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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: trekiej on August 12, 2020, 10:25:02 PM
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Would it be too difficult to upgrade to a new faster 68000 cpu on an A600?
Would a clock divider be necessary?
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I put a Furia accelerator in my A600. It has an '020 and FPU with 9.5 megabytes of RAM.
Time to go shopping?
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I guess I am not frustrated with the cpu that is in it.
I still have only one meg. or ram.
Just curios about how a new board could manage it.
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Plenty of accelerators available for the A600. Or are you talking about replacing the 68000 on the motherboard itself?
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Yes, I was thinking about it and am wanting to know how it could be possible to do so on a new board.
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Probably, like A500 14 MHz hack. Benefits: low. Problems: probably many. http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=54474
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well keeping it as simple as possible, no buffers, you'd just run a synchronous or a multiplier of, the 7Mhz clock, so 14/28/56Mhz etc.
but as you're not replacing the 68000 given that it's soldered onto the board, it's still "live" - you're adding something else onto it's bus. You'd have to have some basic logic to negotiate control of the bus with/from the original 68000 and put it to sleep. same for the 1200 with it's onboard 020.
i don't know how much more it would need from there to buffer the original 7Mhz side of the control logic and allow whatever you like on the other side:- be it an actual 25Mhz bus with 030 and some zero wait state fast ram or whatever.
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I do know that the 68000 has the Bus Grant, Bus Request, and ACKnowledge lines. BG, BR, BACK, I think. It has been a while.
It does have some form of multi-cpu capability.
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Terrible idea for the internal cpu.
An accelerator card is what you need.
A faster cpu with some cache and 32bit fast ram running asynchronously is what will give you results.
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I hope some one makes a FPGA main board for the A600.
Meantime an 060 or 040 would do.
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I hope some one makes a FPGA main board for the A600.
You mean a replacement motherboard? Like the unAmiga, only fit for A600 case? That can happen.
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Yes. like the UnAmiga.
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One of my A600's has a keyboard problem. Earlier it would only register the F1 key. I re-seated the cable and now get most of the keys but not the two Amiga Keys and some CTRL keys.
I need to buy a new keyboard membrane and hopefully it will fix the problem. The connector or the ribbon cable connector could be the problem.
What say ye?
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There isn't that much else in an A600 keyboard to fix?
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Ugh, I need more money. :)
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You could try cleaning the membrane.. not by hoover or brushing chremicals on it.
Just lifting it out and shaking 25 years worth of hairs, tiny grit particles etc might fix it.
Got to be gentle with these. No creases, no heavy pressure. There's a few videos on youtube on cleaning and fixing rather than replace, just search on "Amiga keyboard membrane". And if you've got to change the membrane anyway it gives you a little practice with handling membranes.
Oh yeah, you can now get fast RAM expansions for the A600. With 2MB of chip RAM WHDLoad becomes viable route to some games working. Not a Furia but definitely a step up and reasonable price;-
https://amigakit.amiga.store/product_info.php?products_id=12696¤cy=GBP
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@ Pat The Cat
I will look to get a new membrane when I can.
There is a pcb membrane that is solid and works with green and blue keyboards.
I will probably upgrade the working A600 first. (edit:)
I bought a pcmcia adapter for transferring files. This will help in up grades, etc.
Thanks for the feedback.
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I can personally recommend the A6095 fast ram board, it gives your A600 the options of 4, 5.5, 8 or 9.5MB of RAM, the two latter only usable without PCMCIA. The nice thing is that to switch between 5.5 MB and 9.5 MB you just hold ctrl-a-a 3 seconds. So you use the jumpers to set whether to have 1.5MB “ranger ram”, whether to have 4 or 8 MB as default, and whether to activate switching via 3 sec resets. I mostly use mine with PCMCIA ethernet, so I let it start with 5.5 MB by default, and just ctrl-a-a a little longer (and pull out ethernet card) when I wish to boot up to 9.5 MB.
https://www.retropassion.co.uk/product/amiga-a600-9-5mb-fast-ram-pcmcia-switchable-a6095/
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It looks like a good choice.
I am not for sure about other memory upgrades.
There is one that has 4 mb max.
It does have a good price.
It is sold by Amigakit.com.
8)
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March seems to be a release date for the A6095 card.
I rather have this card.
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March seems to be a release date for the A6095 card.
I rather have this card.
I think they are built on order, so to speak.
I got mine about a month after I ordered it, which was when they still were called amigapassion, so a while ago.
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There was an onscreen keyboard tool called Oskey. Let you click on key icons and then cut and paste what you had typed.
I've searched for it on Aminet, can't find it. Might have been on a Fred Fisk dick or possibly Amiga Format coverdisk,
Definitely worked on 1.3 and 3.0 so should work on 2 as well. If you find it, let me know,.. New thread time! :)
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?
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amr.rumpigs.net/amiga_format_coverdisks/af011_1990_06_d011.zip
It was indeed on an Amiga Format coverdisk (no commercial software on that one, fully PD).
