A500 Clockport + Silver Surfer problems

[cpfuture]

Hi friends,

I bought an A500 Clock Port Adapter from Jens Schönfeld's Individual Computers including a Silver Surfer serial device a long while ago and finally got around to installing them this night.

I installed the clock port adapter per instructions and then connected the Silver Surfer in a standard A500+ with a 68000 CPU and 2 Megs of Chip RAM. I was trying to use it with AmiPPP to speed up the serial PPP link I have to my iMac, which in turn has a RS232-to-USB adapter that allows for fast serial comms.

Alas, AmiPPP just says "Could not open serial device" when I select silversurfer.device as the serial device to use, no matter what baud rate I try.

Now, I'm suspecting either the clock port adapter or the Silver Surfer is broken, but how can I be sure which one it is? Is there any utility that can detect the presence of a clock port so I can rule out the clock port? I don't mind buying a new clock port adapter if it's broken, but buying both seems like a waste of money.

 :-(

[cpfuture]

Hi Argus,

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, I connected the Silver Surfer to the correct clock port (0). I also believe the orientation is correct, because it's the only way it would physically fit on clock port 0.

I'll try and ask Jens. I don't mind buying a new Clockport adapter or Silver Surfer, but I'd rather not buy both if only one of the two is busted. ;-)

Thanks again!

[cpfuture]

I have tried the second clock port as well (although it was a tight fit). Unfortunately that didn't work either. I have the 1.2 version IIRC, which has a white board. I connected the extra socket under the correct CIA chip.

The little wire that that connects the Clockport board tothe CIA socket did come loose and I resoldered it to the board. My soldering skills suck, but it really looks like I've reattached it to the board OK. I suppose this could be a possible cause, although I hope not, because I don't think I could do a better job than I've already done.

I mailed Jens, BTW. Will definitely report back as soon as I have more news.

[cpfuture]

Hi,

Just an update. I didn't get any answer from Jens yet, so I assume he's busy. I've had some time tonight to see if it's just AmiPPP that's having problems with silversurfer.device, so I wrote a short program in Blitz Basic that opens the serial.device and then the silversurfer.device. Serial.device returns a non-zero value (which is good), but the silversurfer.device doesn't, so obviously it's almost certainly a HW problem.

I also tried an older version of silversurfer.device from the included driver disk and the latest version from Jens' site, but all gave the same results. I'm guessing that the clockport adapter is busted. Unfortunately I haven't found a way to test for the presence of a clock port, but I've just ordered a new one from Vesalia and will know soon enough.. I'd really like that hardware accelerated, faster serial port on my A500!!

[cpfuture]

Well, the new A500 Clockport arrived yesterday and I tried it immediately, Unfortunately I have the same problem, so I'm assuming it's the Silver Surfer that was faulty. This sucks, as the original Clockport I had was probably just fine. Sigh... I just ordered a new Silver Surfer. I *really* hope that will fix it....

[cpfuture]

Hi Oli_hd,

Yeah, I just checked to be sure. The driver on the included disk supposedly wasn't 68000 compatible, but the latest driver on Individual Computers' site is. I downloaded and tried that one as well. I've tried three different versions in total and none of them seemed to work. The most recent one I found is version 2.104.

The program I wrote uses OpenSerial() which is (I assume) an OS call that BlitzBasic simply calls, which should return a structure pointer on succes and 0 on failure.  The regular serial.device returns a non-zero value, but all the versions of silversurfer.device I tried returned 0.  :-(

Unfortunately I don't have any serial modems lying around anymore and the included connector is the 25-pin kind and I don't have a 25-to-9 pin adapter to connect a mouse. I assume the RS232-USB device is OK, since it works perfectly on my A500's standard serial port (albeit slow and CPU hungry!)

[cpfuture]

Hi HyAmi,

I have the 1.2 board which should be compatible. I originally planned to connect the A500 Clockport Adapter + Silver Surfer to my CDTV. I still have an email from Jens telling me that should work just fine, so I'm guessing this version works fine in a 68000 A500 as well.

[cpfuture]

Hi HyAmi,

The Clockport Adapter has 2 clockports. There's only 1 way it will fit on clockport 0 without modifying the A500's case. Clockport 1 is placed in such a way that it's possible to connect the Silver Surfer in 2 ways. I just tried it the other way around (since I'm already getting a new Silver Surfer) and the A500 won't even startup, just displaying a black screen. When I flip the Silver Surfer around on clockport 1 the A500 will boot normally again. So although I can't fit the Silver Surfer the other way around in clockport 0 I assume that's not the correct way, since my A500 does boot OK with the Silver Surfer connected to clockport 0 in the only way it can be without modifying the case.

I just remembered that I have an A1200 lying around somewhere. I guess I could install the Silver Surfer in my A1200 to see if it's really busted.

[cpfuture]

Hi Patrik,

Well, I'm afraid that I haven't done anything with the Silver Surfer and clock port since my last post, but it's interesting to hear you've been having the same problem. I still have to try and test the Silver Surfer out on my A1200 one day to rule out a problem with it.

[cpfuture]

Well, almost 5 years since the first post in this thread (my god, how time flies....) and I have finally found out why the Silver Surfer did not work with my A500. Apparently, the official Silver Surfer driver does not function on an A500! It actively looks for 'card.resource', which is obviously not present on an A500 (no PCMCIA slot).

Here's a very detailed and excellent blog posting about it, including a patched version of the driver that should work with the A500. It fixes the card.resource dependency and makes the driver 68000 compatible as well! (the original driver uses 68020 long branch instructions)

SilverSurfer patched for Amiga 500

I wish I had known this in 2007. It would have saved me the purchase of a Silver Surfer, two A500 clock adapters and a lot of wasted time.... but then again, that's all part of the game in this crazy hobby. Vesalia advertised the A500 clock port adapter as compatible with the Silver Surfer, which is why I (and I assume several others) have purchased these devices for the purpose of having a fast serial port on our A500.

I don't need a Silver Surfer anymore, so it doesn't affect me, but it's good news that this incompatibility seems to have been fixed!! Oh and the rest of the blog is a must read as well!