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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: wrath of khan on January 06, 2015, 10:14:19 PM
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I have sysinfo software: It says
:kickstart V39.106
:Workbench V 39.48; but worbench itself says its ver. 40.42
I have 1,791,520 graphics mem free and 32,376 other mem.
I have an aca1233 40 mhz accellerator installed.
Under category "Internal hardware modes" it says mmu 68030 (not in use)
The aca1233 has a maprom feature. When this is activated do I then have to manually map memory for specific tasks e.g whdload etc?
So when I try to load aga games that require 4 meg of fast ram, its says can't allocate shadowmem.
Oddly just the one time super stardust aga 4 meg ram worked for me but never again.
I checked some old threads here but the best info i found said that the amiga is looking for disks or adfs when it mentions shadowmem?
Also with some games a500 ones too, it says not enough memory or expmem?
This card has 128 meg of memory so what's the problem?
edit: In some games the title screens/intro screens are flashing/flickering in and out of view, before then stabilising. This isn't a timing fix issue with my a1200 is it? I heard that graphical corruptions occur if such a thing is required for the aca1233 to work properly.
Thanks
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Anyone?:)
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Two possibilities; either the accelerator isn't working correctly or you need to rtfm.
I'm guessing you need to add a commandline to your startup-sequence to get more than the few bytes of fast ram you have now.
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Looks like you running Kickstart 3.0. You must use the acatune command to enable the 128 meg of memory. Or upgrade to 3.1.
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Looks like you running Kickstart 3.0. You must use the acatune command to enable the 128 meg of memory. Or upgrade to 3.1.
Hi. Yes I have used the acatune disk and it said that the ram was allocated. I will try it again. I have read the wiki on the aca, not very helpful. Mostly this aca version seems automated, just use the supplied disk.
Its a standard commodore a1200 which I got on e-bay. Kickstart 3.0. Why would I need to upgrade to 3.1? Would flickering in and out of intro screens, in whdload games, be indicative of timing fix problems?
System info recognises the card and before inserting the aca card agony and other games would not run at all. Now they do, so I reckon the card is working mostly.
I only used amigas for games back in the day and d-paint, so I am new to the technical side; still it seems easy enough to negotiate workbench, funnily enough its not entirely dissimilar to windows. I want to learn how to get the most out of my a1200.
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Why would I need to upgrade to 3.1?
Because it costs less than $20 and is as easy as popping in a couple chips. If there's even a chance that it could help with your issues, why not do it?
Not directed at you personally, but it drives me absolutely nuts how cheap many Amiga users are. Sure, there's software work-arounds like maprom-ing in a later version, but why in the world would you not want "the latest and greatest" Kickstart for your system? Unless you're building a purely retro, 1.3 machine or something, it just makes me facepalm so hard how many people fight tooth-and-nail to not do this simple upgrade. :(
Sorry, off-topic rant over! Good luck with your current issues, I'd do some searching on the forums for the proper config for your ACATune software. Config is different depending on the model of card you have and for optimal config of it. It should be the very first line in your startup-sequence and can actually make a pretty big difference if it's not configured correctly!
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Because it costs less than $20 and is as easy as popping in a couple chips. If there's even a chance that it could help with your issues, why not do it?
Not directed at you personally, but it drives me absolutely nuts how cheap many Amiga users are. Sure, there's software work-arounds like maprom-ing in a later version, but why in the world would you not want "the latest and greatest" Kickstart for your system? Unless you're building a purely retro, 1.3 machine or something, it just makes me facepalm so hard how many people fight tooth-and-nail to not do this simple upgrade. :(
Sorry, off-topic rant over! Good luck with your current issues, I'd do some searching on the forums for the proper config for your ACATune software. Config is different depending on the model of card you have and for optimal config of it. It should be the very first line in your startup-sequence and can actually make a pretty big difference if it's not configured correctly!
I'll check the forums about the aca card, sure. I would not have the expertise to install the 3.1 kickstarts myself. I gather it needs soldering or something. But I'm not against it at all.
If all else fails I may pay amigakit a visit as they have a customer counter I'm told. I have an old a500 in need of some loving too and Cardiff is not far away.
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I'll check the forums about the aca card, sure. I would not have the expertise to install the 3.1 kickstarts myself. I gather it needs soldering or something. But I'm not against it at all.
If all else fails I may pay amigakit a visit as they have a customer counter I'm told. I have an old a500 in need of some loving too and Cardiff is not far away.
No soldering required, just pop in a couple chips. You do need to make sure of the correct orientation and put them in the right sockets, of course. I wish I was close enough to visit AmigaKit, post pics (if they let you) if you go. Bet it'll be a fun trip, I'm jealous! :)
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No soldering required, just pop in a couple chips. You do need to make sure of the correct orientation and put them in the right sockets, of course. I wish I was close enough to visit AmigaKit, post pics (if they let you) if you go. Bet it'll be a fun trip, I'm jealous! :)
I see. Yes it would cost as little to go by ferry as it would for postage and it would be a nice trip. My a500 will have to go there sooner or later.
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Hello Wrath Of Khan. Please see my post at the bottom of the thread I've linked to here for the correct ACATune line for the ACA1233 or ACA1232 cards:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=68501
And whatever you do, DO NOT buy 3.1 roms. They are a waste of money in your case as you have an ACA card with a maprom feature. You can 'soft kick' 3.1 from your hard drive with the ACATune command.
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I see. Yes it would cost as little to go by ferry as it would for postage and it would be a nice trip. My a500 will have to go there sooner or later.
Now I'm picturing you on a ferry with an A500 tucked underneath your arm. It'll be an adventure, like the 1980's all over again! I wonder if anyone will stop to ask you what it is you're carrying there? Might even make some new friends! :D
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whatever you do, DO NOT buy 3.1 roms
(http://i.stack.imgur.com/jiFfM.jpg)
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Hello Wrath Of Khan. Please see my post at the bottom of the thread I've linked to here for the correct ACATune line for the ACA1233 or ACA1232 cards:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=68501
And whatever you do, DO NOT buy 3.1 roms. They are a waste of money in your case as you have an ACA card with a maprom feature. You can 'soft kick' 3.1 from your hard drive with the ACATune command.
Thanks, I will try this. Oddly what seems to be happening is, I activated the maprom feature and I get loads of other mem. But after resetting the amiga, ctrl, A+A, I lose the other mem. Is there a way to save the maprom command rather than having to activate this every time i boot up?
Well I will try your suggestion. Really, that's great. I guess some games require 3.1? Oh and should I enter the command in my acatune software. Its on a floppy. Or from a cli?
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Thanks, I will try this. Oddly what seems to be happening is, I activated the maprom feature and I get loads of other mem. But after resetting the amiga, ctrl, A+A, I lose the other mem. Is there a way to save the maprom command rather than having to activate this every time i boot up?
Well I will try your suggestion. Really, that's great. I guess some games require 3.1? Oh and should I enter the command in my acatune software. Its on a floppy. Or from a cli?
The ACATune command needs to be copied to your C: directory and run each time you turn on your machine as the first line in your startup-sequence in order to activate its functions. The suggestion from the other thread was like this:
C:ACATune -cache on -burst on -vbrmove -maprom * >ram:acaoutput.txt
If you don't know how to edit your startup sequence, easiest way is to just drop down to a command prompt and type:
ed s:Startup-Sequence
And type that exact sequence of commands at the very top. Be careful not to make any other changes if you are unfamiliar with editing your startup sequence. Then press the Esc key and X to exit the editor, saving changes. You should confirm that you have the same model of ACA card as mentioned in the other thread, since commands can be specific to different models of cards. http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/ACAtune
No games require 3.1 AFAIK, but if you're worried about compatibility with future software (i.e., running Workbench 3.5 or 3.9, etc.)... just do it. I'm tired of trying to convince people why a simple less than $20 upgrade is worth it. That's like, less than a week's worth of coffee money. Geeze. :p
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Thanks, I will try this. Oddly what seems to be happening is, I activated the maprom feature and I get loads of other mem. But after resetting the amiga, ctrl, A+A, I lose the other mem. Is there a way to save the maprom command rather than having to activate this every time i boot up?
Well I will try your suggestion. Really, that's great. I guess some games require 3.1? Oh and should I enter the command in my acatune software. Its on a floppy. Or from a cli?
You need to add the ACATune command at the beginning of your startup-sequence, so that you don't have to keep typing it every time :). The startup-sequence is what boots your Amiga into Workbench. It's literally just a sequence of commands stored in a text file.
Boot up your computer, go to a shell and type in "ed s:startup-sequence".
Or, just select the "Execute Command" from the Workbench menu and type "ed s:startup-sequence".
