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Author Topic: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!  (Read 18492 times)

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Offline Steady

Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #29 on: July 24, 2014, 05:28:43 AM »
I have it working on Rev 5 PAL so I can verify there is at least one circumstance where Rev 5 works.
 

Offline Bennymee

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #30 on: July 24, 2014, 02:57:26 PM »
The ACA 500 is a very nice card, works great on my A500 1.3.
I have OS3.1 installed on the memory card and also booting with the 3.1 ROM.

But the ACA 500 does not work on my A500+ although I don't no the revision of this machine, that could be the problem.

Only ASMone does not like the extra Fastram of the ACA500 1.3 + ACA500.I need to start it twice. The first time ASMone gives a guru, the second time it is ok.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2014, 02:59:36 PM by Bennymee »
Amiga 500, 1200, 4000, Amigaone, Morphos, CyberstormPPC, Blizzardppc, OS4.x
 

Offline mindprober

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #31 on: July 24, 2014, 03:32:27 PM »
I do recall limitations with partitioning under WB 1.3 (although not precisely). The last time I had OS 1.3 installed on a hard drive, the size of the drive was 20MB (wow). I know I can do better than that today. I will create a modest partition for the WB 1.3, but I did want a second partition for storage/programs. In addition, I would like to create partitions for WB 2.x and possibly 3.x (if I ever expand the processor even more). Will it be no trouble to divide up a 4GB CF in this manner? The second CF slot will contain another 4GB card devoted to transferring data, of course.  :)


Quote from: Steady;769635

@jdryyz: There is no point bothering with more than 4GB for 1.3. Even then, partitions should be kept below 2GB and perhaps lower (anyone know max partition size for 1.3???). Regardless, 4GB is ample. I created a 200MB partition to boot and run WB1.3 on my boot flash. Also, the ACA500 can read a FAT95 formatted flash drive in the other slot too making for easy transfer.
 

Offline mindprober

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #32 on: July 24, 2014, 03:47:52 PM »
I ordered my ACA500 without first confirming what rev motherboard I have. Although, I am 99.9% certain it is a Rev 6 because way back in 1993 I performed the 1MB CHIP RAM hack and installed a PAL/NTSC toggle switch. I do not believe that would have been possible with an older board.

Doesn't the "A500+" description mean that it would be using the latest motherboard rev also? The "+" referred to the inclusion of the ECS chipset among other things, if I'm not mistaken.



Quote from: Bennymee;769669
The ACA 500 is a very nice card, works great on my A500 1.3.
I have OS3.1 installed on the memory card and also booting with the 3.1 ROM.

But the ACA 500 does not work on my A500+ although I don't no the revision of this machine, that could be the problem.

Only ASMone does not like the extra Fastram of the ACA500 1.3 + ACA500.I need to start it twice. The first time ASMone gives a guru, the second time it is ok.
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #33 on: July 24, 2014, 04:27:38 PM »
The "+" used a Rev. 8 or 8a motherboard, 2.04 ROM, Super Denise, 2MB Agnus, RTC, and a few other bits'n'bobs.  Also some A500's sold as "regular" A500's actually included the "+" motherboard due to a shortage.  Although some of these were then further modified before sale to include less chip ram, or 1.3 Kickstart, or god-knows what manner of other modifications.  It's a cr@pshoot!  But I've heard a lot of compatibilitiy issues with Rev. 5 motherboards, too.  Wasn't there a thread on that somewhere?
Amiga 500: 2MB Chip|16MB Fast|30MHz 68030+68882|3.9|Indivision ECS|GVP A500HD+|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|Cocolino|SCSI DVD-RAM
Amiga 2000: 2MB Chip|136MB Fast|50MHz 68060|3.9|Indivision ECS + GVP Spectrum|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|AD516|X-Surf 100|RapidRoad|Cocolino|SCSI CD-RW
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Offline TjLaZer

Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #34 on: July 24, 2014, 07:05:45 PM »
Anyone here with a Rev 5 NTSC A500 got the ACA500 working?  Apparently there is a problem and it does not work with these models.  (The PAL Rev 5's work with it)  Jens is looking into it.
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Offline sm3

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #35 on: July 24, 2014, 09:04:31 PM »
I have an NTSC Rev 5 and it does "not" work for me. I had to find a Rev 6A board. What happens is it just locks up, can't choose anything from the power-on menu when it first appears. It would be nice if Jens could figure out what is causing this, because in the US, most boards that I see readily available are Rev 5.
 

Offline mindprober

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #36 on: July 26, 2014, 01:02:45 AM »
I received my ACA500 today. I'm still waiting on the CF cards so I'm only testing it with floppies for now.

The good news-- it does work with my A500!

The bad news-- I didn't realize I would be losing my trapdoor's RTC. In all my research before purchasing, this point was either not discussed or not a big deal to those reviewing it. To be honest, I will probably be using the system mostly for WHDLoad and the need for accurate time won't matter much there, but I would like it for working in Workbench 3.x or above.

There is a blurb in the "short manual" regarding A1200 accelerators. It says "If the A1200 accelerator has a Realtime-clock, it will not be used by the A500. Instead, only the RTC that is located on the trapdoor memory expansion or the mainboard of an A500+ will be used."

I'm confused because my RTC *is* located in the trapdoor and yet it does not show up when I booted into WB 1.3. Or, is this trying to say I need an A500+ for this?

