Amiga Early Start-up menu

[Vlabguy1]

I was just wondering how intelligent is the Amiga Early Start-up Menu.  Im
curious as I have a CV64, and a SunRize AD516 board and in that menu
it says the boards are working.  I know they are working, but my question is
how does the amiga know they are working..Or is the System just
sensing the cards being present so it assumes the are in working condition??
ie..this might not be telling me much..just that the cards are in the slot..

[Piru]

The cards are working in a sense that AutoConfig(TM) worked. It has no clue if the cards actually function as supposed to.

[Vlabguy1]

ahh...ok...got it...that leads me to this question

So does it then know if the Zorro slot is functioning as it should??

[AMC258]

A Zorro slot only works as well as the bus controller, and some glue logic which has no checks.

Believe me, the Early Startup will tell you if a board does fail to Autoconfig properly, I have had several dead boards over the years show up.  Interestingly, the Amiga does not boot normally when you turn it on with a bad board.  It goes right to the board diagnostic screen of the Early Startup, only with a red background instead of the normal grey, and tells you which board is acting up.

[Vlabguy1]

Ahh..but does this then tell me that the Zorro slot is working..??
If my cards are in..the Zorro slot the Early start up tells me they are working
..save to assume the Zorro slot works??  Prob. not.  huh??  

I could still have an issue with my Zorro slots then..
oh well

[AMC258]

Most likely, you won't have a slot go bad, you'll have a Buster chip go bad...  But, if the board works, the board works and so does the Zorro slot..

[Vlabguy1]

mmm..This buster chip..what is his function?
I think I may have a 12v loss on the  Z. slots..could this be possible?

[Hyperspeed]

Is the A1200's trapdoor connector classed as a Zorro slot? With busboards it can use Zorro 3 cards like the Picasso-IV in Zorro 2 mode so...

:-?

EDIT: Sorry vlabguy1, didn't mean to hijack your thread, just curious.

:-D

[Vlabguy1]

no worries..I wish I could answer your question though..

[Graff]

Hi Hyperspeed

Nope, the A1200 trapdoor connector is an extension of some internal bus - probably the main adress/databus as well as control signals, I'm not entirely enlightened on that. At least it is not a Zorro bus - that's what the bus boards you mention add to the equation.

[bloodline]

Hyperspeed wrote:
Is the A1200's trapdoor connector classed as a Zorro slot? With busboards it can use Zorro 3 cards like the Picasso-IV in Zorro 2 mode so...

:-?

EDIT: Sorry vlabguy1, didn't mean to hijack your thread, just curious.

:-D

The 150pin connector is basicly ZorroII (Which is little more than a buffered 68000 Bus) with some extra bits and bobs.

[Hyperspeed]

Hrrm interesting, wonder if putting a Picasso-IV into an A1200 tower would do it justice (what with it going down to Zorro II mode and no video slot etc).

Another curious thing about the Early Boot Menu is that the PowerUP boards could put CD0: into the list of bootable devices. Usually a CD-ROM would require a CD file system to be loaded first but the Phase5 cards seemed to have this on them ready and notify the Early Menu.

Do you think Zorro slot functionality could be determined by those diagnostic programs that Amiga repair centres use?

[bloodline]

Hyperspeed wrote:
Hrrm interesting, wonder if putting a Picasso-IV into an A1200 tower would do it justice (what with it going down to Zorro II mode and no video slot etc).

Not really, running anything on a ZorroII bus is going to hurt.

You'd be better off running a Voodoo on a Mediator.

Another curious thing about the Early Boot Menu is that the PowerUP boards could put CD0: into the list of bootable devices. Usually a CD-ROM would require a CD file system to be loaded first but the Phase5 cards seemed to have this on them ready and notify the Early Menu.

Probably somthing in the PowerUp Autoconfig rom.

Do you think Zorro slot functionality could be determined by those diagnostic programs that Amiga repair centres use?

eh?

[Hyperspeed]

by me:
Do you think Zorro slot functionality could be determined by those diagnostic programs that Amiga repair centres use?

by bloodline:
eh?

Yeah, I've heard of a software package for the Amiga that can determine faults in various bits of hardware. I've never seen it commercially available but it does exist. Whether it's pure software or a combination of hardware and software I don't know.

Someone told me about this when I was having trouble with my Video DAC, it may have been Wizard/Compute! who had it. Maybe the Amiga repair centre in France has one(?)...

With regards to Zorro, I remember Power Computing selling Zorro 4 busboards. These would allow the use of Zorro 2 and 3 with 'future capability' for Zorro 4. Did any boards use Zorro 4 or was it just an upgraded Zorro 3.

What was Zorro 1 used on? Ideally the Early Boot Menu should state what revision of Zorro the card is using!

[bloodline]

Zorro 1 and Zorro II are the same thing (and both are little more than an extension of the 68000 bus). The Power Computing  "Zorro4" was just a custom Zorro II

I don't think the Power Computing boad could actually provide Zorro III as the A1200 simply can't provide the required 32bit signals from the Trapdoor slot.

To diagnose as problem with some Amiga hardware requires quite a bit more than a Zorro II slot. :-)