Your startup-sequence will be listed and you can add the ACATune line in here. Put it at the top, before SetPatch or any other command is run (in most cases). Then go to the menu and select 'Save'.
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And whatever you do, DO NOT buy 3.1 roms. They are a waste of money in your case as you have an ACA card with a maprom feature. You can 'soft kick' 3.1 from your hard drive with the ACATune command.
+1
Kickstart 3.1 offers only minor improvements. If you don't have any specific reason for getting the roms, then don't.
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+1
Kickstart 3.1 offers only minor improvements. If you don't have any specific reason for getting the roms, then don't.
I feel like a drug pusher. "Upgrade to 3.1, you know you want to, you know it'll make you feel better", LOL. Jeeze, it's less than $20. I'll just put this here:
http://wiki.classicamiga.com/Kickstart_Roms_Explained#Why_upgrade_from_Kickstart_3.0_to_Kickstart_3.1.3F
All the 3.1 haters on here. ;)
(http://wanderlysh.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/1ad1804ccb2cc9d9b75206909660f1353c2ed9cb1d7ea23f358bdedc70fa2cb9.jpg)
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You need to add the ACATune command at the beginning of your startup-sequence, so that you don't have to keep typing it every time :). The startup-sequence is what boots your Amiga into Workbench. It's literally just a sequence of commands stored in a text file.
Boot up your computer, go to a shell and type in "ed s:startup-sequence".
Or, just select the "Execute Command" from the Workbench menu and type "ed s:startup-sequence".
Your startup-sequence will be listed and you can add the ACATune line in here. Put it at the top, before SetPatch or any other command is run (in most cases). Then go to the menu and select 'Save'.
Ive tried the command a few times but no luck. Perhaps I am entering in the wrong place/order?
Here's a pic attached of the startup sequence and you can see where ive entered the line.
Upon reset of the miggy the other mem diminishes greatly.
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Ive tried the command a few times but no luck. Perhaps I am entering in the wrong place/order?
Here's a pic attached of the startup sequence and you can see where ive entered the line.
Upon reset of the miggy the other mem diminishes greatly.
Open Multiview (in SYS:Utilities) and open the file 'RAM:acaoutput.txt'
Or open a Shell again and type "type ram:acaoutput.txt" instead.
This perhaps will give us some clues as to why it isn't working correctly.
I didn't know you were using ClassicWB, and I don't know what the Maxmem-sequence is, which for all I know could be causing the issue. You can try moving the ACATune line directly above the SetPatch line though.
TBH, there's nothing wrong and the line should stay at the top. Let us know what acaoutput.txt reads...
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(http://i.stack.imgur.com/jiFfM.jpg)
Why upgrade from Kickstart 3.0 to Kickstart 3.1?
If you own an A1200 or A4000 with Kickstart 3.0 Roms installed, then you might wonder what the advantages are, and why it is worth upgrading to the newer 3.1 roms. Here are some of the main changes 3.1 offers over 3.0.
- 3.0 cannot run AmigaOS later than 3.1 (it doesn't support loading in modules from AmigaOS updates like 3.1 does)
- 3.1 contains many bug fixes to the libraries both internally and on the disk
- 3.1 is more up-to-date
- 3.1 supports the Akiko chip when used on a CD32
- 3.1 supports the extra CD32 libraries that are built into ROM (namely lowlevel.library and nonvolatile.library)
- 3.1 contains minor improvements to RTG handling
- 3.1 contains the additional datatypes: ANIM and CDXL
- 3.1 introduces a small delay whilst checking for hard drives. This gets around the old 3.0 bug whereby a hard drive is not always recognized from cold boot.
I know, my reply doesn't really help the problem... thought I would post 3.1 ROM advantages though...
Ok Mike.... I see your "Double Face Palm" and raise you a face palm!
(http://hotnerdgirl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/triple-facepalm.jpg)
(http://weaselzippers.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/jesus-wepting.jpg)
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Open Multiview (in SYS:Utilities) and open the file 'RAM:acaoutput.txt'
Or open a Shell again and type "type ram:acaoutput.txt" instead.
This perhaps will give us some clues as to why it isn't working correctly.
I didn't know you were using ClassicWB, and I don't know what the Maxmem-sequence is, which for all I know could be causing the issue. You can try moving the ACATune line directly above the SetPatch line though.
TBH, there's nothing wrong and the line should stay at the top. Let us know what acaoutput.txt reads...
The shell reads: Error: Aca card type unsupported.
It then tells me to get the latest version of acatune from icomp.de. Guess the floppy disk version supplied is not the latest.
Well, I need to buy a cd drive to set up easynet pcmcia wireless, to go online and then download the software...bummer.
I foresee some difficulty setting up easynet too...
I'll get the cd drive soon.
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Might be a ClassicWB issue. As Paul1981 said, you've got some weird programs installed on there. May be a conflict. If you type 'version acatune' at a command prompt what does it say? Post your version number and maybe someone else can confirm if it's the latest?
I would download the latest version to a CD from your PC and read it back on the Amiga that way (obviously this will require a CD drive on your Amiga). You don't happen to have any PC's sitting around with a floppy drive still, anymore, do you?
There's various methods of transferring files via serial and parallel links, of varying levels of difficulty to setup/configure.
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The shell reads: Error: Aca card type unsupported.
It then tells me to get the latest version of acatune from icomp.de. Guess the floppy disk version supplied is not the latest.
Well, I need to buy a cd drive to set up easynet pcmcia wireless, to go online and then download the software...bummer.
I foresee some difficulty setting up easynet too...
I'll get the cd drive soon.
ACATune should be version 17.
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ACATune should be version 17.
Yeah the floppy disk says ver 1.7.
I'm using a cf card preset with lots of software, whdload etc. Its installed internally. I'm not sure about most of whats on there but there is d-paint, hippo player etc. Looks like there's software for adding a large hardrive too etc.
Is classic workbench lite a good thing or bad? I'm rather clueless but i guess its meant to be fast with slow amigas?
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Yeah the floppy disk says ver 1.7.
I'm using a cf card preset with lots of software, whdload etc. Its installed internally. I'm not sure about most of whats on there but there is d-paint, hippo player etc. Looks like there's software for adding a large hardrive too etc.
Is classic workbench lite a good thing or bad? I'm rather clueless but i guess its meant to be fast with slow amigas?
Open a Shell, and type the command "acatune -status"
Let us know what it says.
There's nothing wrong with ClassicWB, it's just a pre-configured Workbench environment. The problem you have though is one of the chicken and the egg... the file transfers that presently are impossible for you. This is why I always keep a pc with a floppy drive around.
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Open a Shell, and type the command "acatune -status"
Let us know what it says.
There's nothing wrong with ClassicWB, it's just a pre-configured Workbench environment. The problem you have though is one of the chicken and the egg... the file transfers that presently are impossible for you. This is why I always keep a pc with a floppy drive around.
Again the shell reads: Error: Aca card type unsupported.
It then tells me to get the latest version of acatune from icomp.de
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Version 17 is available to download and my disk has ver.1.7? Is that just another way of typing 17 or have there been that many revisions already?
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Again the shell reads: Error: Aca card type unsupported.
It then tells me to get the latest version of acatune from icomp.de
Open a shell and type "version c:acatune full"
And let us know what that says.
Also, please do make sure that you have turned your Amiga off/on at the power brick. A 'cold boot' is a boot from a previously powered off state, and a 'warm boot' is a boot from a previously powered on state (like after a reset with A-A-CTRL). I'm interested to know whether it's working from a cold boot, so please make sure you've cold booted it first. So, see what happens from a cold boot please.
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Version 17 is available to download and my disk has ver.1.7? Is that just another way of typing 17 or have there been that many revisions already?
1.7 = 17 IIRC, so no problem there.
http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/ACAtune
If there's still no joy, I suggest powering the Amiga off at the brick, power on again whilst holding down both mouse buttons and this will take you to the Amiga Early Startup Control.
From here select the button "Boot with no Startup-Sequence".
When the AmigaDOS prompt appears, type in "c:acatune -status"
And let us know what that says. If it recognises the card then there's something in the ClassicWB startup-sequence which is upsetting it.
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Open a shell and type "version c:acatune full"
And let us know what that says.
Also, please do make sure that you have turned your Amiga off/on at the power brick. A 'cold boot' is a boot from a previously powered off state, and a 'warm boot' is a boot from a previously powered on state (like after a reset with A-A-CTRL). I'm interested to know whether it's working from a cold boot, so please make sure you've cold booted it first. So, see what happens from a cold boot please.
The shell said: Could not find version information for C:acatune. I powered on from the brick to begin.
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1.7 = 17 IIRC, so no problem there.
http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/ACAtune
If there's still no joy, I suggest powering the Amiga off at the brick, power on again whilst holding down both mouse buttons and this will take you to the Amiga Early Startup Control.