I was concerned about the available RAM as well under WB 1.3. I went through the various boot options but wasn't seeing all the RAM I was expecting. Unfortunately, I do not have a floppy with Nic Wilson's SysInfo handy. :D

My A500 has the 1MB CHIP hack (512k built-in plus the other 512k from the trapdoor expansion). I only saw a maximum of 2.4MB showing up on WB 1.3. I was under the impression I would see the ACA500's 2MB as FAST RAM and the built-in 1MB as CHIP. It has been a while since I used a real A500 so perhaps my expectations are fuzzy.

When I chose the Kickstart 3.1 boot option (WB 3.0 floppy), I see .9MB CHIP RAM and 1.4MB FAST. I do understand that part of my FAST RAM was gobbled-up for the KS ROM mapping in this scenario. Since my A500 has Kickstart 1.3 in ROM, shouldn't I be seeing all of the available memory under WB 1.3?

Cannot wait to get the CF cards. The short manual also recommends using KS and WB 3.1 for the highest compatibility with WHDLoad. Really? I still have some other, older WB 1.3 compatible software I wanted to try out in a real WB 1.3 environment. It was my intention to make the first partition for WB 1.3 and work with that initially. I figured WHDLoad was fully backwards compatible with WB 1.3 as well. That's okay. As long as I can make another partition for OS 3.x and WHDLoad, that will be fine.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2014, 02:32:42 AM by jdryyz »
 

Offline mindprober

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #37 on: July 26, 2014, 02:26:43 AM »
It gets more interesting.

I went into the Expert menu and pulled up the system information (see attachments).

When I first went in, the RTC info said "not detected".

You will also note is says 1536k FAST RAM on board the ACA500, not 2MB. Is that right if no ROM is mapped?

I decided I would trying cleaning the edge connector on the A500 since it was in storage for a long time. Something changed after this. Now, you will note it says "Oki" after RTC. Not sure what that is in reference to. The chip manufacturer? At any rate, WB 1.3 still does not see it.

In case you are wondering, I have a "Supra" 512k RAM expansion/real-time clock board installed as seen here:

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/supraram500

(now having looked at the hi-res photo, I see that indeed "OKI" is in reference to a chip)

Hmmm....not sure what to make of this. I used some decent contact cleaner for the A500 expansion. Perhaps I can make another pass....or should I consider an incompatibility?
 

Offline sm3

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #38 on: July 26, 2014, 04:57:13 PM »
What Amiga 500 board revision do you have? Mine sees the RTC in the trap door expansion. It also says "Oki" in the menu. Your ACA500 doesn't see the trapdoor RAM at all, maybe that is the issue. Mine shows 512 Kb in the menu for "Trapdoor slow ..." Do you have the trapdoor RAM switch turned off maybe? Most have a switch on them to turn off the trapdoor expansion.  Regarding the RTC, your battery might be dead as well, they only last 3-5 years I believe, unless you have a battery that isn't soldered in and replaced it recently.

Update: Oh wait, you state you think it's Rev 6 above. I would pop the top and look myself, you only need to lift up the right lower corner of the RF shield to see after removing the keyboard.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2014, 05:43:49 PM by sm3 »
 

Offline mindprober

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #39 on: July 26, 2014, 06:54:18 PM »
I decided it was time to open to case and confirm what rev motherboard I have and it *is* a rev 6a.

I then used the eraser method to thoroughly clean the contacts on the A500 edge connector. I then removed my Supra RAM expansion just to see if this would have an impact on the ACA500's FAST RAM. It did not change. I still only see 1.5MB. Clearly I must be overlooking something or the RAM on the unit is faulty. It is suspicious that it is missing .5. It almost seems like it is allocating 512k of FAST RAM to bring the total CHIP RAM to 1MB even though I already have the full 1MB of CHIP in place before the ACA500 was added. This theory falls apart though since I removed the Supra RAM and the total CHIP RAM went back to 512k.

The presence of the RTC is being reported inconsistently still. The first time I checked the configuration, it was not there. Then when I rebooted and checked again, it was there. Workbench still does not see it, however.

Anyone else using the ACA500 in combination with a Supra RAM (rev 2) expansion??
 

Offline mindprober

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #40 on: July 26, 2014, 08:24:10 PM »
Wait a minute...could the missing 512k of FAST RAM be due to having it RESERVED for the ROM mapping regardless of it being used or not?? I noticed I did not not lose an additional 512k when I booted into KS 3.1.

That is unfortunate, but understandable.

Maybe I will live with the loss for now. I may consider an A1200 accelerator in the future or may wait for the Apollo Phoenix board.  :D

Now about the RTC not being found....hmmmm.
 

Offline sm3

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #41 on: July 27, 2014, 01:35:49 AM »
You can turn that off I believe with a menu option. I believe it is set by default to "not" use your on-board Kickstart.
 

Offline mindprober

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #42 on: July 27, 2014, 02:31:59 AM »
Actually, that was one of the first things I checked. I do not recall what the default was but changing it did not help.

I see someone mentioned the same problem here:

http://www.amigaimpact.org/forums/topic/amiga-500-aca500-probleme-de-chip-ram/

I tried changing all of the settings I felt were relevant but I'm still not seeing the full 2MB FAST RAM.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2014, 02:34:25 AM by jdryyz »
 

Offline sm3

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #43 on: July 27, 2014, 02:41:24 AM »
Yeah, it would be nice to know more about all these options. They are very vague to me.
 

Offline mindprober

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Re: Amiga ACA500 is awesome!
« Reply #44 from previous page: July 27, 2014, 03:32:57 AM »
The "short manual" refers to the Individual Computers Wiki for more info on the Expert Menu options but that link (http://wiki.icomp.de/ACA500_first_steps) appears to be broken.

I looked at the main wiki for the ACA500 to see if it was showing up somewhere else and it isn't.


:(