Zorro III USB - Deneb

[mboehmer_e3b]

Any release date set?

Not yet, we hope to make it to Xmas this year (announcement of the year seems to be necessary on Amiga market ;-) )

I'm quite busy with real life at the moment, and I must order things after their urgency. At least my desktop is in operation again, so I can try to get the last few developments done for this card.

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

What about a USB Ethernet dongle? We're talking USB speeds of 12MB/sec on this baby!!

Ethernet on USB2 is definitely the way to go here.

About the 12MB/s measurement: it was on a A3640 card, which has no onboard RAM. So the 12MB/s are Zorro III to motherboard RAM, and the speed is higher as on CPU card addon RAM, as there are fewer levels of logic in the data path (bus drivers, MACHs, ...). On the other hand, the A3640 is dead slow when accessing motherboard RAM, so things equalize here again.

You can expect DMA performances of the about 8MB/s to 10MB/s in real life, depending on the hardware setup you have, and about 4MB/s to 6MB/s when running in PIO mode (as explained on a1k.org this is a matter of Buster features, indeed).
But don't fix me on these numbers, development is still ongoing, and timings may or may not change - better have a stable system with slightly less performance than a faster system with hangups and data losses.
Speed is not everything.

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

Is it Zorro III only or does it do Auto Sensing?

Autosensing, with own FPGA designs for Zorro II and Zorro III. At the moment only Zorro III is working, but Zorro II is under development. FPGA designs (i.e. hardware functionality) can be  updated by software without any changes in hardware in your Amiga, so if new firmware is released, you just can get it without sending in the card or replacing logic chips.

For USB2 you need DMA and high bus speeds, so Zorro III was the natural starting point ;-)

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

However, I remember Chris Hodges stating on the Highway mailing list that Poseidon 3.8 might be the last 68K version, so what can we expect regarding poseidon (68K version) development, updates, new drivers/classes and support when this card gets released?

Maybe he needed a challenge like Zorro III DMA? :-)

Please ask him directly, as I can't give any statements on his future plans.

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

Fast Zorro IV is also supported.

Erm. Fast-Zorro II, as it uses the same connector and same signals as Zorro II.
Zorro IV uses a custom connector and is not documentated at all, even the pinout of the VG96 connector is unknown. So support for Zorro IV is not planned, as it would need a) an adaptor (VG96 to Zorro II edge connector), and b) documentation for Zorro IV, and I doubt that ElBugs would offer me that for free :-)

From the technical point of view it would be possible to program the DENEB FPGA for Zorro IV support with a suitable connector adaptor to fit the VG96 connector.

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

countzero wrote:
thanks mboehmer, when chris said Zorro IV support is underway, I nearly had a heart attack  :lol:

Zorro IV lacks only documentation, and time to implement it :-)

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

Can you examplify setups that will cause DMA not to work ?

Buster 7: no DMA at all

Buster 9: several Zorro III busmasters possible, but only with workaround (aka Fastlane).

Buster 11: only one active Zorro III busmaster.

Zorro III busmasters are:
- A3000T/A4000T internal SCSI controller (unfortunately)
- any DMA card like A4091 and Fastlane Z3
- Deneb

Only Zorro III busmasters with Buster 9 workaround: Fastlane Z3 and Deneb.

So: internal SCSI on A3000T/A4000T is a pitfall!

DMA examples:
- A4000D, A4091, Buster 9/11, Deneb
- A4000T, no internal SCSI, Buster 11, Deneb

no DMA examples:
- A4000T, internal SCSI in use, Buster 9/11, Deneb
- A4000T, no internal SCSI in use, Buster 11, A4091, Deneb

Non-DMA Zorro III cards do not influence the DMA systems, neither do CPU port turbo cards with own SCSI controller.

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

I would also want to pre-order a Deneb. Any chance e3B will be doing it though AmigaKit? I'm there.

It's nice to see that so many people do really trust us - but we won't do any preorder business.

E3B takes the risk until the production is done, and won't outsource the risk to its customers.

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

The Deneb card have a Flash to put the kick modules like in the romulus or Algor Usb???

The Deneb does include FlashROM for user applications, besides the FPGA boot FlashROM.

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

Any update on the development status of the Deneb?

More on the production status of the Deneb :-)

We had a machine breakdown in our assembly line, which is started this week again. It needed some repair and setup again, so we lost some time in production.
So - things are in production, but delayed due to this failure.

Development of the FPGA logic will be continued, we have a freezeout version for this production run, but hardware upgrades for this part of the Deneb are a matter of software, which can be done easily in your own computer without removing the card. Flexibility is the magic word here :-)

Sorry for the shortness, I'm in a hurry :-(

Michael