If you got a key that doesn't work you can still get it into applications. Won't work with games though.
Name was OSK, that's why I couldn't find it.
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Yeah, I have OSK on the cd32s for this...
http://aminet.net/package/util/wb/OSK
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Looks like I have to put my A600's away for a while. Class starts on Monday the 15th.
I do not know if there is a such a thing as a Good Amiga Addiction.
Later.
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I bought a PCMCIA adapter and I can not get it to work on either machine.
Any help will be appreciated, I tried different SD Cards of different sizes and still no good.
The kit has a PCMCIA adapter, a Flash Drive adapter, and a SD Card.
Thanks.
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Tried how? Using compactflash.device?
http://aminet.net/package/driver/media/CFD133
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I copied compactflash.device to Devs: and then copied FAT95 to L: and then CC0 to directory.
CFD133 shows similar hardware.
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CF0 goes in Devs/storage, not just devs. CC0 isn't used.
It should mount partitions up to 2GB without alteration. How big is the sd card?
Up to 16gb you have to have a sector size of 4096, over that you need 8192. You change it by editing the CF0 file in a text editor.
This is down to the way that Windows formats Fat32 (and why most people stick to 2GB partitions on fat32 partitions).
If you get an icon for CF0 but it shows as Ndos, trying formatting it from the Amiga side.
EDIT: Devs/Dosdriverv is indeed the correct place, not Devs/storage
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There are three files on the floppy disk.
Fat95, compactflash.device, and a file called cc0, I think.
cc0 went to a drawer called hdd:
fat95 went to L and compact..device went to Devs:
Thanks.
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Here are the instructions.
Instruction:
- Put Floppy Disk into your floppy drive
- Copy DF0:devs/CompactFlash.device to SYS:devs/CompactFlash.device
- Copy DF0:l/FAT95 to SYS:l/FAT95
- Copy CF0 with CF0.info to anywhere on your hard disk and launch it after you restart your system.
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CF0 goes in Devs/storage,
You mean DEVS:DOSDrivers
(alternatively SYS:Storage/DOSDrivers, but then requires manual mount)
But you can really have the dos driver mount entry files anywhere, and double click them to mount the device. It also works to put them in wbstartup...
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Thanks, I will keep working with it. PrepCard sees it when I plug it in.
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CF0 goes in Devs/storage,
You mean DEVS:DOSDrivers
(alternatively SYS:Storage/DOSDrivers, but then requires manual mount)
But you can really have the dos driver mount entry files anywhere, and double click them to mount the device. It also works to put them in wbstartup...
Yes I did. On an A600 with Workbench 2.04, there are no such drawers. I think 2.1 onwards use them, if not 3.0.
Trekj, check the version of compactflash.device that you received on floppy.
Version compactflash.device <- Typed into a shell window
sd card-compact flash adapters are only really supported in latest version 1.33 from aminet. You may have been sent an earlier version on the floppy disk.
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Yes I did. On an A600 with Workbench 2.04, there are no such drawers. I think 2.1 onwards use them, if not 3.0.
Yes, definitely 2.1 onwards.
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The period on my keyboard is not working.
I have OS3.1 in the mail and keyboard repair parts too.
The W.B. that I have WB2.1 Cloanto.
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SDXC 64 GB and SDHC 16 GB.
4 GB FAT 32 and 2GB FAT 16, respectively.
They will probably get changed before I finish.
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Then with WB2.1, you should have a Dosdrivers drawer inside Devs, and that's the best place to put CF0.
Also remember you can only have so much RAM on an A600 for the PCMCIA to work, and you must have V37.300 or V37.350 for PCMCIA to work too.
That particular revision of Kickstart is displayed on the "insert floppy" boot screen.
EDIT: Video here of how Windows format command sets up sector size according to card capacity;-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bikbJPI-7Kg
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I guess I am lost with CF0.
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I am not oblivious to formats.
SD FAT 16
SDHC FAT 32
SDXC exFAT
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CF0 meaning this, - Copy CF0 with CF0.info to anywhere on your hard disk and launch it after you restart your system.
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CF0 is a text file, a mountlist entry.
CF0.info is the icon file for it.
The idea being if it's in Devs/Dosdrivers drawer, the partition gets mounted automatically when Workbench loads.
It's very much a case of having most recent compactflash.device AND Fat95 filesystem handler to use sd cards in compact flash adapters.
If it isn't in Devs/Dosdrivers, you have to double click on the CF0 icon to mount the drive and get access to it.
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I see. I try it and it says already mounted. This would be the second time tried and no luck.
I think my items will be in the mail box on Tuesday.
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That sounds positive.
You know the PCMCIA slot can send and receive data OK (because Prepcard can see the card details at least).
You know that CF0 is finding the file handler for Fat32 and the device driver (although it might be too old to handle sd cards in an adapter).
I reckon you might have a problem with c/h/s values not matching up between the sd card and the entry for CF0.
