VER: Startup-Sequence_HardDrive 45.1 (25.11.00)
; Startup-Sequence for hard drive systems
If Exists C:IDEFix
C:IDEFix
EndIf
C:SetPatch QUIET ; NOROMUPDATE
C:Version >NIL:
C:AddBuffers >NIL: DF0: 15
FailAt 21
C:MakeDir RAM:T RAM:Clipboards RAM:ENV RAM:ENV/Sys
C:Copy >NIL: ENVARC: RAM:ENV ALL NOREQ
Resident >NIL: C:Assign PURE
Resident >NIL: C:Execute PURE
Assign >NIL: ENV: RAM:ENV
Assign >NIL: T: RAM:T
Assign >NIL: CLIPS: RAM:Clipboards
Assign >NIL: REXX: S:
Assign >NIL: PRINTERS: DEVS:Printers
Assign >NIL: KEYMAPS: DEVS:Keymaps
Assign >NIL: LOCALE: SYS:Locale
Assign >NIL: LIBS: SYS:Classes ADD
Assign >NIL: HELP: LOCALE:Help DEFER
BindDrivers
C:Mount >NIL: DEVS:DOSDrivers/~(#?.info)
C:LoadMonDrvs
;IF EXISTS DEVS:Monitors
; IF EXISTS DEVS:Monitors/VGAOnly
; DEVS:Monitors/VGAOnly
; EndIF
; C:List >NIL: DEVS:Monitors/~(#?.info|VGAOnly) TO T:M LFORMAT "DEVS:Monitors/%s"
; Execute T:M
; C:Delete >NIL: T:M
;EndIF
SetEnv Language "english"
SetEnv Workbench $Workbench
SetEnv Kickstart $Kickstart
UnSet Workbench
UnSet Kickstart
C:AddDataTypes REFRESH QUIET
;BEGIN EGS
stack 20000
c:assign egs: FS3:egs
c:assign libs: egs:libs add
; call EGS config program
egs:c/NoCacheZorro3 >nil:
egs:c/egsconfig file egs:s/EGS.config
;END EGS
C:IPrefs
; echo "starting 2632..."
; C:2632 -r
; echo "Back from 2632"
C:ConClip
Path >NIL: RAM: C: SYS:Utilities SYS:Rexxc SYS:System S: SYS:Prefs SYS:WBStartup SYS:Tools SYS:Tools/Commodities
SYS:System/REXXMast >NIL:
echo "STart user-startup..."
IF EXISTS S:User-Startup
Execute S:User-Startup
EndIF
Resident Execute REMOVE
Resident Assign REMOVE
C:LoadWB
EndCLI >NIL:
6.FS3:S>
I have a devs/monitors directory but it's empty.
Here's my installation log:
6.FS3:EGS> type install_log_file
******* Installation Log *******
User Level: AVERAGE
Pretend: No
Run Program: "c:cpu nocache nofastrom noburst nocopyback >ram:env/cpu"
Run Program: "c:cpu >nil: nodatacache "
>
On which PARTITION should the EGS drawer be installed?
Ask Drawer: Result was "FS3:".
Copy file "bin" to "T:".
>Which pieces of EGS do you wish to install?
Ask Options: User selected following options...
EGS-Basics 900K
EGS-Prefs 500K
EGS-Utilities/Tools 300K
EGS-Extras 200K
EGS-Pictures 900K
EGS-Hooks 150K
EGS-Paint 250K
EGS-RecoverDisk 1 Disk
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_1:EGSSys.LHA FS3:"
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_1:EGSColon.LHA FS3:"
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_2:EGSBlanker.LHA FS3:"
>
How many Monitors are you using ?
Ask Choice: User selected "One Monitor - connected to Spectrum. ".
Run Program: "copy SYS:WBStartup/#?EGS#?.info SYS:WBStartup.backup all"
Run Program: "delete SYS:WBStartup/#?EGS#?.info"
>
Which Monitor you are using for the Spectrum-Board ?
Ask Choice: User selected "Standard S-VGA".
