IDE - usb through a Spider - a good alternative to powerflyer?

[Karlos]

tjaoz wrote:

If busspeedtest in your A1200/060 reads 9MB/s, it means that your turbo card cannot access this area faster. It is the hardware limitation of your turbo card -- not limitation of Mediator.

More than once I got the kind folks here to run all kinds of custom benchmarking tools I'd written to assess the real speed at which the CPU can access VRAM on their RTG cards (many mediators there) etc.

8-10MB/s is quite normal for VRAM write speeds just about every mediator system tested, regardless of CPU / mediator system.

[Karlos]

tjaoz wrote:

Even in this thread you link to your website which encourages pirating Spider drivers, where there are notes how to crack Spider drivers. Moreover, you also offer software tools needed for pirating these drivers.

Whereas deliberately embedding malware into drivers that could trash someone's hard disk *even if they are not trying to decrypt the driver* (no memory protection in amigaos so no guarentee the trashing code cant be invoked due to an accident) is perfectly legal and moral eh?

[Trev]

Sony haven't been talking to Elbox, have they?

I don't want to knock Poland, but Polish companies seem to have rather loose views on ethics. That's just my personal experience and obviously a gross generalization.

[MskoDestny]

jkirk wrote:

Spider is High-Speed USB 2.0 card. Spider card includes the USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 controllers. With the Spider card Elbox supplies drivers for both controllers: EHCI (USB 2.0) and OHCI (USB 1.1).

but if the intended application cannot benefit from that speed why claim it? you can't tell me it was designed for use between two pci slots. this is just a misleading statement nothing more.

I suppose if they ever release the SharkPPC :crazy: ...

[mboehmer_e3b]

Is this, then, inaccurate?
If the 4000 supports dma to the mediator from fast & chip memory...

A4000 with Buster 9 and 11 does support DMA to fast memory on the motherboard and the chip memory, as well as between Zorro III cards. DMA from Zorro III to CPU board memory must be supported by the CPU card (e.g. all phase5 cards do).

Regarding the Mediat*r4000: it has six Zorro III slots (plus one for the bridging card), but the Buster has only five bus request lines... strange. But to decide if it does DMA from Mediator to Amiga, check the following:

- does it work with Buster 7? If so, it is non-DMA, as Buster 7 doesn't support Zorro III DMA *at all*. There's no way of checking the Buster revision in software, so you would have to activate DMA by a software switch.

- does the software ask about Buster 9 or 11? DMA is buggy on Buster 9, and you need to take some workarounds for this, so if the software doesn't care about these differences, DMA is unlikely.

- check the bridging card between Zorro III and PCI: check pins 60 (/BRn) and 64 (/BGn) on the Zorro connector. These two lines are mandatory for Zorro III DMA (as well as E7M on pin 92); if they are not connected, Zorro III DMA is *not* possible at all. If they are connected and DMA is active, then short low pulses on /BRn (140ns, synchronized to raising edge of E7M) must be there, as well as longer phases with /BGn being low (which is DMA active).

Michael

[ChaosLord]

@mboehmer_e3b

Greetings person with the unpronounceable name. :-D

I would like to thank you for such an informative message.

I wish more people would write messages like yours, all chock full of delicious and yummy technical infos!

[mboehmer_e3b]

Hi ChaosLord,

Greetings person with the unpronounceable name.  

C'mon, it's not my fault that your grand-grand-grand-parents did forget the umlauts when they left Europe centuries ago :-D

I wish more people would write messages like yours, all chock full of delicious and yummy technical infos!

Sorry if it was too technical, but I was tired of some guys repeating what they see written on webpages, believing it without ever thinking about it :getmad:

Michael    

[jkirk]

I suppose if they ever release the SharkPPC

that is a mighty big if.

[tjaoz]

@Piru

> Again, I don't know how you manage to see the things you
> claim to see, but clearly you're confused somehow. Maybe
> you haven't actually checked out what the code in
> question does, or have problems understanding the
> technical issues handled there?

In the text on your website, someone (you?) writes what should be changed in the Elbox driver code to use this driver without Elbox restrictions. (These restrictions allow their usb driver working ONLY with the Spider card hardware.)

Next he (you?) describes what problem he (you?) found in the Elbox code during cracking it.

At the end, he (you?) writes: 'This archive was all made by me and contains code written by me. Nothing from Elbox.'

In the same way you can describe how to crack any other commercial software in order to break its restrictions.

Do you remember the email on the Mediator list with info how to break the Poseidon registration restrictions? This mail was treated as abusive despite that it only had info on which byte to change in the Poseidon code to remove restrictions on the unregistered version. You think such instructions are legal? :shocked:

Your website holds not only instructions what should be  changied in the code of the Elbox driver, but you also include a tool for decrypting the code of this driver, which is necessary for cracking it.

> Clearly if there is something illegal on my web page,
> you should contact my ISP and Elbox right away. My
> ISP's abuse email address is abuse@kymp.net.

Sorry, it is not my busines...
Still, I wonder why moderators of Amiga.org allow you to post links to such texts here.

> So basically you're suggesting the A1200 CPU Slot
> interface could do upto 264MB/s with proper accelerator...

Why not?

The $200000 - $9FFFFF area is not used by A1200 motherboard at all. So what speed turbo card accesses this area depends on the hardware design of the turbo card only.

All accesses from the turbo card to this area are directed only to the external hardware (like Zorro II, Zorro IV or Mediators) connected to the CPU slot. If external hardware acknowledges cycles immediately (the case of the Mediator WAIT jumper opened), there is obvious that the speed at which this hardware is accessed is limited by the turbo card interface hardware only.  :-D

[tjaoz]

@Crumb

> Mediator4000 can't do DMA transfers to the motherboard.

