Need suggestions for Kickflash board.

[Ral-Clan]

I just got a Kickflash board for Christmas (they're quite cheap to my surprise).  I've used Amigas for 15 years but ROM patching and all that is still a bit mystical to me, so I don't want to screw things up.

Right now my Amiga re-starts twice after the initial power-on.  Once to load the patches for OS3.9 (at SetPatch?) and a second time for the utility ROMTAGMEM which turns on my 040 accelerator's caches & its on-board 32MB of RAM.

- What files from the OS3.9 Boingbags 1 and 2 do I need to put on the Kickflash?

- I use SCSI and have heard there's an updated SCSI device in OS3.9, in what directory would I find this to install it on the kickflash?

- Once I've put the OS3.9 ROM update and SCSI update on the kickflash, how do I make sure my startup-sequence doesn't try to re-update these files (i.e. how do I disable it in the startup sequence)?  I'm guessing this is done in the SETPATCH command, but I don't exactly how that command works.

- After my Amiga is booted, is there any way to verify that the above patches are working (have been installed) from the kickflash during boot?

- What other modules can I put on the kickflash?  I know of a NoClick module so far, but that's it. (I assume there is no 3.9 kickstart image yet).

Lastly, I assume I should disable any utility in the startup sequence that copies kickstart to RAM, as that would interfere with the kickflash's function, correct?

Thanks!

[motorollin]

ral-clan wrote:
I don't want to screw things up.

You won't - you can always disable the flash ROM in order to erase and start again.

ral-clan wrote:
- What files from the OS3.9 Boingbags 1 and 2 do I need to put on the Kickflash?

Just put the BB2 ROM Update file (the whole thing) in to the KickFlash, then either delete the file from DEVS: or modify your setpatch line to stop it loading the ROM Updates.

ral-clan wrote:
- I use SCSI and have heard there's an updated SCSI device in OS3.9, in what directory would I find this to install it on the kickflash?

It's in the ROM Update.

ral-clan wrote:
- Once I've put the OS3.9 ROM update and SCSI update on the kickflash, how do I make sure my startup-sequence doesn't try to re-update these files (i.e. how do I disable it in the startup sequence)?  I'm guessing this is done in the SETPATCH command, but I don't exactly how that command works.

See above - either delete the file, or add the switch to the SetPatch line to make it ignore the ROM Update. Can't remember what it is, so type "setpatch ?" in to a shell to see the syntax. It's something like "NOROMUPDATE".

ral-clan wrote:
- After my Amiga is booted, is there any way to verify that the above patches are working (have been installed) from the kickflash during boot?

Type "version" in to a shell. If you see 45.something, then it has successfully applied the ROM Update.

ral-clan wrote:
- What other modules can I put on the kickflash?  I know of a NoClick module so far, but that's it. (I assume there is no 3.9 kickstart image yet).

Any BlizKick module! Also commands which have a resident tag and are "ROM-able" will work. As for the 3.9 KickStart image, it is entirely possible to build one, but there's no point really with the KickFlash since it has space for the 3.9 ROM Update.

ral-clan wrote:
Lastly, I assume I should disable any utility in the startup sequence that copies kickstart to RAM, as that would interfere with the kickflash's function, correct?

Correct.


[EDIT]
A few changes...
[/EDIT]

--
moto

[Craven1200]

weird thing for me is, i can get the rom updates to work
but when i add stuff from blizzkick like noclick or speedychip  these dont seem to work for me ... (sorry didnt want to hijack this thread)

[motorollin]

Do you have a 3.1 ROM chip in your Amiga? If so then the KickFlash will realise this and not use the contents of the flash ROM (in other words, it will still be using the original ROM chip). In my case I had to load the 3.1 ROM image in to a hex editor and change the version to something newer so that when the KickFlash compared it to the ROM chip it thought that the version in flash was newer, and used it. The alternative to this rather complicated solution would be to put 3.0 ROM chips in the Amiga and a 3.1 image in the KickFlash.

[EDIT]
Just re-read your post and this doesn't seem to be related to your problem, since the ROM updates do work. Left the original post there for information, but I don't think it will help you in this case.
[/EDIT]

--
moto

[Ral-Clan]

motorollin wrote:

Just put the BB2 ROM Update file (the whole thing) in to the KickFlash, then either delete the file from DEVS: or modify your setpatch line to stop it loading the ROM Updates.

I assume renaming it to "ROM UPDATE *DISABLED*" will also work.

Any BlizKick module! Also commands which have a resident tag and are "ROM-able" will work.

Sorry, I don't know what a Blizkick module is, nor a command with a resident tag.  I assume Blizkick has something to do with Blizzard accelerators.  If so can these utilities still be used with Amigas not installed with a Blizzard accelerator?

Does "resident tag" mean a utility that can survive warm re-start of the Amiga?  Other than "noclick" are there any great "must install" utils like this that would be useful with the Kickflash?