Run Program: "copy T:bin/SVGA to FS3:egs/monitors/Prefs/LEGSa.mux.map2video"
Run Program: "copy T:bin/EGS-Amiga.info SYS:WBStartup/"
Run Program: "echo ";*N; $VER: EGS.config 5.0 (22.9.93) by MvK *N;*N" >FS3:egs/s/EGS.Config"
Run Program: "echo FILE egs:s/LEGSa.config >>FS3:egs/s/EGS.Config"
Run Program: "echo FILE egs:s/LEGSa+AMIGA.config >>FS3:egs/s/EGS.Config"
Run Program: "echo FILE egs:s/EGSWB.config >>FS3:egs/s/EGS.Config"
Run Program: "copy T:bin/#?.config to FS3:egs/s"
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_2:EGSPrefs.LHA FS3:"
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_3:EGSUtilities.LHA FS3:"
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_3:EGSTools.LHA FS3:"
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_3:EGSEnv-Archive.LHA sys:Prefs/"
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_3:EGSPresets.LHA sys:Prefs/"
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_3:EGSExtras.LHA FS3:"
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_3:EGSPaint.LHA FS3:"
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_4:EGSHooks.LHA FS3:"
Run Program: "T:Bin/lz -2 -m e Spectrum_Disk_4:EGSPictures.LHA FS3:"
Run Program: "copy T:bin/EGS.info to FS3:"
Run Program: "copy T:bin/ECON#? SYS:devs/DOSDrivers/"
>
Your startup-sequence will be stored as startup-sequence.backup and a
new one will be installed in its place.
This is necessary because EGS
must register its screenmodes in the Display Database *BEFORE* the first
screen display is generated.
The main change will be to execute EGS
initialization programs right beforethe IPrefs program is run and any
screens are generated.
Ask Question: Result was "Yes".
Run Program: "T:Bin/mkscript FS3: NOFA"
Run Program: "c:echo > T:bin/startup-sequence stack 20000 "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence ECHO EGS-Recover Disk "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence assign t: ram: "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence assign envarc: FS3:prefs/env-archive "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence assign LOCALE: FS3:locale "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence assign FONTS: FS3:fonts "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence ECHO Reset the WB-Screenmode ? (Y/N)"
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence ASK -------------------------------: "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence IF WARN "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence delete >nil: envarc:sys/Screenmode.prefs"
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence ENDIF "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence ECHO Reset the EGS-Screenmode ? (Y/N) "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence ASK --------------------------------: "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence delete >nil: envarc:egs/Screenmode.Prefs"
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence ENDIF"
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence ECHO Please REMOVE the floppy disk "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence ECHO and REBOOT your machine OR hit RETURN for WB !"
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence execute Como.startup "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence ECHO "
Run Program: "c:echo >> T:bin/startup-sequence ECHO "
Run Program: "copy T:bin/startup-sequence to QDH0:s"
>
It is possible to start EGS now!
Select Start!
If not EGS will be installed
automatically after
you reboot your machine.
Select Quit!
Ask Question: Result was "Start".
Run Program: "assign EGS: FS3:egs"
Run Program: "assign libs: egs:libs add"
Run Program: "copy envarc:EGS to env:egs all"
Run Program: "egs:c/EGSConfig FILE egs:s/EGS.Config"
Run Program: "egs:c/EGSConfig LOAD egs:driver/EGSAmigaDriver"
Run Program: "delete T:bin all"
Exiting script...
6.FS3:EGS>
What am I doing wrong?
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One thing you are clearly doing is relying on the bundled EGS software for RTG rather than Picasso 96.
I mean, you're running LOADMONDRIVERS with nothing in Devs/Monitors. That would limit selectable screen modes in Workbench Prefs to whatever the machine started up in, PAL or NTSC.
I don't know if this is "wrong", but I feel it's ambitious with Workbench 3.9. Picasso 96 does support a 28/24.
EDIT: Setting aside the Bridgeboard, you could have just set the GVP card to 2MB rather than 4MB via jumper.
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Only 2 meg on that board. I have one.
Chris
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To clarify, set the GVP HC+8 to 2MB of memory rather than 4MB. :)
EDIT: The LEGS error message points to the installed drivers for EGS having a problem starting up.
I am thinking they were done a long time before 3.9. Might not work with it, Software problem rather than defective card.
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One thing you are clearly doing is relying on the bundled EGS software for RTG rather than Picasso 96.
OK, so I downloaded and installed Picasso96. Still doesn't work. It doesn't throw any errors, just nothing happens - my usual WB appears on the CRT but no video on the LCD. I rebooted and opened Picasso96Mode in Prefs but all the settings in there are grayed out no matter what resolution I choose. So I figured maybe I'm missing a monitor definition. I installed LCD-Monitor too but the first thing the readme file there says ". Copy "monitor.LCDs" in your PicassoModeTNG-directory." Uh, well I haven't got a "PicassoModeTNG-directory". Now what?
I think what I really need is a Picasso96 for Dummies book. The documentation that's included just isn't doing it for me.
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Am pretty certain you need "Picasso 96" icon dragged to devs/monitors.
You are bypassing the built in chipset way of dealing with monitors. ;)
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The EGS software that comes with it is junk, like the GVP prep disk, toss em in the bin.
