A new toy, just in time for Christmas :)

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Everybody loves new toys, right?  And just in time for Christmas.  From a dear friend on the forums that I've gotten some other sweet hardware from in the past.  

I see I'll still need to do some config work, and testing on what the best 68060 library is (just using the first one I found off http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/tekmagic2060 right now).  Maybe THoR's?

Guess I'll need to update all my datatypes to 68060 versions, also.

This board has modded ROM's that allow it to automount PFS/SFS partitions, too.  I was worried about that but my PFS-formatted CF card popped right up.  Had to do a little more work to get it to recognize my FAT95-formatted SD card, and for some reason it's still not wanting to recognize my CD-R drive, but hey.  This is why we love our Amiga's, right?  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

MultiCX bombed out so I'm missing some of my functionality.  I wonder if that utility isn't compatible with an '060, or if maybe it's just one of the settings I have selected in there.  Hrm. Also gotta figure out how to turn Copyback on in SysInfo.  "CPU" says it's on.

I may very well drink about six cups of coffee and stay up all night playing with this new toy.  

Edit - fixed MultiCX.  Just needed to be run lower in the priority after some other stuff.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

So after some tweaking everything is working great with my new toy, with one exception:

The SCSI controller doesn't seem to handle diskchanges with my removable media (I have a CD drive and a card reader).  If I boot with a disk in the drive I can issue diskchange commands from the shell and it works, otherwise nada.  Ejecting a disk still shows the icon on the desktop, etc.

I found some helpful tips in this forum:

http://www.verycomputer.com/2_e456fbfee836cc4c_1.htm

http://www.verycomputer.com/2_350f7f35e98dc977_1.htm

For example that I had to change my CD drive to Device ID 6 to get it recognized.

I even found comments from a couple folks who seem to be having almost the exact same problem (only they're using ZIP disks):

sure
 GLK> enough, a zip cartridge will  not be visibly mounted unless it
 GLK> is in the drive during the boot process.  
 GLK> (btw, booting is very fast compared to the g-force 040!!!!)
 GLK> boot without  a cartridge installed, insert it after the boot
 GLK> sequence, and it doesn't  mount.  attempting to manually mount
 GLK> it, results in an message that the  drive is already mounted.
 GLK> but where is its icon?  this never happened  with the g-force
 GLK> 040.

This is a quirk of the 2060 and tekscsi2.device with ZIP drives, it
happened with my old Combo 030 too, that it didn't with your g-force
just means that you were lucky.  However, as long as you always have
a ZIP disk in the drive, you can swap them in and out to your heart's
content, merely issuing a diskchange command in order to see the new
ZIP disk.

This is hardly the biggest deal in the world, but on the million-to-one chance does anyone have any ideas?  Or does tekscsi2.device just not like disk changes?  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Addendum to the above.  I found this review:  https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sys.amiga.reviews/-trCW_Hdb-I

That says:

My Pioneer CD-ROM drive behaves strange when attached to the
G-FORCE SCSI controller (this is the reason why I kept the GVP HCD-II+
board in my A2000).

So it appears I'm just going to have to live with it.  If I care that much, I'll throw a 2091 in there.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Slapped a heatsink on the '060 and fine-tuned the libraries a bit more.  SysSpeed gives a significantly more impressive number when rating the MIPS.  

I've noticed that ever since adding USB, my system scores a bit lower in these kind of tests.  Obviously that's the price I pay for having a USB stack running in the background.  Meh, I can live with that.  

[guest11527]

A couple of comments: First, if you get the yellow warning from the 68040.library, it means exactly what it says: You're loading the 68040.library on a 68060 system - and this cannot work. You need to load the 68060.library instead. For that, use a newer SetPatch that is aware of the 68060. Or patch an existing SetPatch to load the 680x0.library, which will again load the *right* CPU library for you.  Hint: There is an installation script for all that which keeps care of the correct libraries and SetPatch. Manual installation causes risks, and these are the side-effects you're seeing. I'm *not* shipping a "dummy" library as this is an ugly and non-scalable solution.  Concerning removable media: RDBs do not belong on removable media. An RDB is a boot-time configuration option allowing the hostadapter to automount the device when bootstrapping for it. It is a bad solution for removable media - if the RDB is read at all, the hostadapter has to create a new mount entry every time a medium is inserted, and it will create side-effects like the ones you have observed.  Thus, stick to a static mount list for ZIPs and remove the RDB from the ZIP disks. There is one particular example for a ZIP drive mount list in Os 3.9 that came along with the ZIP tools. This mount entry should work, though it may not fit to how you configured your ZIP, so probably some adjustment is needed to read *your* formatted ZIPs.  The problem is here that AmigaOs has no means of "adjusting" an existing mount once a file system has been created for a media, so it's a bad idea to enforce that.  Merry Christmas!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

