Problems getting my A1200 & a 12Guage 030 accelerator working with the 3.1 ROMs

[Zordar]

Hi,

I had a question regarding a problem I've been having with my old Amiga 1200 system & was hoping I could find someone
who might have a suggestion, or could at least point me in the right direction.

I finally took my Amiga A1200 out of mothballs, it's been sitting idle since 1997 & I was feeling a bit nostalgic.
The system includes a stock A1200 with a 12Gauge 030/882 50MHz accelerator with an 8MB memory SIMM, a 40MB hard
drive & 3.0 ROMs.  I hooked up everything, turned the system on & it booted just as it did 12 years ago.  I
figured, why not take the opportunity & give the system a bit of a face lift, so I got my hands on a pair of 3.1
ROMs, slapped them in, turned the system on, and.......nothing, no post, no drive clicking, no booting,
NOTHING! just a black screen.

I replaced the 3.1 ROMs with the original 3.0 ROMs, and the system booted up fine once again.  To make a long story
short, I traced the problem to the 12Guage itself, or more specifically, to the memory.  I found that the system will
boot up just fine with both the 3.1 ROMs & the 12Guage installed, but only if the memory SIMM is removed from the
accelerator!

I was wondering if anyone has/had a similar experience with the 12Guage.  I know the 12Guage was one of the very first
CPU accelerators available for the A1200 & was made well before 3.1 came out.  I tried researching this problem
on-line, but couldn't really find any information about the 12Guage itself, let alone this specific issue.  I'd
appreciate any suggestions or insight anyone might have regarding this problem, thanks.

John.

[da9000]

Hi Zordar,

search the forums and ye shall find the answer. When I have a moment I'll look to see what combination I used for the 12Gauge to boot up into KS 3.1

Memory is vague, but if I recall correctly you need to disable any autoboot/SCSI stuff and it will work. With memory.

Cheers and welcome back!

[Argus]

Yes, he's right, the 12-Gauge came out when 3.0 was all the rage.  They changed something in the 3.1 roms which made adding fast memory different so a bunch of the 1200 accelerators needed firmware updates or extra startup-sequence commands to add the fast memory.  This is a pretty well known problem with the 12-Gauge, though I never owned one myself.  They seem a bit rare.

[Zordar]

Hi da9000,

Thanks, it's good to be back, I've been drowned in PC/MS garbage for far too long!  

I took your advice I looked through the forums for information regarding the A1200/12Guage issues, but
couldn't find anything.

Zordar.

[Zordar]

Hi Argus,

The 12Guage does have an old style socketed EPROM on-board, this EPROM has a sticker with the Writing: 22162A R1.0 0874.
I bet that the best chance of getting this card working with 3.1 is finding an updated version.  The problem is, I
don't even know if an updated version was ever made available, let alone finding a source that has/sells it.

Any idea what the writing on the EPROM means - I'm assuming "R1.0" is the version, and if a newer version was ever made
available?  Would it be possible to dump the contents of the EPROM & adjust it to play nice with 3.1 ? Thanks.

Zordar.

Argus wrote:
Yes, he's right, the 12-Gauge came out when 3.0 was all the rage.  They changed something in the 3.1 roms which made adding fast memory different so a bunch of the 1200 accelerators needed firmware updates or extra startup-sequence commands to add the fast memory.  This is a pretty well known problem with the 12-Gauge, though I never owned one myself.  They seem a bit rare.

[Rudei]

Hey,

Your accelerator is talked about here (scroll down to Twelve Gauge (Derringer 1250))

The R1 looks like it is the firmware version 1 - it doesn't list an updated firmware version but you might be able to make some sense of it if you have some low level programming skills :-)

Interestingly, elsewhere on this page there is the issue you have already mentioned about removing memory listed against another card so seems like it was a pretty standard issue as the others have mentioned.

Rude!

[Rudei]

Hey again,

More info here but again does not mention an updated ROM/BIN file.  There might be some useful information on here, but I've done a pretty exhaustive search and cannot find any information pertaining to an updated ROM.

Doesn't mean they don't exist though :-)  

Rude!

[DyLucke]

I just got my 3.1 roms and i've placed them correctly on the A1200 and i do have the same problem here. It doesn't boot, i've noticed it only happens with the CSA board, bec i do have another miggy with a Bliz IV and it works perfectly.

Even the same miggy boots if i unplug the CSA board. It seems there's no way to have an updated bios for this board. So there has to be some way to make it work with 3.1 roms.