From here select the button "Boot with no Startup-Sequence".
When the AmigaDOS prompt appears, type in "c:acatune -status"
And let us know what that says. If it recognises the card then there's something in the ClassicWB startup-sequence which is upsetting it.
Yup I did this and it said: error Aca card type unsupported.
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Thanks for your help mike and Paul. Its 2am here now so I'm gonna crash.
To be continued tomorrow...
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Thanks, I will try this. Oddly what seems to be happening is, I activated the maprom feature and I get loads of other mem. But after resetting the amiga, ctrl, A+A, I lose the other mem. Is there a way to save the maprom command rather than having to activate this every time i boot up?
Well I will try your suggestion. Really, that's great. I guess some games require 3.1? Oh and should I enter the command in my acatune software. Its on a floppy. Or from a cli?
I'm just turning the clock back here a bit. Here you stated that acatune was working as it gave you the extra ram. Can you repeat this behaviour? This proved that acatune detected your card.
Also, don't forget to try the cold boot but without Startup-Sequence (see my last posts) and type 'c:acatune -status' and let us know what it says.
EDIT: Ok seems you already did that last part... In my mind, it's either the wrong (old) version of acatune, or the card perhaps isn't seated correctly, which may explain why it recognised the card earlier.
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I'm just turning the clock back here a bit. Here you stated that acatune was working as it gave you the extra ram. Can you repeat this behaviour? This proved that acatune detected your card.
Also, don't forget to try the cold boot but without Startup-Sequence (see my last posts) and type 'c:acatune -status' and let us know what it says.
EDIT: Ok seems you already did that last part... In my mind, it's either the wrong (old) version of acatune, or the card perhaps isn't seated correctly, which may explain why it recognised the card earlier.
Hmm I will check if the card is not seated properly. At first it was pushed in too far and there was distortion on-screen. The manual recommends loosening the card a bit. I did this and it worked. Perhaps its a tad too loose now? I'll investigate.
I'm getting visible scan lines on my lcd from the rgb scart cable I got from amigakit too. It's the lcd telly no doubt. Someone over at eab has a thread about the same thing. Not to worry as I will get an indivision aga soon enough.
Oh and yes every time I use the acatune disk and type acatune maprom * I get loads of other mem allocated and I can run most games just fine.
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Here is sysinfo pics attached with the acatune maprom * feature activated
Perhaps I should try the line in startup again and put it right at the top before any other line?
There is an acaoutput.txt file in my ramdisk though...
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Here is sysinfo pics attached with the acatune maprom * feature activated
Perhaps I should try the line in startup again and put it right at the top before any other line?
There is an acaoutput.txt file in my ramdisk though...
Yes, there should be because we told ACATune to write it's output to the file 'ram:acaoutput.txt' in the command line that we entered into your Startup-Sequence. This file is created whether there's a problem or not, so until you get it working correctly you should read it.
If that file is created in ram: then it means that that line must still be in your Startup-Sequence, and you should open the file in Multiview and see what it says... or open a shell and type 'type ram:acaoutput.txt'.
So what we've discovered here then is that ACATune is finally recognising your card. Might be worth while plugging/unplugging the card a few times, say 5 times just to create a clean contact on the edge connector.
The Sysinfo pics aren't relevant at the moment until we get your ACATune working correctly. We can know whether it's working correctly with the -status argument ('acatune -status' in a shell).
We're going round in circles here.:laughing:
If you really want fault finding in it's simplest form, then I'd suggest you power off your A1200, boot a Workbench floppy disk, open a shell, put your ACATune disk in, copy the ACATune command from your floppy to your ram disk, and run the ACATune command line straight from the ram disk. Once the command has run, in the same shell type 'acatune -status' and let's see what that says.
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Yes, there should be because we told ACATune to write it's output to the file 'ram:acaoutput.txt' in the command line that we entered into your Startup-Sequence. This file is created whether there's a problem or not, so until you get it working correctly you should read it.
If that file is created in ram: then it means that that line must still be in your Startup-Sequence, and you should open the file in Multiview and see what it says... or open a shell and type 'type ram:acaoutput.txt'.
So what we've discovered here then is that ACATune is finally recognising your card. Might be worth while plugging/unplugging the card a few times, say 5 times just to create a clean contact on the edge connector.
The Sysinfo pics aren't relevant at the moment until we get your ACATune working correctly. We can know whether it's working correctly with the -status argument ('acatune -status' in a shell).
We're going round in circles here.:laughing:
If you really want fault finding in it's simplest form, then I'd suggest you power off your A1200, boot a Workbench floppy disk, open a shell, put your ACATune disk in, copy the ACATune command from your floppy to your ram disk, and run the ACATune command line straight from the ram disk. Once the command has run, in the same shell type 'acatune -status' and let's see what that says.
Well if by copying, you mean drag and drop, then i dragged the acatune icon into the ramdisk window. It copied over but there is only an acatune drawer. It opens a window called acatune but there is nothing there.
Perhaps I have copied it incorrectly. I'll try seating and unseating the card a few times.
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I finally managed to get the readme open thats on the acatune disk. It says I should copy acatune to the C directory of my boot partition. I have no idea how to do that.
Having done the above, it says to then type "acatune -staus" into a shell.
It is then supposed to give me all the aca system details, and i can see if its fully working etc.
I think they recommend some line called "acatune option argument option argument as the first thing to add to startup?
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Just copy it from the command line. I.e.:
copy source_file_location to SYS:C
Command would probably look something like:
copy df0:c/acatune to SYS:C
Or where ever the acatune command is stored on the floppy disk. And then you'll be able to run it in your Startup-Sequence, like we've been telling you to do. ;)
It's unfortunate that ACA isn't autoconfig memory. Only thing I get out of those SysInfo screenshots is that (as you can see) it's loading all of those libraries into "SLOW RAM" (i.e., wasting your chip memory) rather than into the faster memory on the ACA at power-on. Nothing you can really do about this, just it sucks. By comparison here is a screenshot of mine, showing everything loaded into 32-bit fast memory, as it should be. ;)
Paul - you're the expert on these ACA cards. Anything he can do about this? For better performance?
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Just copy it from the command line. I.e.:
copy source_file_location to SYS:C
Command would probably look something like:
copy df0:c/acatune to SYS:C
Or where ever the acatune command is stored on the floppy disk. And then you'll be able to run it in your Startup-Sequence, like we've been telling you to do. ;)
It's unfortunate that ACA isn't autoconfig memory. Only thing I get out of those SysInfo screenshots is that (as you can see) it's loading all of those libraries into "SLOW RAM" (i.e., wasting your chip memory) rather than into the faster memory on the ACA at power-on. Nothing you can really do about this, just it sucks. By comparison here is a screenshot of mine, showing everything loaded into 32-bit fast memory, as it should be. ;)
Paul - you're the expert on these ACA cards. Anything he can do about this? For better performance?
Thanks, I've never been called an expert before! I just wish it was true... :)
I have an ACA1232 and ACA1233 with KS3.0, so I know how to correctly configure it. What I don't have is ClassicWB.
I'll quote here from the ACATune-readme, as supplied with v1.7:
6.6 ACA1232
For OS3.0 users, this card has only 1MByte autoconfig memory. ACATune will
add 126Mbytes of memory to the system on start-up. 1MByte of memory will
not be added to the free memory pool. It is kept reserved for the maprom
option. On later OS revisions, the memory is detected and added
automatically by the OS.
Wrath Of Khan's Sysinfo screen shot showing things in SLOW RAM is very strange...shouldn't happen at all. As you can see from the readme above, under KS3.0 the ACA1232/1233 does auto-configure 1MB of fast ram anyway, even without running ACATune. There's no reboot after running the ACATune command, unless of course one is softkicking another Kickstart from disk. But no, NOTHING should show up as being in SLOW RAM.
So to correctly configure it he needs to locate his ACATune command first. I'm confused as to why it's not on the floppy any more?
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I finally managed to get the readme open thats on the acatune disk. It says I should copy acatune to the C directory of my boot partition. I have no idea how to do that.
Having done the above, it says to then type "acatune -staus" into a shell.
It is then supposed to give me all the aca system details, and i can see if its fully working etc.
I think they recommend some line called "acatune option argument option argument as the first thing to add to startup?
I just had a look at your Startup-Sequence from yesterday, and you forgot the '-' on the "-maprom * >ram:acaoutput.txt"
Here is how it should be:
C:ACATune -cache on -burst on -vbrmove -maprom * >ram:acaoutput.txt
Now according to the manual, the "-" isn't needed, but for consistency I would correct your mistake and try the line in your Startup-Sequence again and see if it works. The missing "-" could easily have made the whole command void.
