Impulse Firecracker 24 help

[HammerD]

Made some progress...got the Light24 program to start.  I changed my workbench from a CyberGraphX screen to NTSC.  started light 24 and it came up on the 1084S!  I get white "snow" in the background, when I load an image I don't see it, but the program interface is there and it's working, mouse is working.  Maybe the memory on the board is not working properly? (or pots are totally out of wack).  I haven't removed the card yet.

Ignore the diagonal bars - they do not show up to the naked eye.  You can see the white snow in the background behind the GUI.

Ok, took the card out, cleaned the contacts.  The card itself is very clean, no dust, connector was clean.  Cleaned it anyway.  Changed it to another slot.  Adjusted the RGB pots - which are working and they were/are at good positions.  I can change the red, green, and blue levels.   But that did not have an affect on the output.  I can turn the Amiga display on and off (using the software - AON and AOFF), but when I load a picture it doesn't show anything other than a white screen.   

   

I don't think it's a Zorro slot problem as all the other cards in the machine are working: Prisma megamix, Emplant, C= 2065, CV 3D, and of course the Blizzard 2060.   The Firecracker is now in the slot where the Emplant was.

To be sure I will have to try a different processor card...maybe tonight I will try that, I have a C= 2630 card. The good news is the software runs from shell, even with no startup-sequence, so I can just put it on a floppy and run it, as I will lose access to the SCSI hard drive attached to the Blizzard when I remove it... 

EDIT/Update: Actually the Blizzard 060 can be deactivated by holding down the 0 key while turning on the computer....so I will try that safer method first and see if the Firecracker responds!

Darren

[DamageX]

You could try ViewTek to show a test picture.
http://aminet.net/package/gfx/show/ViewTEK21

Maybe you have to readjust the colours on the card itself?

Thanks for posting this. I have one of these cards but never had any software for it. Now I have something I could try to reverse engineer, and it's easy to find the firecracker-specific code just by comparing the executable with one of the non-firecracker versions...

At some point I'll have to rig up the 15KHz RGB and see if it even works.

[HammerD]

You could try ViewTek to show a test picture.
http://aminet.net/package/gfx/show/ViewTEK21

Maybe you have to readjust the colours on the card itself?

Thanks for posting this. I have one of these cards but never had any software for it. Now I have something I could try to reverse engineer, and it's easy to find the firecracker-specific code just by comparing the executable with one of the non-firecracker versions...

At some point I'll have to rig up the 15KHz RGB and see if it even works.

Yes it would be nice if you can try yours.

Ok I disabled the Blizzard 2060 and unfortunately got the same result...just a white screen when trying to load a picture.  Booted to Workbench via floppy and confirmed 1MB chip and no 060...so just running off the 68000.  Light24 software loads but says not enough memory to even load a picture.  The showfc program works from shell:   "showfc test"  is supposed to load a color bar test picture.  The screen just turns white when I do that.  AON and AOFF commands work (turns on or off the Amiga video).   That's about all that works!  But I had the same behaviour with the 060 too.

Not sure what else I can try at this point.  Funny, the card looks like pretty much brand-new condition.

[HammerD]

Small update. I tried again, using the VT (ViewTek) program.  I managed to get one small .gif picture to show - although not perfect.  Yes it is supposed to be black and white, but not corrupted  

Subsequent loads of other pictures were either black screen or corrupt.  Even trying to load the same .gif a second time resulted in a corrupt screen.

[HammerD]

Another Update. I am able to display that U2 picture, and it actually is supposed to have the dots in it - the original filename is U2noise.gif.  I'm also able to display a picture named "molecules.gif".  Both of those GIFS are from ImageEngineer software as sample photos.  I was able to do this by booting with no startup-sequence and running VT. 

However, so far I am unable to display any jpeg images.  I just get corruption.  I also can't display the molecules.gif picture if my workbench is fully loaded (with Blizzard 060 card and CyberGraphX screenmode.).

Strange card indeed.  For sure still something wonky with it in my system.

[HammerD]

Ok so now think the card isn't actually working correctly after all.  When I saw those images it was using the pass-thru feature, so it was actually using the Amiga ECS chipset to display images. 

I've now set it up a separate monitor that only displays the direct Firecracker output.  Another 1084s monitor is connected to my Amiga 2000's RGB output.  So a 2 monitor setup so I can be 100% sure what is coming out of the Firecracker.  When I use AdPro, ImageFX, ViewTek, etc... to show images on the Firecracker all I get is a white screen on the monitor connected to the Firecracker.   So I think the card is not working.  It "functions" like it should, the software works, but it ultimately only displays a white screen when it should be an image.

I installed a vanilla AmigaOS 3.1 setup and the various software I tried (listed above) seemed to work better, including Light24 from Impulse, but ultimately I still got a white screen when I tried to display any image on the Firecracker monitor.

[TribbleSmasher]

The ROMs on the card are in the right place? (just to be sure). Any socketed chips you could push?

At least the white screen is a stable valid signal, as reported by the monitor?

[HammerD]

The ROMs on the card are in the right place? (just to be sure). Any socketed chips you could push?

At least the white screen is a stable valid signal, as reported by the monitor?

There are only 2 socketed chips, I did press them in and they creaked   Didn't help.  There is one jumper on the board, I will move that to see if it helps.  I'll do some more tinkering with it later today...including trying it in my Amiga 4000.

[HammerD]

Tried the Firecracker in the Amiga 4000.  Same result - white screen when rendering an image to the board.  I give up   Switching the single jumper on the board had no effect either.

[HammerD]

Ok, I think I may have found the issue. I removed the board to inspect is closer and found one of the IC's is cracked. It looks like something heavy fell on the board and cracked the IC. It's also pushed sideways (as is the adjacent IC). I've ordered a replacement chip so hopefully that will resolve it!

[TribbleSmasher]

Good luck! 

[Pyromania]

Welcome back HammerD and hopefully that resolves the issue. It's been a Firecracker of a time.

[HammerD]

Welcome back HammerD and hopefully that resolves the issue. It's been a Firecracker of a time.

Thanks I hope so.  I've ordered a replacement chip and I'm thinking about how to replace it.  I don't have lots of expertise with soldering (nor steady hands).  Sending it off to someone for repair in the current environment would take alot of time (and money).  Maybe half of what it would cost to buy a 2nd hand OpalVision card, for example.  So we will see!

[AltRN8]

Y'all are making me want to pull out my Firecraker card and try it out. Last time I used it has to be over a decade ago. I know it worked on an 040 setup. It was wicked cool to use with Imagine that's for sure. If I rustle up the energy I'll try to find the card and install it and take it for a spin and report back.

[HammerD]

Y'all are making me want to pull out my Firecraker card and try it out. Last time I used it has to be over a decade ago. I know it worked on an 040 setup. It was wicked cool to use with Imagine that's for sure. If I rustle up the energy I'll try to find the card and install it and take it for a spin and report back.

It would be nice if you can test it.  From what I could tell ImageFX would work very nicely with it, and also Viewtek would work.  My card partially works, ImageFX can turn on and off the card, but when it goes to show the image (after turning the Firecracker display on), it just displays a white screen.  It does turn it off (black screen) successfully, and ShowConfig sees the card.  So I'm hoping that cracked chip is the problem.

[DamageX]

My card works with the viewtek program. Finally got around to testing it in my A2000 with a few JPG files.

I have the pass through cable from the A2000 video port to the card, and made a custom cable to connect my NEC monitor to the card. BTW, I had forgotten about that "feature" where the Amiga won't boot with something connected to the video port v-sync line...