Amiga ACA500 is awesome!

[mindprober]

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.

[sm3]

Yeah, I checked that earlier as well.

What is strange is mine says "MapRom off". But yet it still says copying rom to ram when I boot to WB 1.3

I'm confused as well about these settings. I really haven't paid that close attention to mine. My main purpose for getting one was just to transfer ADFs to floppy. Works good for that

[mindprober]

That is weird. Question for you is, do you see all 2MB of your FAST RAM with MapROM off? Do you have KS 1.3 in ROM on your machine?

Yeah, I checked that earlier as well.

What is strange is mine says "MapRom off". But yet it still says copying rom to ram when I boot to WB 1.3

I'm confused as well about these settings. I really haven't paid that close attention to mine. My main purpose for getting one was just to transfer ADFs to floppy. Works good for that

[sm3]

That is weird. Question for you is, do you see all 2MB of your FAST RAM with MapROM off? Do you have KS 1.3 in ROM on your machine?

I have a real 1.3 Kickstart installed. I'm still missing 512k.

[mindprober]

So it is happening to you too?!?

That's actually good news. Maybe it is just a matter of finding the right configuration settings. So you also have the latest firmware (0.99)?

I have a real 1.3 Kickstart installed. I'm still missing 512k.

[sm3]

So it is happening to you too?!?

That's actually good news. Maybe it is just a matter of finding the right configuration settings. So you also have the latest firmware (0.99)?

Right v.99. I was just thinking my missing 512k was due to Kickstart being copied to ram, which it probably is. When I use my Amiga Analyzer disk I can see the 512k expansion ram separately from the ram provided by the ACA500.

[mindprober]

I'm out of ideas. Hopefully, some of these early adopters can chime in and assist.

The behavior of copying the ROM to RAM despite what the "MapROM" is set to may be due to what boot option you select. I know with one of the choices (F2 or F5) I saw "ROM to ROM" or something briefly display.

Right v.99. I was just thinking my missing 512k was due to Kickstart being copied to ram, which it probably is. When I use my Amiga Analyzer disk I can see the 512k expansion ram separately from the ram provided by the ACA500.

[sm3]

Well, I played around with the settings and changed my profile #1. Here is what I selected:

Add other on-board RAM On
1M Chip RAM expansion On

Now I see this:

1528k Fast Memory
511k   ACA500 Fast Memory
1029k  Chip Memory

I believe this accounts for what I have installed in mine, 512k + 512k trap door and the 2 M in the ACA500.

[sm3]

I'm still rather new to the Amiga, so all this Chip RAM/Fast RAM stuff is still confusing to me.

[Motormouth]

This ACA500 sounds very flexible.

I wonder if it can be used with other Franken-Amiga expansions like
 a Slingshot Pro:
http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=1395
which enables a zorro II slot, on the side expansion slot, with a side expansion slot pass-through

This would allow a zorro II card in addition to the ACA 500, "in theory"
or
the 86pin Adapter
http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=709
This is an 86-pin side expansion slot doubler.
In theory one could use the  ACA500 with a side slot SCSI controller "like the GVP HD8+"
or an A570


My guess is the slingshot might work, but my guess is that the ACA500 and something like an A570 would interfere on the 86 pin bus.

[mindprober]

And when you say you "see", you mean a system analyzer program sees it? You have me at an advantage right now since I do not yet my have my CF card(s). I'm working from floppies and not a lot have labels, so I do not have access to tools beyond Workbench.

Not sure what it means when you report 1528k FAST RAM and then an additional 511k from the ACA500. Shouldn't it ALL come from the ACA500?

This could be what that french post was all about. In order to use WHDLoad optimally, they say 2MB FAST will have to seen as one whole block. And configuring the FAST RAM as one whole block may be the key to the problem. It is not clear how to do this. I did what was suggested and I still only see a maximum of 1.5MB FAST RAM.

I was reading a lot on the English Amiga Board where Jens is active and at least two other users brought this up starting with post #273:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=71495&page=14

I already have the setting "keep current" for the ROM option. Didn't work.

Jens also mentioned not enabling any feature that will force a ROM mapping. Everytime I check a setting that would do this, I find that it is already turned off. What I really need to see is a snapshot of someone's expert menu and system information screen with 2MB visible so that I can compare.

Well, I played around with the settings and changed my profile #1. Here is what I selected:

Add other on-board RAM On
1M Chip RAM expansion On

Now I see this:

1528k Fast Memory
511k   ACA500 Fast Memory
1029k  Chip Memory

I believe this accounts for what I have installed in mine, 512k + 512k trap door and the 2 M in the ACA500.

[sm3]

Right, what I mean by "see" is that I'm using the Amiga Analyzer disk and listing the memory configuration.  What I typed was straight from the output of the Analyzer screen.

When I boot to WB 1.3 it shows 2.9+ M at the top of the screen.

I believe that my configuration choices have made my 512k trap door expansion look as if it was chip memory. I found a simliar post about it on the website:

"this maps a Rev. 6 (and up) A500's 512K expansion to chipmem, instantly upgrading it to 1MB chipmem!"

[mindprober]

2.9MB? Then that would appear to be working for you. I am only getting 2.4MB total under WB 1.3. This is a WB 1.3.3 boot floppy, mind you. Not running anything on top of that to eat up FAST RAM.

Do you actually see something greater than 1536k FAST RAM in your ACA500 system information screen?

Right, what I mean by "see" is that I'm using the Amiga Analyzer disk and listing the memory configuration.  What I typed was straight from the output of the Analyzer screen.

When I boot to WB 1.3 it shows 2.9+ M at the top of the screen.

[mindprober]

That is the ideal way to go. Since I have already performed the 1MB CHIP RAM hack to my A500, this setting does not apply to me. ACA500 correctly identifies my system as having 1MB CHIP RAM. The "1MB CHIP RAM configuration" setting reads "unavailable" presumably because I already have it.  

In my case, I do not believe this has anything to do with my missing 512k FAST RAM, though.

I believe that my configuration choices have made my 512k trap door expansion look as if it was chip memory. I found a simliar post about it on the website:

"this maps a Rev. 6 (and up) A500's 512K expansion to chipmem, instantly upgrading it to 1MB chipmem!"

[sm3]

2.9MB? Then that would appear to be working for you. I am only getting 2.4MB total under WB 1.3. This is a WB 1.3.3 boot floppy, mind you. Not running anything on top of that to eat up FAST RAM.

Do you actually see something greater than 1536k FAST RAM in your ACA500 system information screen?

No, in my "System Information" screen it shows:

Chip RAM: 512k
Trap door slow: 512k
ACA500 on-board Fast RAM: 1536k
1M Chip RAM expansion option available

I made the changes and saved them as profile #1.

[mindprober]

It is still strange that system info reports 1536k RAM, but if your total memory available under WB1.3 is 2.9MB, then you obviously have 2MB FAST being recognized where it counts.

Another thing you can do is open a Shell in WB 1.3, enter "cd c" then type "avail". That will show us how the ram is configured from the Workbench point of view.

No, in my "System Information" screen it shows:

Chip RAM: 512k
Trap door slow: 512k
ACA500 on-board Fast RAM: 1536k
1M Chip RAM expansion option available