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If I understand your quote from the manual correctly, if he had Kickstart 3.1 it would autoconfig all of the memory automatically?
I bet you dollars to donuts he moved the acatune command off the floppy disk, and either into ram: or onto the hard drive, rather than copying it. Let's hope it's on the hard drive and he can correctly locate it and copy it into C:. If it somehow got moved into ram:, well it's gone-city and he's stuck until he either gets another floppy disk, or figures a way to transfer files from PC to Amiga. :(
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If I understand your quote from the manual correctly, if he had Kickstart 3.1 it would autoconfig all of the memory automatically?
I bet you dollars to donuts he moved the acatune command off the floppy disk, and either into ram: or onto the hard drive, rather than copying it. Let's hope it's on the hard drive and he can correctly locate it and copy it into C:. If it somehow got moved into ram:, well it's gone-city and he's stuck until he either gets another floppy disk, or figures a way to transfer files from PC to Amiga. :(
Yes, with KS3.1 it would configure all the ram automatically. You'd still have to run the ACATune command though just the same as I have put it in my previous post (regardless of running under KS3.0 or 3.1).
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Adding the "-" didn't make any difference. I still lost the "other mem" upon soft reset. The aca floppy disk still works fine.
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Apparently my cf card is divided into three partitions. Could this be causing problems? I am running everything from this card though I have floppies with workbench too.
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Do you boot off of more than one partition?
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Do you boot off of more than one partition?
Ive no idea. It boots up into classic workbench. I have whdload and other programs
Would i have access to all three partitions upon boot up or do i need to access the other partitions someow?
Are partitions problematic here?
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Ive no idea. It boots up into classic workbench. I have whdload and other programs
Would i have access to all three partitions upon boot up or do i need to access the other partitions someow?
Are partitions problematic here?
You need to go back to basics like I said previously. Cold boot your Amiga from your Workbench floppy. Open a shell, and run the acatune command from your acatune floppy. So if your acatune command is in a drawer called 'acatunev17' then in the shell you would type 'df0:acatunev17/acatune'
If it runs correctly, you will see the extra memory appear as 'other mem' at the top of the Workbench screen. Let us know if that works. BTW... what's your name?
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BTW... what's your name?
He throws me every time with that icon for David Pleasance. ;)
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You need to go back to basics like I said previously. Cold boot your Amiga from your Workbench floppy. Open a shell, and run the acatune command from your acatune floppy. So if your acatune command is in a drawer called 'acatunev17' then in the shell you would type 'df0:acatunev17/acatune'
If it runs correctly, you will see the extra memory appear as 'other mem' at the top of the Workbench screen. Let us know if that works. BTW... what's your name?
My name is Adrian, I'm over at eab under the same name, Adrian Browne. I tend to use the moniker "wrath of khan" as in star trek 2, on all other forums though; it kinda stuck.
I had an a500 when I was 11 and always loved miggys ever since. I had an a1200, which I purchased around 1996 but I donated it to a natami team member many moons ago, not that I am waiting on natami. Had a cd32 once upon a time but I sold it years ago. I picked up this a1200 on e-bay for a bargain.
I still have the original a500 of course and it needs repairs and cleaning.
@ oldsmobile mike, yeah I picked the Donald Pleasance avatar as a joke tbh. He was the would be saviour of commodore, alas skullduggery thwarted him or was it the Japanese. He was a prominent figure in amiga mags in the u.k particularly when commodore were in dire straits. He even had an ask "donald Pleasance section in a mag.
So, run the acatune maprom command or the line I added to the startup menu? I must be getting confused here. I can get the other mem to work, it seems but it disappears upon reboot. are you still referring to copying the acatune to ram here?
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I think the extra mem is going to disappear upon a hard reboot (i.e., you completely turn the power off). Does it survive a soft reboot (i.e., once you execute the acatune software, does the memory stay active if you press Ctrl+A+A? Or do you need to execute acatune every time?). Paul would be the one who would know about this. My understanding stops beyond that it needs to be executed first in the startup-sequence with the proper options, and I'm still concerned that some of your ClassicWB stuff may be interfering with it (as Paul pointed out). Have you copied it to the C: directory of your boot partition yet?
Boy do I miss the days of Commodore skullduggery! Now all we have is community backbiting and in-fighting. Was a lot more fun when we were unified against a common enemy. Kind of like the cold war, LOL. ;)
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I think the extra mem is going to disappear upon a hard reboot (i.e., you completely turn the power off). Does it survive a soft reboot (i.e., once you execute the acatune software, does the memory stay active if you press Ctrl+A+A? Or do you need to execute acatune every time?). Paul would be the one who would know about this. My understanding stops beyond that it needs to be executed first in the startup-sequence with the proper options, and I'm still concerned that some of your ClassicWB stuff may be interfering with it (as Paul pointed out). Have you copied it to the C: directory of your boot partition yet?
Boy do I miss the days of Commodore skullduggery! Now all we have is community backbiting and in-fighting. Was a lot more fun when we were unified against a common enemy. Kind of like the cold war, LOL. ;)
Yes all the fighters went to amiga.org and all the pacifists went to eab.
How do I copy it to the "C" directory of my boot partition? The aca tune readme says to do this but it does not say how. The other mem disappears after a hard and a soft reset.
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How do I copy it to the "C" directory of my boot partition? The aca tune readme says to do this but it does not say how. The other mem disappears after a hard and a soft reset.
You need to get the acatune command into your SYS:C directory. If you had a directory utility like DirOpus or DirWork it would be easy. ClassicWB probably comes with something similar, but I'm unfamiliar with it. Barring that, just copy it via the shell (see post #39 in this thread).
At a command line type:
copy df0:where_ever_the_file_is_saved_now to SYS:C
:)
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You need to get the acatune command into your SYS:C directory. If you had a directory utility like DirOpus or DirWork it would be easy. ClassicWB probably comes with something similar, but I'm unfamiliar with it. Barring that, just copy it via the shell (see post #39 in this thread).
At a command line type:
copy df0:where_ever_the_file_is_saved_now to SYS:C
:)
So in a command line i should write: copy df0:c/acatune to SYS:C ?
I have DirOpus on my workbench btw.
Edit; I wrote above the command into a shell window, it said: unknown command; the acatune disk was in the drive when I tried the command in the shell. What exactly should I type? I guess this thread is getting long in the tooth...damn aca card or classic workbench...grrrr...
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Gaah, you're killing me now, man. You just need to copy the file from where ever it is on the floppy disk, into the C directory on your hard drive. Have you never used DOS before? ;)
Like if the file is in the directory "Tools", you'd type:
copy df0:tools/acatune to SYS:C
Or if the file is in a directory called "Utilities", you'd type:
copy df0:utilities/acatune to SYS:C
Or if the file is on a floppy disk in an external drive, you'd replace df0: with df1: or df2: or whatever your floppy disk is. Are you familiar with commands like CD, Dir, List, etc.? You're making me feel like an old fogey now, for using dos commands, haha. ;)
I don't know where the file is on the floppy disk, but it's there somewhere, probably in some subdirectory. You need to get it from there, into the C directory on your boot partition so you can add it to your Startup-Sequence.
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Gaah, you're killing me now, man. You just need to copy the file from where ever it is on the floppy disk, into the C directory on your hard drive. Have you never used DOS before? ;)
Like if the file is in the directory "Tools", you'd type:
copy df0:tools/acatune to SYS:C
Or if the file is in a directory called "Utilities", you'd type:
copy df0:utilities/acatune to SYS:C
Or if the file is on a floppy disk in an external drive, you'd replace df0: with df1: or df2: or whatever your floppy disk is. Are you familiar with commands like CD, Dir, List, etc.? You're making me feel like an old fogey now, for using dos commands, haha. ;)
I don't know where the file is on the floppy disk, but it's there somewhere, probably in some subdirectory. You need to get it from there, into the C directory on your boot partition so you can add it to your Startup-Sequence.
Nope, only used command lines for formatting and copying disks many moons ago. I insert the disk, the acatune appears as an icon on my desktop. I click it and a window opens; inside is acatune icon and a readme icon. I have no idea where any other files pertaining to acatune might be, if thats what you mean.
Here's a pic, ignore the memory info at the top, the cards maprom feature has not been activated by me yet. How the heck do I locate the acatune directory then?
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You need to get a book, man. ;)
Put the disk in the floppy drive. I assume you only have one drive, so that's df0:
Open a Shell window (usually in Workbench:System, in your case it would probably be in WB:System, since your Workbench partition is named weirdly).