Chris
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First thing to do with P96 is choose attach to board from top of its screen.
Here, it is german, but it show to do it.
https://youtu.be/6HM1qUZGQig?t=589
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Thinking about it, Spectrum cards are a bit long in the tooth, caps maybe?
Chris
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Thinking about it, Spectrum cards are a bit long in the tooth, caps maybe?
Chris
From what I can tell looking at the card, the caps are not the failure-prone electrolytic kind. So while it’s possible, I think it’s unlikely they’re the failure point. This looks like a software config problem now.
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Thinking about it, Spectrum cards are a bit long in the tooth, caps maybe?
Chris
From what I can tell looking at the card, the caps are not the failure-prone electrolytic kind. So while it’s possible, I think it’s unlikely they’re the failure point. This looks like a software config problem now.
Yes, they're plastic. There's a post somewhere where someone showed a photo where C57 had literally exploded off the board. There was nothing left in that spot but two solder pads. I checked both of mine. They're neither shorted nor open and my capacitance meter seems to be trying to read them but it doesn't work very well in-circuit. I don't think they're bad.
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First thing to do with P96 is choose attach to board from top of its screen.
Here, it is german, but it show to do it.
https://youtu.be/6HM1qUZGQig?t=589
Thanks - that helped a lot. However, when I run Picasso96Mode, it opens with "not attached: Village-64" in the Settings panel. I followed the video and dragged a new setting into the Seetings panel, then went to the right-click "Attach setting to" drop-down menu. But the drop-down in the video lists three items, "No Board, Board 0, and Board 1". Mine only has "No board".
But when I do showconfig, it has
Board (Viona Development): Prod=2193/1($891/$1) (@$0 2meg)
in it, so at least that seems to think a Picasso board is there.
So something is screwy here. Say, am I supposed to have a "spectrum.device" or some similar name somewhere? Because I looked in SYS:Devs and see nothing at all like that there.
UPDATE:
Answering my own question, I see a thread here https://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=70917.90 where someone says "Went back thru all my procedure.... had the GBAPII++.card file in Libs:
Should be in LIBS:Picasso96/"
So I looked in SYS:Libs/Picasso96 and sure enough, there *is* a Spectrum.card file there. But still nothing in the Picasso96Prefs drop-down.
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Anyone near by and could test it to you? Generally, this kind of hardware doesn't get binned, they get repaired.
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Anyone near by and could test it to you? Generally, this kind of hardware doesn't get binned, they get repaired.
If this is in fact a hardware problem then I'd dearly love to see it repaired, not even so much for my financial investment in it as for its value as an historical artifact in the Amiga ecosystem. Unfortunately I don't know anyone personally who still has an Amiga who could help me with this :-( I'm open to suggestions.
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Where are you located? If somebody here is near?
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Where are you located? If somebody here is near?
Upstate NY.
*However* - today having finally run out of other ideas I jumpered out 2MB of the RAM on the GVP 2000 controller, leaving it with just 2MB active. Then I did a L+R boot and checked the Expansion Diagnostics. This time the Spectrum was listed as "Working"! So I booted the disk, ran Picasso96Prefs, and this time the board showed up the the "Attach to" drop-down menu! I had to fiddle around with the multitude of options there to find a mode that didn't generate a "mode not supported" message on my LCD but I finally got it to display a beautiful color test pattern in 640x480.
Now I need to figure out how to see anything more than that test pattern there.
So I'm a doofus. I was advised very early on here that it was an 8 MB RAM limit problem but for some reason I didn't investigate that. With 2 MB of RAM removed elsewhere, the board now seems to be working fine. It's always the last thing you check, isn't it. I'm still kicking myself.
Bottom line: a GVP EGS 28/24 Spectrum board will be reported as Defective in the pre-boot diagnostics even if there's nothing wrong with it at all, if you don't have enough Zorro-II space free to avoid going over 8 MB. The Spectrum has either 1 or 2 MB on board (depending on if you got the economy or deluxe version) and it *does* count as Zorro-II RAM.
Many thanks to everyone who helped on this one.
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I think I'm getting close here. I went into Prefs -> ScreenMode. All of the new Spectrum modes are there now but if I select any of them and click "Use" I get a pop-up "Intuition is attempting to reset the Workbench screen. Please close all windows, except drawers." Well all I have open is enough drawers to run the Prefs tool. I closed everything that I could close but when I say Retry I get the same message. All I can do is select Cancel which leaves me right back where I started.
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*Something* is still open on your Workbench screen. It could be AmiDock, it could be a Shell, it could be a clock utility, it could be DOpus, it could even be an AppIcon on the Workbench. Make sure absolutely everything is closed.