A couple of comments: First, if you get the yellow warning from the 68040.library, it means exactly what it says: You're loading the 68040.library on a 68060 system - and this cannot work. You need to load the 68060.library instead. For that, use a newer SetPatch that is aware of the 68060. Or patch an existing SetPatch to load the 680x0.library, which will again load the *right* CPU library for you.  Hint: There is an installation script for all that which keeps care of the correct libraries and SetPatch. Manual installation causes risks, and these are the side-effects you're seeing. I'm *not* shipping a "dummy" library as this is an ugly and non-scalable solution.  Concerning removable media: RDBs do not belong on removable media. An RDB is a boot-time configuration option allowing the hostadapter to automount the device when bootstrapping for it. It is a bad solution for removable media - if the RDB is read at all, the hostadapter has to create a new mount entry every time a medium is inserted, and it will create side-effects like the ones you have observed.  Thus, stick to a static mount list for ZIPs and remove the RDB from the ZIP disks. There is one particular example for a ZIP drive mount list in Os 3.9 that came along with the ZIP tools. This mount entry should work, though it may not fit to how you configured your ZIP, so probably some adjustment is needed to read *your* formatted ZIPs.  The problem is here that AmigaOs has no means of "adjusting" an existing mount once a file system has been created for a media, so it's a bad idea to enforce that.  Merry Christmas!

I know, I've already got all your '060 libraries installed on there now.  I was going from an '040 to an '060 and I just thought that requester was funny when I powered it up for the first time prior to changing the libs.  Sorry, I have a weird sense of humor.  

I'm not sure I understand the second half of your comment - I'm not the one using ZIP disks, that quote was just one I found in another forum from 10 years ago, that seemed similar to the problem I'm having.

To be more specific, my problem is that tekscsi2.device isn't recognizing when I change CD's (or SD cards from my card reader).  So for example:  if I boot with a CD in the drive, the icon will show up on the desktop.  If I eject the CD, the icon for that disk will stay on the desktop.  If I stick another CD in the drive, I'll have to issue a Diskchange command from the shell to get the system to recognize that I've changed the disc.  Same goes for my media card reader.

I didn't have any problems with gvpscsi.device on my older '040 card; it detected disc changes properly.

Anyhow, based on my google search results, it sounds a lot of people have issues with tekscsi2.device and removable media.  I'm not going to worry a whole lot about it unless someone has any suggestions?

Oh - and thanks, as always, for your awesome libraries!  

[kolla]

Imagine if there was just one "cpu patch library" instead of the current mess.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Imagine if there was just one "cpu patch library" instead of the current mess.

But wouldn't that just take all the fun out of tinkering?  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

So I usually play a few levels of Christmas Lemmings every year, but  this year I decided to try out my new '060 board with Doom, instead.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMjZDGf9WNA

Maybe I should've recorded a level where I didn't get killed so fast though, haha.  :lol:

[dannyp1]

You're going to love your new toy Mike!!!  Half the fun is figuring it out and getting it set-up just how you want it.  Don't you like the way you can zip around the workbench with the 060?

[Damion]

Fantastic (vintage) hardware there. As you've found, Thor's library works perfect here (Ralph Babel wrote one too, if you want to try it). You'll also want to check out MuFastZero if you haven't already.

Although the Z2 bus is rather slow, you'll get the full 3.5 MB/s writing to a Picasso IV, which is really an excellent combo with this accelerator.

I wish I could help with the SCSI issue. I used to burn CDs with mine using 2 PlexWriters, and don't recall experiencing the diskchange problem. There was a Guru ROM intended for the TekMagic, sadly it was never released.

I know this card has a "reputation", but I always found it to be really fast and stable. (On that note, just don't overclock it!) I had a Blizzard 2060 too--sold it, and kept the TekMagic.

[zipper]

Wasn't the FPU crippled by missing patcher for missing FPU instructions (AKA Cyberpatcher in P5 060 cards) or does Thor's library fix it? Otherwise Oxypatcher would be recommended.
I remember once when trying Quake it was really crawling - I had disabled the patcher by accident.

[paul1981]

Doom looks a bit jerky Mike. I don't have Zorro II, but is it smoother when running in EHB mode?

Also, can you use SysSpeed and show us the mips rating? As you know, sysinfo is pretty useless as it doesn't understand the 060.

Congrats though, you have a truly wonderful setup.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Doom looks a bit jerky Mike. I don't have Zorro II, but is it smoother when running in EHB mode?

Also, can you use SysSpeed and show us the mips rating? As you know, sysinfo is pretty useless as it doesn't understand the 060.

Congrats though, you have a truly wonderful setup.

Thanks!

That's using one of the P96 modes on my GVP Spectrum. Obviously with full screen and all the detail settings cranked up to high, I think I'm hitting the limits of the Z II bus. But it's still a heck of a lot smoother than it was with my '040, and it loads like a scalded cat in comparison to that other board.  

Playing around with the HSMath libraries now, I'll have to retest once I'm able to get a registered copy of those. Gotta go visit the family today but just off-hand from memory, I think SysSpeed was reporting around 65 MIPS? With my '040 it was around 24. Zoom zoom!