Type:
cd df0:
then type:
list
We need to find where on the disk the command is located. Respond back with a screenshot of the directory listing of df0:
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Just looking at the top of your screenshot again, ClassicWB is eating up more than half of your available chip memory. That is *HORRIBLE*, BTW. Dislike, seriously. :( Hopefully when you get the memory activated on your ACA, that will resolve itself somewhat.
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You need to get a book, man. ;)
Put the disk in the floppy drive. I assume you only have one drive, so that's df0:
Open a Shell window (usually in Workbench:System, in your case it would probably be in WB:System, since your Workbench partition is named weirdly).
Type:
cd df0:
then type:
list
We need to find where on the disk the command is located. Respond back with a screenshot of the directory listing of df0:
I typed "cd df0:" into the shell, i then hit the return key.
Then i typed list and hit the return key again.
And yes i only have one disk drive, Here's the pic
Sheesh, I gotta hit the sack as I have work in 7 hours... To be continued...
Good night Mike...
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All right, well it looks like there's only three files on that disk:
ACATune-readme.txt
ACATune
Disk.info
That makes it easy. Ignore the Disk.info, that's just the icon for when you install the disk.
So:
copy df0:ACATune to SYS:C
That will put the acatune command into your C directory. Now perform the Startup-Sequence edits from earlier in this thread. ;)
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Eureka!!...kind of...
I copied acatune to the "C" directory. I then checked the status of the aca, here's the pic attached. I then did a soft reset to check if the other mem would stay and erm crikey...now Its not not loading my harddrive/cf card. It goes straight to the regular workbench screen. Strange... Perhaps I can change the boot priority in boot options, pic also attached.
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Aah, you shouldn't need to mess with boot priority, what did you do to your startup-sequence???
Edit: When you say "not loading your hard drive", do you mean Workbench isn't loading properly? It just goes to a shell command prompt?
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Hello Adrian. Disregard what I said in an earlier post about that SLOWRAM!
My Amiga is in bits at the moment but today I hooked up my ACA1232 and mine also says SLOWRAM in Sysinfo. It's perfectly normal, your screen shot looks the same as mine. I had the 33MHz card connected and got 7.88 mips speed from Sysinfo. You should get a faster reading at 40MHz though...9.x I should think. It's obviously not slow ram though as that's not possible...there's only chip ram (2mb) and any other ram on an A1200 will always be fast ram, so just ignore Sysinfo here, I think the rom remapping is confusing it.
:)
And yes, it's perfectly normal that the memory that is added when you run the ACATune command disappears again after a reboot. But this doesn't matter because the command will be run in your Startup-Sequence everytime that your Amiga boots.
On the other hand, if you were to softkick 3.1 then the memory would always be there after the first initial boot...but I don't want to confuse you about that as it's not important at all.
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Aah, you shouldn't need to mess with boot priority, what did you do to your startup-sequence???
Edit: When you say "not loading your hard drive", do you mean Workbench isn't loading properly? It just goes to a shell command prompt?
No, its simply bypassing the cfcard entirely and loading the regular boot screen, the one that prompts you to insert the floppy disks. Its acting like there is no cf card at all.
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My Amiga is in bits at the moment but today I hooked up my ACA1232 and mine also says SLOWRAM in Sysinfo. It's perfectly normal, your screen shot looks the same as mine. I had the 33MHz card connected and got 7.88 mips speed from Sysinfo. You should get a faster reading at 40MHz though...9.x I should think. It's obviously not slow ram though as that's not possible...there's only chip ram (2mb) and any other ram on an A1200 will always be fast ram, so just ignore Sysinfo here, I think the rom remapping is confusing it.
I would check this carefully. I think because the RAM isn't there at initial power-on (i.e., not autoconfig, but waiting until you add it via the startup-sequence) all that stuff is getting loaded into "slow" (i.e., chip) ram, because that's the only ram that the system "sees" upon initial power on. Dunno. How much chip ram do you have available after boot?
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No, its simply bypassing the cfcard entirely and loading the regular boot screen, the one that prompts you to insert the floppy disks. Its acting like there is no cf card at all.
But the card shows up in early startup? Assuming nothing got knocked loose, hold down both mouse buttons. Boot with no startup-sequence. Type:
ed s:Startup-Sequence
Does the startup-sequence load? Post a screenshot. Don't make any changes at this point. ;)
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But the card shows up in early startup? Assuming nothing got knocked loose, hold down both mouse buttons. Boot with no startup-sequence. Type:
ed s:Startup-Sequence
Does the startup-sequence load? Post a screenshot. Don't make any changes at this point. ;)
It seems that now I can only access the cfcard by first booting from my wb 3.1 floppy. The cfcard classic wb desktop appears but now the floppy 3.1 is a bootable icon here. I need to change it to prioritise the cfcard/hardrive to boot first?
I'll try what you said.
Ok. first it said please insert env; i cancelled this prompt. then it loaded the startup sequence, pic attached.
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I would check this carefully. I think because the RAM isn't there at initial power-on (i.e., not autoconfig, but waiting until you add it via the startup-sequence) all that stuff is getting loaded into "slow" (i.e., chip) ram, because that's the only ram that the system "sees" upon initial power on. Dunno. How much chip ram do you have available after boot?
There's always 1MB of fast ram from the ACA card from power on, so nothing eats chip ram here. But to avoid the system finally eating into chip ram (when the 1MB is used up, probably after booting ClassicWB) then the acatune command line needs to be run as early as possible...ie 1st command executed in the Startup-Sequence is the best place, plus it means you get faster booting as it remaps the kickstart to fast ram.
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No, its simply bypassing the cfcard entirely and loading the regular boot screen, the one that prompts you to insert the floppy disks. Its acting like there is no cf card at all.
Quoting from the ACATune-readme:
ACAtune -maprom * p
With Kickstart in fastmem, the computer starts extremely fast. Sometimes so fast that the Gayle chip is not yet out of reset state - it will miss some accesses. As a result, the computer does not find a harddisk and comes up with the "insert disk" screen, waiting for a bootable disk to be inserted. By adding the "p" option to your maprom command line, ACAtune will attempt to patch the kickstart and insert a short waiting period on every reset. This will give the Gayle chip and harddrives enough time to wake up from reset condition and go into normal operation. The screen is turned light brown during the waiting period.
It could be this. On your ACATune line in your Startup-Sequence, after the '*' write a 'p' as shown above. So '....maprom * p >ram:acaoutput.txt'
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Quoting from the ACATune-readme:
ACAtune -maprom * p
With Kickstart in fastmem, the computer starts extremely fast. Sometimes so fast that the Gayle chip is not yet out of reset state - it will miss some accesses. As a result, the computer does not find a harddisk and comes up with the "insert disk" screen, waiting for a bootable disk to be inserted. By adding the "p" option to your maprom command line, ACAtune will attempt to patch the kickstart and insert a short waiting period on every reset. This will give the Gayle chip and harddrives enough time to wake up from reset condition and go into normal operation. The screen is turned light brown during the waiting period.
It could be this. On your ACATune line in your Startup-Sequence, after the '*' write a 'p' as shown above. So '....maprom * p >ram:acaoutput.txt'
I added the "p" the screen turned browne a few times and when it stopped loading, i was left with a blank screen.
The system is shagged now it seems. The cfcard desktop appears but nothing works, no programs whatsoever will launch. Only the wb 3.1 floppy icon works.
There was some boot options in a settings/startup. They were:
Sequence, user, assign, cliboot,wbsmanager, minboot, safe, runlist, shell and whdload. I may have changed these yesterday by accident; I know I clicked on minboot and on safe. Could this be the problem?
Pic attached shows system memory upon boot up; the other mem now stays at about 249,736 upon boot-up. soft and hard resets have no effect on it now.
Now this is getting annoying...grrr:(:)
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There was some boot options in a settings/startup. They were:
Sequence, user, assign, cliboot,wbsmanager, minboot, safe, runlist, shell and whdload. I may have changed these yesterday by accident; I know I clicked on minboot and on safe. Could this be the problem?
This is ClassicWB stuff here, not standard Amiga settings. No idea. Format the hard drive and reinstall your operating system. Get rid of that ClassicWB crap. Honestly, that's what I would do. How did you get stuck with that, anyway?
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This is ClassicWB stuff here, not standard Amiga settings. No idea. Format the hard drive and reinstall your operating system. Get rid of that ClassicWB crap. Honestly, that's what I would do. How did you get stuck with that, anyway?
This is what came on the cf card. Everything is set up, programs, whdload etc. If i format I lose everything.
I'll have to check if the damn cf card came loose inside the case, I guess...
Is there any command to get the system to boot from hardisk as a priority over floppy/df0? Scutterbucket!:)
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This is what came on the cf card. Everything is set up, programs, whdload etc. If i format I lose everything.
