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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Retail News / Sales => Topic started by: DJS on August 21, 2008, 12:20:48 PM
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ELBOX COMPUTER is pleased to announce a new addition to its leading FastATA controller line for Classic Amiga computers with the FastATA 4000 MK-V controller.
Like its predecessors, FastATA 4000 MK-V provides high performance support (up to PIO 5) for up to four ATA/EIDE storage devices. The FastATA 4000 MK-V controller is the half-length Zorro III card which can be used in any Amiga with Zorro III slots.
The new controller offers much faster procedures for detection of connected EIDE/ATAPI devices, significantly fastening the computer's start. The 48-bit LBA (Logical Block Addressing) capability in onboard BootROM assures support for EIDE drives beyond the 128GB (up to 2TB).
FastATA 4000 MK-V is equipped with BootROM 5.0 and the FastATA4000 software package with FastATA.driver ver.2.10 and FastATAPrefs ver.2.10. FastATA 4000 MK-V ships with the fastest Amiga CD filesystem--AllegroCDFS ver.3.6.
Features:
• Fast transfer rate of up to 16.6MB/s
• Two independent, buffered and terminated EIDE ports
• LBA 48 support in the onboard BootROM (support of drives over 128GB)
• Support for ATAPI devices (CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD, ZIP, LS-120)
• Compatibility with OS4.0 (support of PIO0, PIO3, PIO4 and PIO5)
• Support of SATA devices (PATA - SATA adapter required)
Pricing and availability:
The FastATA 4000 MK-V controller will be on sale from 22 August 2008 at suggested retail price EUR 95.95 (plus local taxes and shipping costs).
To locate an authorized distributor in your area visit the Elbox Computer website at (http://www.elbox.com/buy.html). To purchase the product online visit the Elbox On-line Store for European Union customers (http://www.eu-shop.elbox.com/cgibin/shop?info=410F4) or for customers from other countries (http://www.shop.elbox.com/cgibin/shop?info=410F4).
Upgrade policy:
For users of previous versions of FastATA 4000 controllers we will offer a DIY upgrade pack for using BootROM 5.0 in their controllers.
For more info, see the FastATA 4000 website (http://elbox.com/products/fast_ata_4000.html) and AllegroCDFS website (http://elbox.com/products/allegro_cdfs.html).
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Great news about the upgrade.
I bought a FastATA4000 for my A4000 not long ago so I'm glad I can just do a ROM swap to bring it up to date.
Cheers Elbox.
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Oh my god yes, thank you elbox, 16 mb/s, thats slightly perverse =) Count me in!
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"up to".. pinch of salt here !
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Sure you will not get this 16.6Mb/s, but you will get like ~10Mb/s, maybe more.
I think they do good job, and I can say that ANY update is better than nothing.
I just would like to see some NEW hardware... or drivers for Spider under OS3.9 THIS would make me buy this card even for $120.
Refreshing is good, but there is nothing better that freshly baked bread ;)
:-D
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yeh freshly baked bread with a hint of something in it you could choke on probably like with past elbox products!
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Sure you will not get this 16.6Mb/s, but you will get like ~10Mb/s, maybe more.
For a non-DMA device on Zorro-III? No way! Its just marketing crap.
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I think you are right I made a mistake with understanding how this works in A4000...I forgot this think works on ZorroIII :). I can't tell from "experience", maybe someone?
BTW. Personally I'm waiting for something truly, really etc. new.
How many time can they update the same stuff? This thinks works fine :-D
Can I ask for driver for Spider for keyboards, mouses, HDD, pen drives etc?
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Well on my A4000D 040 25MHz with a Deneb and Cybervision also installed and running I was getting over 5 Mb/s in PIO 4 mode off a 80GB Seagate and a 80GB WD drive using SysInfo (FastATA4000 mk4).
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Now, we know. Thank you.
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Can I ask for driver for Spider for keyboards, mouses, HDD, pen drives etc?
Poseidon would have everything but Elbox has no licence for their Spider so you are stuck with the demo version. Elbox can't deliver an own stack so Spider is useless if you have no key for Poseidon.
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Of course, that could be a limitation of the old drives (a couple of ex-PC drives I had on the shelf), the file system (SFS) or the cables (robbed from an old PC). I tried the drives with PIO mode 5, but they reported errors.
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Poseidon would have everything but Elbox has no licence for their Spider so you are stuck with the demo version. Elbox can't deliver an own stack so Spider is useless if you have no key for Poseidon.
For USB 2 in a Zorro 3 (or 2) Amiga just get a Deneb.
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For USB 2 in a Zorro 3 (or 2) Amiga just get a Deneb.