Or, hit Save instead and reboot. Workbench will boot up in the mode you selected. This can be risky if you haven't tested the modes yet.
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Ah ha - thanks. It was ClickToFront. (I found it by running Exchange and then removing items one at a time until it worked). I now have a real full-color Workbench running on my LCD. I'm still playing around with modes,sizes, centering, etc. but by God it's working. Yay!
UPDATE:
I now have 1024x768 16 color working and it boots directly to the LCD. I must say this is extremely cool :-)
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Ah ha - thanks. It was ClickToFront.
As far as I'm aware, that's not possible. ClickToFront doesn't create a window. It must have been something else. Great that it's working now, but be prepared to encounter that message again in the future.
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If you have tested screen mode, you can just click save and reboot Amiga. If you haven't tested screen, you might end up to have screen wich is not displayable with your monitor.
If so, you need to boot early startup menu, choose boot without startup-sequence and then go to system:prefs/env/sys drawer and delete screenmode.prefs
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Ah ha - thanks. It was ClickToFront.
As far as I'm aware, that's not possible. ClickToFront doesn't create a window. It must have been something else. Great that it's working now, but be prepared to encounter that message again in the future.
It's possible I was mistaken. In any case it's only an issue if I want to change resolutions. Once I have something to my liking I won't need to do that again.
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If you have tested screen mode, you can just click save and reboot Amiga. If you haven't tested screen, you might end up to have screen wich is not displayable with your monitor.
If so, you need to boot early startup menu, choose boot without startup-sequence and then go to system:prefs/env/sys drawer and delete screenmode.prefs
Thanks - that's handy to knbow about screenmode.prefs. Right now it does boot directly to the LCD.
But what if I want to do a L+R preboot menu? That happens before the Spectrum is activated. Before I go to the trouble of making a DB23 -> DB9 jumper cable, is the Spectrum pass-thru mode just straight pass-thru or does it upconvert the scanning frequency? Because my LCD will not scan down to 15 KHz. In fact none of my LCD monitors will. I guess LCD wasn't really a thing yet when this board was designed. I'd like to get rid of my CRT entirely but maybe I need to keep it around anyway.
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Am pretty sure it defaults to passthrough so you should be OK.
One way to find out is build the cable.
Chris Edwards would know, you could try talking to him via Youtube or Reddit. He has a GVP card and uses the passthrough.
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The card will not scan double. Use an Indivision ECS, it's now version 3 and your Spectrum will happily switch it for you.
Find it here. " https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/Flickerfixer_Scandoubler.html?flifi_type=OCS_ECS "
Chris
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Am pretty sure it defaults to passthrough so you should be OK.
One way to find out is build the cable.
Thanks. I did, it doesn't (sync).
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The card will not scan double. Use an Indivision ECS, it's now version 3 and your Spectrum will happily switch it for you.
Find it here. " https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/Flickerfixer_Scandoubler.html?flifi_type=OCS_ECS "
Ah! You got me thinking. When I said "no LCD monitors support 15 KHz." I should have said "no LCD monitors in my house support 15 kHz." Turns out there's plenty of LCD monitors that do support 15 kHz. Here's a great summary in chart form: http://15khz.wikidot.com
Some of them even specifically mention the word Amiga in the comments. I ended up oirdering a Dell P2214Hb from Ebay because it got good compatibility reviews and it's just about the same size as my 21" CRT. And it was about half the cost of the Indivision, and I don't need to futz around with cables or connectors. And they offer free returns if it doesn't work out. The Spectrum pass-thru cable I already made should work with this.
I will keep you posted with how it turns out when I get it.
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Be advised, LCD's typically do not have much in the way of "persistence ", you may find some slow refresh/scan rates annoying causing eye fatigue.
Chris
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Good point. I guess I'll see when I get it. Anyway, my main motivation is just to be able to run preboot dagnostics occasionally so it shouldn't be much of an issue. Well that and maybe a few rounds of Marble Madness :-)
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OK, I got my new LCD monitor, a Dell P2214HB. I connected my DB23 - DB9 passthru cable from the Amiga to the Spectrum, connected the monitor to the Spectrum VGA port and booted. And it works fine. It works great, in fact. The monitor auto-switches the scan rate once the Picasso96 monitor is activated and I can still use the LCD to do a L+R diagnostic boot. Games that want their own private video modes (like Marble Madness) also work fine. No glitching, flickering, tearing, or any video defects at all - just a nice rock-solid stable image. ;D
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Can you boot into PAL HiRes Laced and see if the monitor will handle workbench? Maybe try a pal game?