I'll have to check if the damn cf card came loose inside the case, I guess...
Is there any command to get the system to boot from hardisk as a priority over floppy/df0? Scutterbucket!:)
Why is your Workbench floppy inserted? It will boot from floppy if a floppy is inserted.
The screen shot you show above, was that booting from hard drive or floppy?
You don't need to alter any boot priorities, they are setup fine.
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Why is your Workbench floppy inserted? It will boot from floppy if a floppy is inserted.
The screen shot you show above, was that booting from hard drive or floppy?
You don't need to alter any boot priorities, they are setup fine.
I see. Yes from floppy. I can only boot from floppy now it seems. When i copied the acatune to the C directory, this happened, after i did a soft reset.
I was checking to see if the other mem would disappear after a reset.
No clue, maybe some confliction with classic wb?
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You had it working in post #61. From there all that needed to be done was to add the acatune line to the beginning of the Startup-Sequence. It's annoying for me and Mike as well as we've put efforts in to help and still haven't managed to help you yet!
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I see. Yes from floppy. I can only boot from floppy now it seems. When i copied the acatune to the C directory, this happened, after i did a soft reset.
I was checking to see if the other mem would disappear after a reset.
No clue, maybe some confliction with classic wb?
Please boot from your Workbench floppy. Go into Workbench3.0 and then into Utilities, then load the program 'Multiview'. A file requester will appear. Press Volumes and go into drive DH0: ... then drawer 'S' ... then double click the file 'Startup-Sequence'. I'd like to see it.
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I'm sure a more experienced user could fix this in like, five minutes, if it was in front of them. Did you buy the card pre-configured from someone? Was it cheap? You may just want to buy another one, and this time make NO CHANGES to it, other than to put the acatune command as the first line in the startup-sequence.
Heck, if it wasn't so expensive and time consuming, I'd almost say just mail me the CF card and I'll fix whatever you've got going on there. ;) Suffice it to say, I think one of those settings you accidentally changed messed up the startup of the thing. And it probably is something really, really simple. But really hard to diagnose via forums. Man do I miss user's groups. :(
Do you have any spare CF cards and set of Workbench disks perchance?
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My battery is about dead so will have to call it a night. Push comes to shove you can post me your CF card and I will fix it for you if necessary, so all is not lost.
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Please boot from your Workbench floppy. Go into Workbench3.0 and then into Utilities, then load the program 'Multiview'. A file requester will appear. Press Volumes and go into drive DH0: ... then drawer 'S' ... then double click the file 'Startup-Sequence'. I'd like to see it.
j
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I'm sure a more experienced user could fix this in like, five minutes, if it was in front of them. Did you buy the card pre-configured from someone? Was it cheap? You may just want to buy another one, and this time make NO CHANGES to it, other than to put the acatune command as the first line in the startup-sequence.
Heck, if it wasn't so expensive and time consuming, I'd almost say just mail me the CF card and I'll fix whatever you've got going on there. ;) Suffice it to say, I think one of those settings you accidentally changed messed up the startup of the thing. And it probably is something really, really simple. But really hard to diagnose via forums. Man do I miss user's groups. :(
Do you have any spare CF cards and set of Workbench disks perchance?
This is the one http://my.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyEbay&gbh=1&CurrentPage=MyeBayWon&ssPageName=STRK:ME:LNLK:MEWNX
It cost me 70 euros in total. So not cheap. If all else fails I will send it to Paul.
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j
The ACATune line looks good. PM me and I'll reply with my postal address if you want me to sort it out for you. Like Mike says, I'm sure it's something simple that is wrong but hard for a novice to see. I'm on holiday in 8 days time however, so will need posting immediately and first class.
Is it still not booting at all from the CF drive? Or does it boot but go to a black screen?
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The ACATune line looks good. PM me and I'll reply with my postal address if you want me to sort it out for you. Like Mike says, I'm sure it's something simple that is wrong but hard for a novice to see. I'm on holiday in 8 days time however, so will need posting immediately and first class.
Is it still not booting at all from the CF drive? Or does it boot but go to a black screen?
Yup, it boots and then alternates between a black screen and a brown screen several times and then finally goes to a black screen.
Edit. I'll have to open the miggy up to take out the card, so i should check if it came loose, though i doubt it. Failing that I'll send it your way.
I need to untangle my brain after a long days work; I'll break out the screwdriver later.
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Well that is no bueno at all. But it boots fine off floppy disk still?
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Well that is no bueno at all. But it boots fine off floppy disk still?
Yep. It boots from floppy fine.
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Yup, it boots and then alternates between a black screen and a brown screen several times and then finally goes to a black screen.
Edit. I'll have to open the miggy up to take out the card, so i should check if it came loose, though i doubt it. Failing that I'll send it your way.
I need to untangle my brain after a long days work; I'll break out the screwdriver later.
You're saying it boots now, whereas before you said it was at the purple 'insert disk' type screen. Do you think then that putting the 'p' on the ACATune line to delay the startup is actually causing your black screen after it boots? If it is indeed booting from the hard drive now, try changing the ACATune line to just the basic option and cold boot:
C:ACATune >ram:acaoutput.txt
Or better still, before you do that just put a ';' at the beginning of the ACATune line so that it comments the line out (which means it will read the line as a comment and will not execute the ACATune command line). Your Startup-Sequence will then act as if the ACATune line isn't even there, so that we can see if you can boot correctly again without the ACATune line.
;C:ACATune -cache on - burst on....ETC
So, if booting from your Workbench floppy; to edit the CF Hard Drive Startup-Sequence you'd type 'ed dh0:s/startup-sequence' into a shell, or use the Execute Command in the Workbench menu.
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You're saying it boots now, whereas before you said it was at the purple 'insert disk' type screen. Do you think then that putting the 'p' on the ACATune line to delay the startup is actually causing your black screen after it boots? If it is indeed booting from the hard drive now, try changing the ACATune line to just the basic option and cold boot:
C:ACATune >ram:acaoutput.txt
Or better still, before you do that just put a ';' at the beginning of the ACATune line so that it comments the line out (which means it will read the line as a comment and will not execute the ACATune command line). Your Startup-Sequence will then act as if the ACATune line isn't even there, so that we can see if you can boot correctly again without the ACATune line.
;C:ACATune -cache on - burst on....ETC
So, if booting from your Workbench floppy; to edit the CF Hard Drive Startup-Sequence you'd type 'ed dh0:s/startup-sequence' into a shell, or use the Execute Command in the Workbench menu.
Ok. I accessed the startup sequence via the shell, having booted from floppy. I removed the "P". I then turned the power brick off and then back on. It now goes straight to the insert floppy disc screen. There was no hardrive activity at all.
One curious thing, and Ive double checked, If put the W.B 3.1 floppy in the drive and then power on at the brick, It boots into the cf hardrive desktop.
Here the W.B 3.1 floppy icon is selectable. If I attempt to load anything via the cf desktop it says programs/tools not found etc. Here i can access the cfcard startup sequence via the w.b 3.1 floppy.
However, if I turn on the amiga at the brick and then insert the W.B 3.1 floppy, it boots staright into the W.B 3.1 floppy desktop. Here there is no visible sign of the cf desktop. Strange.
And here i cannot access the cfcard startup sequence via the w.b 3.1 floppy.
And yes indeed, adding the ";" to the startup sequence has fixed the cf card. Its working fine again. Damn good thinking chap!
But we are back to the same problem...I have to manually add the other mem via the maprom * command.
Perhaps the acatune startup command would have to be placed somewhere else in the startup sequence. Perhaps classic workbench is
loading something else first? Or there is some kind of confliction?
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And yes indeed, adding the ";" to the startup sequence has fixed the cf card. Its working fine again. Damn good thinking chap!
Perhaps the acatune startup command would have to be placed somewhere else in the startup sequence. Perhaps classic workbench is
loading something else first? Or there is some kind of confliction?
adding the ";" semi-colon to the startup-sequence hasn't fixed anything. All it does is disable the command from running. Basically you're right back to square one again.
ACATune needs to be run as the first line in startup-sequence. It just has to. Well, I suppose it could be run later, but then you're loosing most of the benefits of the thing in the first place. I'm still going to go with "You have an incompatibility with ClassicWB" here, on this one. In one of your earlier screenshots you posted a picture of the first portion of your startup-sequence. This looks absolutely nothing like a normal Amiga startup-sequence should look, and included the line:
C:Execute S:Maxmem-Sequence
I have no idea what that is. Never heard of it, and is just one possible source of your compatibility issues.
Now personally I've never used ClassicWB and I never would. I think it's absolute rubbish, but that's just my .02 cents, I'm pretty opinionated about this stuff. I think you could get everything working perfectly if you went with a normal installation of Workbench. But barring that, you might want to start googling terms like "classicWB issues with ACA card". Maybe someone else has already had this same problem and there's an answer posted somewhere?
