DKB Multistart II in A600?

[orb85750]

Does anyone know if the DKB Multistart II will work in an Amiga 600?  The manual indicates and contains instructions for A500 and A2000, but it probably came out before the A600 was even released.  I don't want to attempt to destroy my A600 without some help from you, if you know something?  :-)  Thanks.

[amigadave]

Does anyone know if the DKB Multistart II will work in an Amiga 600?  The manual indicates and contains instructions for A500 and A2000, but it probably came out before the A600 was even released.  I don't want to attempt to destroy my A600 without some help from you, if you know something?  :-)  Thanks.

Good question and I wish I had the answer for you, but don't know for sure.  I think it should work with no problem, but have no evidence that it does.  Are you planning the installation of Kickstart 2.05 and 3.1 ROMs into the MultiStartII?  I doubt that there were ever any Kickstart 1.3 ROMs created for the A600, after-the-fact, as you said the A600 came out after many items were created for the Amiga, such as the MultiStartII itself.

Let us know if you get brave and test it out on your A600, but I think soft-kicking would be a safer choice that most people would use instead of the MultiStartII.

[tone007]

I think as long as the magical keyboard ROM switching thing works with the 600, it'll be fine.  I have a single chip in my 600 with 1.3, 2.05, and 3.1 Kickstarts on it and they all work, though it's being switched with a plain old hardware switch.

[orb85750]

OK, so I guess I would just follow the instructions for the A500 then?  (The problem is that there is a wire jumper that hooks up to Gary chip -- concerns me.)  I really want the 1.3 option so that I can be fully compatible with old games on disk.  What type of reliable softkick options are there?  I know nothing about doing a softkick.  Maybe I should try that before deciding whether to do the hardware surgery.

[tone007]

Oh yeah, no Gary in the A600. Tricky.

[save2600]

I think as long as the magical keyboard ROM switching thing works with the 600, it'll be fine.  I have a single chip in my 600 with 1.3, 2.05, and 3.1 Kickstarts on it and they all work, though it's being switched with a plain old hardware switch.

Tone, you have a 1.3 ROM in your A600? Was it hacked to include scsi.device or do you just use it as a floppy system?

[tone007]

Floppy only, 1.3 only gets used for the odd old floppy games.

[save2600]

For those that don't have multiple Kickstarts and switchers, there's this disk I remember from back in the day (I don't believe it's on Aminet) that you insert at startup - turns your OS2.x, 3.x system into a 1.3 system. Even survived resets, had the white Kickstart hand screen and all that. Anyone remember what this was called? I know I have a copy of it somewhere, but it's been a while since I used it.

[mongo]

OK, so I guess I would just follow the instructions for the A500 then?  (The problem is that there is a wire jumper that hooks up to Gary chip -- concerns me.)  I really want the 1.3 option so that I can be fully compatible with old games on disk.  What type of reliable softkick options are there?  I know nothing about doing a softkick.  Maybe I should try that before deciding whether to do the hardware surgery.

Pin 41 on Gary is the reset line (_RST). You can use pin 40 on Gayle or pin 20 on the 68000 (or several other places, check an A600 schematic for other locations) for the same thing.

[Matt_H]

For those that don't have multiple Kickstarts and switchers, there's this disk I remember from back in the day (I don't believe it's on Aminet) that you insert at startup - turns your OS2.x, 3.x system into a 1.3 system. Even survived resets, had the white Kickstart hand screen and all that. Anyone remember what this was called? I know I have a copy of it somewhere, but it's been a while since I used it.

I think that's Relokick. I've also been able to kick in 1.3 using SKick. Both of these eat some RAM, though.

[orb85750]

Is either of these softkick options public domain &  available online somewhere?

[orb85750]

Pin 41 on Gary is the reset line (_RST). You can use pin 40 on Gayle or pin 20 on the 68000 (or several other places, check an A600 schematic for other locations) for the same thing.

Thanks for that!

[amigadave]

I think as long as the magical keyboard ROM switching thing works with the 600, it'll be fine.  I have a single chip in my 600 with 1.3, 2.05, and 3.1 Kickstarts on it and they all work, though it's being switched with a plain old hardware switch.

Single chip?  You mean a single Kickstart ROM chip with 1.3, 2.05 & 3.1 Kickstarts on it and a hardware switch???  Please tell us more!  That sounds very..............unusual, to say the least.

[GrizzlyAdams]

Its pretty easy actually, you just get a larger chip, butterfly the extra address lines out, wire switches to them, you get either 2 or 4 rom banks to choose from. Usually you can find a chip in the same package or next size up that adds the address lines yet is pin-compatible with its smaller cousin.
For amigas with a 32-bit rom bus (split-rom like the 1200) you wire both chips to the same switches so that both chips have the same bank selected.

As far as switches go, you wire each of the high address lines to an individual spdt switch, and each side of the switch has a pull-up/pull-down resistor (can't be too careful) or if you're feeling dangerous wired to vcc / gnd directly.