[Craven1200]

i actually have custom v44.4 (with pirus exec)
rom image loaded into kickflash and that also has the latest rom updates

Blizkick:  http://aminet.net/util/boot/BlizKick.readme
Stuff for making a custom rom: www.doobreynet.co.uk

some searches on this forum about remus and blizkick will give you more information also.

the kickflash is a great little peace of hardware, instead of having 2 or even 3 reboots it just patches everything during powerup and no reboots for me anymore

[motorollin]

ral-clan wrote:
I assume renaming it to "ROM UPDATE *DISABLED*" will also work.

I don't know actually. Depends on whether SetPatch looks for a specific file, or scans DEVS: for ROM Updates and applies them regardless of the name. If you don't want to delete it, you could move it to Storage.

ral-clan wrote:
Sorry, I don't know what a Blizkick module is, nor a command with a resident tag.

BlizKick is a utility which softkicks a ROM image (without a KickFlash). It can also include modules, such as the NoClick module you mentioned. A command with a resident tag is basically one which can be stored in memory instead of on disk. Most commands and utilities will mention in their readme if they can be made resident.

ral-clan wrote:
I assume Blizkick has something to do with Blizzard accelerators.  If so can these utilities still be used with Amigas not installed with a Blizzard accelerator?

Not sure, but it doesn't matter since you're using a KickFlash.

ral-clan wrote:
Does "resident tag" mean a utility that can survive warm re-start of the Amiga?  Other than "noclick" are there any great "must install" utils like this that would be useful with the Kickflash?

I'm not sure whether it will survive a warm reboot, but since it's in your KickFlash you don't need to worry, since the KickFlash will take care of making it resident at each boot. There are lots of BlizKick modules on Aminet. Also, if there are any utilities you use regularly, check their readme to see if they can be made resident.

--
moto

[Ral-Clan]

Okay, thanks.  

Now, there is a A1200 style clockport on the KickFlash.

The docs say that there will be a 1GB module released for it.

I'm just thinking: since most Amiga Kickstart images are 512K or no more than 1MB, why would anyone need 1GB of RAM on the Kickflash?

[Craven1200]

i dont think the 1gb expansion will be released.

the clockport can be used for anything  (subway usb for example)

[Ral-Clan]

But what WOULD the 1GB expansion be good for had it been released?  Only for storing kickstart related stuff, right?  Not useable as FastRAM?

I have noticed that a lot of people have the USB Subway board attached to their Kickflash.  Very tempting.  When using a Subway, do you need to run some sort of USB network stack program in the background, and does this steal a lot of RAM/CPU cycles (on my old Amiga, ever CPU cycle and KB of RAM counts!).

[keropi]

when u connect a SUBWAY on the kickflash (or any amiga clockport) it just stays quiet until it is "waken" via the poseidon driver. The poseidon driver can be switched on/off via commands so it won't consume any resources when not needed... you can even put it in your flash rom so u can use usb keyboards/mice/mass storage from boot time! (this means the driver is always "on" )

[Ral-Clan]

keropi wrote:
when u connect a SUBWAY on the kickflash (or any amiga clockport) it just stays quiet until it is "waken" via the poseidon driver. The poseidon driver can be switched on/off via commands so it won't consume any resources when not needed... you can even put it in your flash rom so u can use usb keyboards/mice/mass storage from boot time! (this means the driver is always "on" )

Very cool.  But when Poseidon is running, is it quite a RAM/CPU hog?  I've heard that because USB devices are fairly dumb, USB transfers & stacks can really slow down older computers.

[keropi]

a1200+030/50=~170-200kb/sec (EAB member report)
my A4000+060/50csppc=~600-700kb/sec
 :-D
even with the 030, it is great to do file tranfers easily!

[platon42]

ral-clan wrote:

Very cool.  But when Poseidon is running, is it quite a RAM/CPU hog?  I've heard that because USB devices are fairly dumb, USB transfers & stacks can really slow down older computers.

Poseidon itself is nearly idle if no activity is on the USB (massstorage.class for example will check every three seconds if a media is in the drive though). Depending on the capabilities of the host controller hardware, the driver however, will need to poll the bus for interrupt transfers (e.g. when using USB hubs, mice, keyboards, etc.)

In case of the Algor and Deneb, this causes no additional CPU load because the host controller will do this in a predefined schedule in hardware. In case of the Subway and Highway, the CPU must trigger the schedule and will therefore generate a very short interrupt every 1 ms (i.e. 1000 interrupts per second). This sounds a lot, but is not as bad as it seems. I didn't measure the difference, but I would be surprised if it took more than 2-5% of your CPU power away.

In comparison, AFAIK the A4000T scsi controller transfers data in 1 KB DMA transfers, and after every DMA transfer, an interrupt is caused, which then again wakes up a task, which in turn starts up the next DMA transfer. And at a rate of nearly 9,5 MB/sec, that's about 20000 interrupts per second.

[Ral-Clan]

Okay, the Kickflash has an A1200 style clockport connector.  I understand that the Amiga sees this as an extra Zorro slot.  But is that Zorro II or Zorro III?  But since my Kickflash is going to be plugged into an A2000 computer, which is Zorro II, does this mean that certain clockport devices which need Zorro III transfer rates should not be used with a Kickflash attached to an A2000 Zorro II slot?