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adding the ";" semi-colon to the startup-sequence hasn't fixed anything. All it does is disable the command from running. Basically you're right back to square one again.
ACATune needs to be run as the first line in startup-sequence. It just has to. Well, I suppose it could be run later, but then you're loosing most of the benefits of the thing in the first place. I'm still going to go with "You have an incompatibility with ClassicWB" here, on this one. In one of your earlier screenshots you posted a picture of the first portion of your startup-sequence. This looks absolutely nothing like a normal Amiga startup-sequence should look, and included the line:
C:Execute S:Maxmem-Sequence
I have no idea what that is. Never heard of it, and is just one possible source of your compatibility issues.
Now personally I've never used ClassicWB and I never would. I think it's absolute rubbish, but that's just my .02 cents, I'm pretty opinionated about this stuff. I think you could get everything working perfectly if you went with a normal installation of Workbench. But barring that, you might want to start googling terms like "classicWB issues with ACA card". Maybe someone else has already had this same problem and there's an answer posted somewhere?
No luck googling...Perhaps i could message the e-bay seller, it was he who set up the card in the first place. Worth a try?
Lol. Googling "classic workbench issues with aca1233" brings up this thread...circular hilarity.
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No luck googling...Perhaps i could message the e-bay seller, it was he who set up the card in the first place. Worth a try?
Couldn't hurt I suppose. Tell him you're trying to modify the startup-sequence to add the ACAtune command but after it's added the system won't boot. What you need is someone who's an expert at both ClassicWB and that particular piece of hardware that you own, however. I'm surprised there's not more ClassicWB users chiming in here. Maybe they've all been scared off by the length of this thread, lol. ;)
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And yes indeed, adding the ";" to the startup sequence has fixed the cf card. Its working fine again. Damn good thinking chap!
But we are back to the same problem...I have to manually add the other mem via the maprom * command.
Perhaps the acatune startup command would have to be placed somewhere else in the startup sequence. Perhaps classic workbench is
loading something else first? Or there is some kind of confliction?
It's good news that your system is still working after using the ';' to comment out the line. I did say though to try this afterwards (in your Startup-Sequence):
C:ACATune >ram:acaoutput.txt
This will simply add the extra memory at every boot. So try that, and see if that works. We'll take it from there.
P.S. The maprom feature is nothing to do with adding the extra memory.
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It's good news that your system is still working after using the ';' to comment out the line. I did say though to try this afterwards (in your Startup-Sequence):
C:ACATune >ram:acaoutput.txt
This will simply add the extra memory at every boot. So try that, and see if that works. We'll take it from there.
P.S. The maprom feature is nothing to do with adding the extra memory.
Ok. Will try this tomorrow. Lost myself in whdload games for a few hours...
Bedtime...
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It's good news that your system is still working after using the ';' to comment out the line. I did say though to try this afterwards (in your Startup-Sequence):
C:ACATune >ram:acaoutput.txt
This will simply add the extra memory at every boot. So try that, and see if that works. We'll take it from there.
P.S. The maprom feature is nothing to do with adding the extra memory.
I tried this and it seemed to work. Upon a soft reset, ctrl,A+A the other mem remained and there was lots of it.
Sadly powering off at the brick and powering back on it did not work. The hardisk drive light attempts to load but just results in a black screen.
So, perhaps the line we added to the startup sequence is conflicting with the hardware boot-up but not the soft reset?
We are making progress at least.
What next maestro?
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I tried this and it seemed to work. Upon a soft reset, ctrl,A+A the other mem remained and there was lots of it.
Sadly powering off at the brick and powering back on it did not work. The hardisk drive light attempts to load but just results in a black screen.
What next maestro?
I wonder if you've had issues with the reset signal on pin 1 of the ide cable as mentioned here under the 'Hard Drives' section:
http://www.lysator.liu.se/amiga/hard/txt/a1200hardfaq.html
Or even the slow spin-up issue of Kickstart 3.0? Does anyone know if any of those issues are possible with a CF hard drive on the 1200's ide port?
When you say that the hard disk light attempts to load, does the light flicker in the same manner and for the same length of time as it does when it normally boots?
Also, when it's in this 'black screen' state, if you reset the Amiga and hold both mouse buttons down to get into the Amiga Early Startup Control; do your hard drive partitions show up? If they do, what happens if you select the button 'Boot with no Startup-Sequence'? Does it take you to the AmigaDOS prompt?
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I wonder if you've had issues with the reset signal on pin 1 of the ide cable as mentioned here under the 'Hard Drives' section:
http://www.lysator.liu.se/amiga/hard/txt/a1200hardfaq.html
Or even the slow spin-up issue of Kickstart 3.0? Does anyone know if any of those issues are possible with a CF hard drive on the 1200's ide port?
When you say that the hard disk light attempts to load, does the light flicker in the same manner and for the same length of time as it does when it normally boots?
Also, when it's in this 'black screen' state, if you reset the Amiga and hold both mouse buttons down to get into the Amiga Early Startup Control; do your hard drive partitions show up? If they do, what happens if you select the button 'Boot with no Startup-Sequence'? Does it take you to the AmigaDOS prompt?
Not sure. It flickers quite a bit, so probably. Yes, I have accessed the amiga dos, just like you said.
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Not sure. It flickers quite a bit, so probably. Yes, I have accessed the amiga dos, just like you said.
Ok, tomorrow when I get home from work I'm going to setup a CF card with ClassicWB Light and boot from it, confirm it's working, then I'll add the ACATune line in and see if I hit any problems. How's that for service? :)
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Ok, tomorrow when I get home from work I'm going to setup a CF card with ClassicWB Light and boot from it, confirm it's working, then I'll add the ACATune line in and see if I hit any problems. How's that for service? :)
Above and beyond the call of duty, my friend. Many thanks. I'm really enjoying my a1200 btw.
An indivision should make the games look really sweet on an lcd telly, when I get one that is.
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Above and beyond the call of duty, my friend. Many thanks. I'm really enjoying my a1200 btw.
An indivision should make the games look really sweet on an lcd telly, when I get one that is.
You're welcome. Anything to help a fellow Amigan...
BTW, what revision is your A1200 motherboard? I'll be using a 1A. A 1A doesn't require timing fixes, but your board may well do, which could possibly be the problem... Or if it's not a problem with the booting issue it will certainly show itself up in WHDLoad with certain games freezing or with graphics corruption.
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You're welcome. Anything to help a fellow Amigan...
BTW, what revision is your A1200 motherboard? I'll be using a 1A. A 1A doesn't require timing fixes, but your board may well do, which could possibly be the problem... Or if it's not a problem with the booting issue it will certainly show itself up in WHDLoad with certain games freezing or with graphics corruption.
I'll open her up this evening and check the board revision. Its written on the board/pcb I'm told. I had some intro screens/menus flicking in and out, as in alternating between black screens and the image itself, but no in-game graphics corruption, thus far. It's worth checking though. I'm determined to get this 1200 up to spec, with all the bells and whistles. Just looking at it sitting on my desk, makes me happy.(How sad am I):laughing:
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You're in luck... :)
I replicated the issue. I can't upload a photo as I have no way to scale down a jpeg file to 97KB on my phone.
Solution:
Move the ACATune line to just above the 'C:GetMouseInput LOCAL'. So it'll look like this:
;ClassicWB Startup-Sequence
;--------------------------------
;LITE 3.1
IF EXISTS DEVS:scsi.device
C:LoadModule DEVS:scsi.device
EndIf
C:ACATune -cache on -burst on -vbrmove -maprom * p >ram:acaoutput.txt
C:GetMouseInput LOCAL
IF $MouseInput EQ 1
...
It turns out that LoadModule doesn't appear to work if run after ACATune in this particular configuration, even if no extra options are added such as maprom. ACATune with no further options simply adds extra memory...but LoadModule doesn't appear to work with it in this way. But this makes sense really... Here we have an ACA1232/1233 that under Kickstart 3.0 doesn't configure all of its extra ram - it only configures 1MB. So after the ACATune command is run, followed by the LoadModule command, the machine resets and because we're running Kickstart 3.0 here the ram is lost and the Amiga configures 1MB again. This then appears to leave us with a black screen, although I was able to hold both mouse buttons down and boot with no startup-sequence and confirmed that the scsi.device was at 37.64 (standard with Kickstart 3.0). Of course, if the LoadModule command had worked then it would have been of a higher level.
There's no real reason for you to upgrade to Kickstart 3.1, but like I said earlier, you can use the ACATune command to softkick 3.1 and if you were to do this then remember to put the ACATune command line back to where it was - before LoadModule.