If you have Zorro at all...
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Good point. :-)
I was fogetting the wedge machines (although there are Zorro adapters available for some) as this thread was originally about a Zorro card.
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I have Zorro II in the paper box, wrapped in foil and waiting. I will sell it next 10 years for $1000. Just a joke ;)
I use two A1200. There is NO USB "solution" for this computers. I always wander what I did that I can't register Poseidon for Spider? I past some people could do this. It's a punishment for not supporting "Amiga world" for some time? :-D
For someone who has a desktop A1200, Subway USB is OK (speed like 0.5 Mb/s is great...), but for Towered Amiga's? NOTHING.
I'm done since it's offtop :roll:
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@ Kreciu
Is that because your clockport in your tower is covered up? I have 2 A1200 towers and one of them has the Power Flyer Gold IDE adapter in it which blocks off the clock port (and was a {bleep} for fitting an internal scan doubler).
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Clock port is waiting for Delfina :). Can I use both a the time? Thank you for asking. BTW. Look at my case ;)
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Clock port is waiting for Delfina :). Can I use both a the time? Thank you for asking. BTW. Look at my case ;)
I can't make it out. Do you have a link to a bigger pic?
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I forgot this think works on ZorroIII :). I can't tell from "experience", maybe someone?
Here. You can make about 15.3MB/s on Zorro III if you are nasty and occupy the bus with 100% load, leaving no bandwidth for any other device sitting there (like a gfx card), and eating up 100% CPU time (which is not what multitasking likes).
I assumed a single cycle time of 250ns (including the small delay between cycles).
You can measure it yourself with "bustest" (which is amazingly accurate when comparing to a scope or logic analyzer).
Some values from my setups here:
A4000D, CS MKII 060@50MHz:
DENEB: 7.5MB/s read, 11.8MB/s write
CV64: 5.4MB/s read, 6.7MB/s write
BTW. Personally I'm waiting for something truly, really etc. new.
It is. At least the EPROM and the MACH chips on it are "new", the rest of the board looks like the 1999 version of Fast ATA 4000, compare yourself in amiga.resource.cx) :-)
Michael
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ofcourse it is the same design, the way I see it they just upgrade the "software" inside the chips...
same as the new mediator mach chips that came with the MMCD driver upgrade...
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Its like USB2.0 which can make up to 480 Mbit/s but in real life you will get only about 320 Mbit/s or less even on modern PCs which makes it slower than FireWire 400.
IDE on amiga is a mess, it eats all your cpu. Only the Deneb has DMA which makes it useable with IDE devices without freezing the whole system during file operation. If Deneb is too expensive for someone I would rather go for a Z-III SCSI controller.
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@ DJBase
However, in reality, your typical user will be more than happy with most fast IDE devices available. I've used Buddha in the A2000 and A3000, Power Flyer Gold in the A1200 and the FastATA4000 in the A4000 and even though I also have SCSI in the A1200, A2000 and A3000 the IDE options are better for me because I have plenty of cheap, large and fast IDE devices littering my office without having to scavenge some dusty 4x SCSI CD ROM drive off eBay.
I think the user can live with a little extra load on the CPU for the time it takes to load a 256KB file or load Deluxe Paint.
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Its like USB2.0 which can make up to 480 Mbit/s but in real life you will get only about 320 Mbit/s or less even on modern PCs which makes it slower than FireWire 400.
No, sorry. Both are serial busses, and both "suffer" from the same bandwidth eaters: 8b/10b coding, bit stuffing, sync frames, protocol overheads.
So if you compare both serial busses you need to give both a reduction of 33%, to be fair :-)
Michael
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@Darrin
have 2 A1200 towers and one of them has the Power Flyer Gold IDE adapter in it which blocks off the clock port (and was a {bleep} for fitting an internal scan doubler).
I had no problems with fitting my fast serial port into the clockport with a Power Flyer Gold, but the scandoubler did need a trim.
Sadly the new Indivision scandoubler wont fit with Fast ATA + Mediator and now the IDE Express looks to be sold out.
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No, sorry. Both are serial busses, and both "suffer" from the same bandwidth eaters: 8b/10b coding, bit stuffing, sync frames, protocol overheads. So if you compare both serial busses you need to give both a reduction of 33%, to be fair
Sure, FW400 doesn't reach 400 MBit/s but its faster than USB2.0 in real life. Thats what I wanted to say.
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I just use my fastlane SCSI card which is DMA enabled and I have no issues with CPU usage.
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A friend of mine missed the response time and now it seems unavailable in elbox webshop.
Anyone knows how to get the update now?