Question - Minimig SD card

[crawff]

Hi,

Does anybody know the largest capacity SD card supported by the Minimig?

I currently have a 2GB but was wondering if a could upgrade to something bigger?

If possible, any recommendations?

Thanks
 
:-)

[Dwyloc]

@crawff
As the Minimig only supports FAT16 and dose not support using directories at this time 2GB is the biggest partition you can access and it dose not have support for more than one partition on a single card as far as I am aware.

I am using a 2GB card on mine and that seems to be plenty at this time, If I get an arm add on board for hard disk emulation at some time in the future then support for larger cards would become more useful.

[freqmax]

However if Minimig can handle 64k clusters. You can get away with 4 GB. Might be worth a try.

[Piru]

Most SD cards are formatted to only accept upto 511 root directory entries. Does MiniMig support more than that?

If not you're only able to use about 439MB (880KB * 511) of the SD card anyway.

[crawff]

Can anyone confirm this?

I would be quite disappointed if the SD card can only support 439MB...

[boing4000]

First try to reformat the sd/mmx card in FAT16. This will offer up to 2GB and (in theory) 512 root entries. Any long filename (>8.3) and any sub folder will decrease the amount of useable files in root.

Personaly I use only 8.3 filename for all .adf image name and only one sub folder to store temp. unused adf images.
That will give about 240 useable .adf files in root (minimig1.bin and kick.rom must also be present).
Maybe the maximum amount of root entries is 256, but Im not 100% sure.

[Piru]

Someone should try http://linux.die.net/man/8/mkdosfs -r option, say 32736. If minimig supports it, then you can have upto 32736 files.

[wolfchild]

Piru wrote:
Most SD cards are formatted to only accept upto 511 root directory entries.

This applies to the Minimig too.  Maximum number of files is 511, a handful of which will most likely be used for ROM image, AR3 and FPGA config file.  Folders are not processed on the current PIC firmware.

This is stated in the manual of the last release, page 6.

[crawff]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

So the only solution is to keep having to change the files (games) on the SD card when necessary?

I am not a techie person but is there anything possible which can be done in the future to resolve this issue?

It just seems a shame really..

[wolfchild]

crawff wrote:
So the only solution is to keep having to change the files (games) on the SD card when necessary?

I am not a techie person but is there anything possible which can be done in the future to resolve this issue?

It just seems a shame really..

Don't despair! :-)

You can use a software called FATCleaner, written by Jakub to automatically generate the short file names for you and arrange files in alphabetical order.  This saves you a lot of manual renaming.  Link is on the manual too ;-)

500+ ADF images is quite a lot, in my lifetime I never had that many disks on my real Amiga!

But there is a ray of light for those who want a lot of files - the ARM board.  You can then put as many Amiga files and folders as you want in the hard-file.  I *think* you should be able to have an almost 2GB Amiga partition that way.  Jakub might need to confirm this statement, however.  You could then use WHDLoad to cater for all your game needs.

The ARM procesor is powerful enough to support folders and long file names.  It's only a short matter of time until it's released. Should it not support all features in the beginning, they will be put in with new code releases.

Note that the ARM board is on pre-order, so if you want one, visit www.minimig.net [edit: changed .org to .net] for ordering instructions.

Cheers!
Edwin

[Piru]

@wolfchild

This applies to the Minimig too. Maximum number of files is 511

So this is hardcoded to Minimig? Too bad, as FAT actually supports upto 32735.

[wolfchild]

Piru wrote:

So this is hardcoded to Minimig? Too bad, as FAT actually supports upto 32735.

I don't know for sure.  From a peek at the code, it's definite that only the first partition is considered, and that sector size must be 512 bytes.

File is on Google Code here:
fat16.c

My understanding is that limitations stem from the fact that the PIC only has 1.5KB RAM, precluding support for fancy file system features.

What makes sense for Minimig, from a usability standpoint, would be folder support.  Having thousands of files in the root folder would be a nightmare to navigate on the small OSD.

[yaqube]

Piru wrote:

This applies to the Minimig too. Maximum number of files is 511

So this is hardcoded to Minimig? Too bad, as FAT actually supports upto 32735.

It's not hardcoded, the number of root directory entries is read from the boot sector. Should work with any valid number. The default value for FAT16 volumes is 512 and most common formatting utilities do not allow to change it.

The firmware for ARM board will support unlimited number of subdirectories and files in them. Will also support long file names.

[Gavilan]

Note that the ARM board is on pre-order, so if you want one, visit www.minimig.org for ordering instructions.

Erm...maybe you meant www.minimig.net

minimig.org is "under construction"

Also, cant find directions on where/how to buy the ARM board...can you supply a direct link please?

Kind Regards


Sebastian

[wolfchild]

Gavilan wrote:

Erm...maybe you meant www.minimig.net

Yes, yes that's it ;-)  

My mistake there.  The pre-order thread is here:

The ARM Board Preorder