Also, what capacity is your CF Hard Drive? If it's 4GB which I suspect it is then the scsi.device shouldn't even be there on disk, and you could simply comment out the LoadModule line for a quick fix. If it is only 4GB, then the person who configured your setup has made an error which has cost us both a lot of time (ClassicWB by default doesn't use an upgraded disk based scsi.device, although it is optional).
Let me know how it goes...
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You're in luck... :)
I replicated the issue. I can't upload a photo as I have no way to scale down a jpeg file to 97KB on my phone.
Solution:
Move the ACATune line to just above the 'C:GetMouseInput LOCAL'. So it'll look like this:
;ClassicWB Startup-Sequence
;--------------------------------
;LITE 3.1
IF EXISTS DEVS:scsi.device
C:LoadModule DEVS:scsi.device
EndIf
C:ACATune -cache on -burst on -vbrmove -maprom * p >ram:acaoutput.txt
C:GetMouseInput LOCAL
IF $MouseInput EQ 1
...
It turns out that LoadModule doesn't appear to work if run after ACATune in this particular configuration, even if no extra options are added such as maprom. ACATune with no further options simply adds extra memory...but LoadModule doesn't appear to work with it in this way. But this makes sense really... Here we have an ACA1232/1233 that under Kickstart 3.0 doesn't configure all of its extra ram - it only configures 1MB. So after the ACATune command is run, followed by the LoadModule command, the machine resets and because we're running Kickstart 3.0 here the ram is lost and the Amiga configures 1MB again. This then appears to leave us with a black screen, although I was able to hold both mouse buttons down and boot with no startup-sequence and confirmed that the scsi.device was at 37.64 (standard with Kickstart 3.0). Of course, if the LoadModule command had worked then it would have been of a higher level.
There's no real reason for you to upgrade to Kickstart 3.1, but like I said earlier, you can use the ACATune command to softkick 3.1 and if you were to do this then remember to put the ACATune command line back to where it was - before LoadModule.
Also, what capacity is your CF Hard Drive? If it's 4GB which I suspect it is then the scsi.device shouldn't even be there on disk, and you could simply comment out the LoadModule line for a quick fix. If it is only 4GB, then the person who configured your setup has made an error which has cost us both a lot of time (ClassicWB by default doesn't use an upgraded disk based scsi.device, although it is optional).
Let me know how it goes...
Your an absolute star. I can't thank you enough. Its working now; I'm getting tons of other mem.Two soft resets and a hard reset and the other mem is still there.
Now that's more like it! It would have been a shame not to get the most out of my aca card.:)
The cfcard is 8 gigabytes btw.
It says in the readme that the aca can be used to simulate other system configs, i.e. a 1 meg amiga etc. I noticed some games for example apano sin don't run. Perhaps it requires a specific system set-up?
Anyhow; i guess I could use the acatune floppy to change the config as I needed it, to run a specific game? The setting would be erased upon powering the amiga off anyhow, I guess; and so the acatune startup line as we have it now would remain untouched?
Again thanks very much. And thanks to oldsmobile mike too.
I'll get myself a cd drive soon and then have a crack at setting up this easynet wireless thingy.
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Your an absolute star. I can't thank you enough. Its working now; I'm getting tons of other mem.Two soft resets and a hard reset and the other mem is still there.
Now that's more like it! It would have been a shame not to get the most out of my aca card.:)
The cfcard is 8 gigabytes btw.
It says in the readme that the aca can be used to simulate other system configs, i.e. a 1 meg amiga etc. I noticed some games for example apano sin don't run. Perhaps it requires a specific system set-up?
Anyhow; i guess I could use the acatune floppy to change the config as I needed it, to run a specific game? The setting would be erased upon powering the amiga off anyhow, I guess; and so the acatune startup line as we have it now would remain untouched?
Again thanks very much. And thanks to oldsmobile mike too.
I'll get myself a cd drive soon and then have a crack at setting up this easynet wireless thingy.
You're very welcome. I'm glad it's working for you now.
Apano Sin looks to be a newish game according to Lemon Amiga...Year 2000. This should be hard drive installable anyway, without the need for WHDLoad (source the ADF's online). Do not change the ACATune line now that it's working correctly. The whole idea of WHDLoad is twofold; that it can install games to your hard drive that were originally uninstallable to hard drive, and also that these 'installs' will work on any hardware configuration, whether it be a bog standard 68000 amiga with little ram or a super fast 68060 amiga with 256MB ram. WHDLoad isn't perfect (yet) and nor are all of the installs. Some don't work correctly, some need WHDLoad v16.9, whilst others want 17.1 etc. I'm not quite sure what the latest version is but later versions can break compatibility with older installs - it's a constant battle and updates to the installs to fix issues are ongoing, and quite slow.
If you have problems with particular games or WHDLoad then you should start another thread, as your issues with your ACA1233 are now fixed, and there is nothing more to do here. :)
I wouldn't bother with a CD-ROM drive... you can install most things onto hard disk manually from CD-ROM's. Wireless network card...YES!
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You're very welcome. I'm glad it's working for you now.
Apano Sin looks to be a newish game according to Lemon Amiga...Year 2000. This should be hard drive installable anyway, without the need for WHDLoad (source the ADF's online). Do not change the ACATune line now that it's working correctly. The whole idea of WHDLoad is twofold; that it can install games to your hard drive that were originally uninstallable to hard drive, and also that these 'installs' will work on any hardware configuration, whether it be a bog standard 68000 amiga with little ram or a super fast 68060 amiga with 256MB ram. WHDLoad isn't perfect (yet) and nor are all of the installs. Some don't work correctly, some need WHDLoad v16.9, whilst others want 17.1 etc. I'm not quite sure what the latest version is but later versions can break compatibility with older installs - it's a constant battle and updates to the installs to fix issues are ongoing, and quite slow.
If you have problems with particular games or WHDLoad then you should start another thread, as your issues with your ACA1233 are now fixed, and there is nothing more to do here. :)
I wouldn't bother with a CD-ROM drive... you can install most things onto hard disk manually from CD-ROM's. Wireless network card...YES!
Yup, I have the easynet wireless network thingie, but no cd drive to install the software, which comes on a cd. Lol.
Perhaps I should rename this thread as "Aca 1233, problems with classic workbench". So if anyone has the same trouble in the future they can search out this thread.
Now that we(you) have solved the problem, let all Amigans drink from the goblet of wisdom...:lol::)
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You're in luck... :)
I replicated the issue.
That is some top-notch troubleshooting right there. Kudos and dancing bananas to you!
:banana::banana:
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Yup, I have the easynet wireless network thingie, but no cd drive to install the software, which comes on a cd. Lol.
Perhaps I should rename this thread as "Aca 1233, problems with classic workbench". So if anyone has the same trouble in the future they can search out this thread.
Now that we(you) have solved the problem, let all Amigans drink from the goblet of wisdom...:lol::)
Get a EasyADF PCMCIA Compact Flash Transfer Kit (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=440)STAT! They are great!
Better yet... get a Rapid Road USB Controller for A1200 (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=1213) Even better!
Copy your EasyNet CD to a flash stick or CF card. I like the USB method better as you don't have to get a USB to CF adapter for the PC side. :)
You the MAN Paul!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0703/xr4timan/YouDaMan.jpg)
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Yup, I have the easynet wireless network thingie, but no cd drive to install the software, which comes on a cd. Lol.
Perhaps I should rename this thread as "Aca 1233, problems with classic workbench". So if anyone has the same trouble in the future they can search out this thread.
Now that we(you) have solved the problem, let all Amigans drink from the goblet of wisdom...:lol::)
I'm surprised it comes on a CD. My point was that if you had a network connection to your Amiga then you could download ISO's and mount the CD images on your hard drive without even having a CD drive. Plus, you don't want to keep unplugging your network card every time you want to use the CD drive, surely? I understand the chicken and egg scenario here, but I've always solved things like this with the good ol' floppy drive. :)
The only time I'd ever unplug a wireless card from an A1200 would be if I was going to plug in a CF card adapter - certainly not a CD-ROM drive.
@Mike - Cheers!
@gizmo - I used to have my hair center parted just like that.
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Get a EasyADF PCMCIA Compact Flash Transfer Kit (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=440)STAT! They are great!
Better yet... get a Rapid Road USB Controller for A1200 (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=1213) Even better!
Copy your EasyNet CD to a flash stick or CF card. I like the USB method better as you don't have to get a USB to CF adapter for the PC side. :)
You the MAN Paul!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0703/xr4timan/YouDaMan.jpg)
EasyADF PCMCIA Compact Flash Transfer Kit (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=440) Yup, i think I need me one of those.