You can either try editing the sector size in CF0 with a text file editor on the Amiga, or use Windows Commander to set up a 2Gb partition on the sdhc card and then formatting it with Windows (Default max for CF0).
You know it's working when you can "List CF0:" in a shell or click on the disk icon in Windows (magically appears on Windows).
The card shot be hot insert too, you can plug it in after Workbench has finished loading, Obviously never unplug it while it's being written to.
EDIT: ExFat partitions definitely won't work with fat95 file system handler.
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My parts came in the mail and I have installed the Hard Membrane into my keyboards. This is a PCB.
All my keys seem to work. Tilde is a key I am not for sure about.
I need a key testing program or something similar.
I need another 3.X Kick Start. I broke two of the pins off during installation.
A pin straightener is on my list.
One problem my be is that I have Easy-ADF installed. When I run it, it asks for CF0: to be inserted.
As for block sizes, etc. I am not for sure right now about that.
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Oh my. Broken a few pins in my time. Takes a little rractice to get used to sorting them out properly.
I've heard of Easy-ADF but never used it. Very likely it defaults to 512 byte sector size.
Here's what CF0 looks like (without the comments);-
FileSystem = l:fat95
Device = compactflash.device
Unit = 0
Flags = 0
LowCyl = 0
HighCyl = 0
Surfaces = 1
BlocksPerTrack = 1
BlockSize = 512
Buffers = 20
BufMemType = 1
BootPri = 0
Stacksize = 4096
Priority = 5
GlobVec = -1
DosType = 0x46415401
I've Bolded the line that selects sector size - 512 bytes is default (good up to 2GB partition size).
2GB up to 16GB you have to change that up to 4096 bytes, 16-32GB it has to be 8192 bytes.
A text editor program like EDIT or Memacs should let you edit the CF0 file. Esc then x to save changes if I recall correctly.
EDIT Devs:Dosdrivers/CF0 <-typed into a shell if you don't have Memacs on your syste should give you a text file editor at least.
There's also a switch you can try setting on the icon to try to get non-compliant cards to work (in the readme of compactflash.device are the details, you can check them at aminet).
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Ed, not EDIT.
And all the options in the file can also be set as tooltypes on the .info, mount is flexible about where it reads the parameters from. But, iirc, the parameters in the file has precedence over tooltypes.
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Thanks, wasn't sure what you got with 2.1.
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You get both (as always), but Edit is a command-driven, line-oriented editor (cryptic and hard to use for most users, but quite powerful), while Ed is a GUI editor (although primitive compared to other GUI editors, but with the benefit of being usable without Workbench).
Best regards,
Niels
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I was able to see my SDXC 64 bit card with a 4GB FAT32 partition on my 32 bit Sparky Linux Laptop.
It was with the PCMCIA adapter.
The SDHC card with a 2 GB fat partition would not show with the combo. It would show in a SD Card slot.
Still working on it. 8)
Strange, for the first time ever, I had an Amiga to reboot without notice.
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I regret I have no info on sector / cluster size for FAT partitions done in Linux.
Never needed to, Linux can mount Amiga hard drive partitions natively.
Only up to 4gb though, old school fast file system.
That would be a way to get latest compactflash.driver on your Amiga. The downside is unplugging the thing from inside the Amiga. Not too handy for a long term solution.
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Thankfully, my Floppy Disk Drive still works.
I guess I could be homing in on it.
edit:
I do have an Amiga Pi Drive.
But, I have no external cables.
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What do you mean by Amiga Pi Drive?
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A Raspberry Pi that acts like a Floppy Drive for the Amiga.
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Amiga A600 plus Raspberry Pi = Graffiti Box?
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https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=498
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Thanks, I have seen it.
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I have my Kick-start 3.X installed and now it runs out of memory during install.
The question is, how do I manually install OS 3.1 over OS 2.1?
A chip ram up grade would be best.
edit:
I went ahead and bought a Chip Ram expansion.
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I manually installed OS3.1 onto the Hard Drive.
It was messy.
The PCMCIA card shows up as ndos.
I formatted it and copied files to it.
I was able to copy those to my laptop.
When I re-inserted the card it came back up as ndos.
I thank everyone for the help over the months.
I need to find some one in Texas who can buy all of this stuff.
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Good news, I swapped the sd-card for another and it does not give me NDOS anymore.
The other card was fat32 and a 16 GB partition, which shows up different on the Amiga.
I think 2 GB.
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Glad to hear it.
With 4mb fast RAM, 2mb chip RAM, should run most WHDLoad games. Non-AGA ones I mean.
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There is a store in Europe that sells a SD Card adapter called SD Box. It hooks to a parallel port.
I may have try it out some day.
An external flicker fixer is on the list as well as Fast Ram.
The Buffee accelerator would be great.
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I like the Wicher 608.
It advertises 11 MB Ram.
I am not for sure how that works out.
It sounds good to me.
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I found out that Pi Storm can be used with the A600 with and adapter.