You are wrong.

[tjaoz]

@Trev

> I don't want to knock Poland, but Polish companies
> seem to have rather loose views on ethics.

It is funny to hear about ethics from someone from the US under Mr. Bush.  :lol:

[Doobrey]

tjaoz wrote:

In the text on your website, someone (you?) writes what should be changed in the Elbox driver code to use this driver without Elbox restrictions. (These restrictions allow their usb driver working ONLY with the Spider card hardware.)

 Really ?? All I could see was the bleeding obvious "look for the NEC USB pci subvendor ID" . Care to point out where Qwe (not Piru) points out the offset to the ID and what value it should be changed to ?

Do you remember the email on the Mediator list with info how to break the Poseidon registration restrictions? This mail was treated as abusive despite that it only had info on which byte to change in the Poseidon code to remove restrictions on the unregistered version. You think such instructions are legal? :shocked:
 

 Like I said above, unlike the instructions on how to crack Poseidon, the article on Pirus site doesn't give any *useful* info on how to do the same to the Spider driver .
 Even if you follow the instructions to the letter, the best you'll end up with is a messy asm source  (cos IRA can't tell the difference between data and code in a code hunk, and doesn't know many 020+ instructions) that  probably won't even recompile without changes.


@Piru: Did you get my PM last week??

[Piru]

@tjaoz

First of all, I am not 'Qwe'. I thought it was quite obvious, I am Harry Sintonen or 'Piru', not 'Qwe'.

In the text on your website, someone (you?) writes what should be changed in the Elbox driver code to use this driver without Elbox restrictions. (These restrictions allow their usb driver working ONLY with the Spider card hardware.)

I don't see such instructions or source code. I see some speculation what could be the reason for the protection to exist in the first place (1st paragraph of the 'History' section).

Where do you see these alleged instructions?

Do you remember the email on the Mediator list with info how to break the Poseidon registration restrictions?

No.

It could have something to do with the fact that I a) don't own a Mediator, nor have ever owned one b) don't read the Mediator mailing list.

but you also include a tool for decrypting the code of this driver,

That is true.

which is necessary for cracking it.

That is true, aswell.

It would be necessary to decrypt the driver if you were to crack it. I see no such thing anywhere on the webpage, however. If someone uses this tool for illegal purposes, it is not my fault, now is it? Also note that I do not host any Elbox software (pirated or otherwise), or tools/instructions on how to crack Elbox sw.

Anyway, the tool was obviously written to prove the claim that the driver contained such RDB trashing code. It can't even produce a working decrypted binary!

As a conclusion: Regardless what motives lead to finding of the RDB trashing code, it does not invalidate the findings.

People deserve to know.

> Clearly if there is something illegal on my web page,
> you should contact my ISP and Elbox right away. My
> ISP's abuse email address is abuse@kymp.net.

Sorry, it is not my busines...

Well, STFU then and let the moderators take care of the situation?

Still, I wonder why moderators of Amiga.org allow you to post links to such texts here.

I would think the reason they don't prevent me from linking to it is that they agree there is nothing dubious on the abovementioned web page.

> So basically you're suggesting the A1200 CPU Slot
> interface could do upto 264MB/s with proper accelerator...

Why not?

Because it's physically impossible?

The $200000 - $9FFFFF area is not used by A1200 motherboard at all. So what speed turbo card accesses this area depends on the hardware design of the turbo card only.

So the turbo card magically gets brain wave access to the area, without any need to send signals via wires or such silly stuff?

All accesses from the turbo card to this area are directed only to the external hardware (like Zorro II, Zorro IV or Mediators) connected to the CPU slot. If external hardware acknowledges cycles immediately (the case of the Mediator WAIT jumper opened), there is obvious that the speed at which this hardware is accessed is limited by the turbo card interface hardware only.

Newsflash: There are certain timing requirements for accelerators using the CPU slot interface, and if you break them the accelerator will not work.

This is quite obvious.


@Doobrey
Oops, missed it, sorry. You should have a reply now.

[platon42]

@tjaoz:

> > Mediator4000 can't do DMA transfers to the motherboard.
>
> You are wrong.

Then proove it.

Elbox claims that the Mediator4000 *D* (the Zorro III thing) could theoretically do DMA transfers between PCI and the mainboard, *but* *no* *existing* *driver* *is* *using* *it*. That's what Mr. Elbox himself said to me in Graz some years ago.

Why could that be?

[mboehmer_e3b]

(These restrictions allow their usb driver working ONLY with the Spider card hardware.)

If ones takes some minutes of thinking, one can come to the following conclusions:

- Spider(II) are normal bulk NEC USB cards
- software must distinguish a Spider(II) from NEC cards
- Spider(II) must have something different
- Spider(II) work under Windows and Linux
- difference is no hardware modification
- PCI cards have configuration ROM like Zorro cards
- the difference must be in some Flash memory
- the NEC USB controller has no Flash memory
- there's a SPI EEPROM on the card (like on NICs)
- compare PCI listings from a Spider(II) and a NEC card
- find the difference...

So no need to mess around with software code :-)

Nevertheless pirating code is illegal. As well as altering user data without permission.

Michael

[Boot_WB]

@platon42

Thanks for the info re: a4000 dma.  Don't think I'll bother making the switch to a4000 then.  Too much cost, and memory/accelerator on a1200 is easier & cheaper than the a4000 equivalent.

Think I'll just get a powerflyer (which also seems to run at a LOT less than the16MB/s Elbox quotes :-) - the review quoted on the elbox website shows transfers of around 5MB/s, and if that's their PR review then you can bet normal transfer rates are slower) or blizzard scsi until the magical mysterious Shark pops out of the clouds into reality :lol:  .