Just ordered myself the ACA 500 PLUS and have a few questions

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • So I just ordered this and looking forward to using it. Now, I already have the old version, the ACA 500. Using a fully unlocked ACA 1221 in combination with this. With this setup it seems impossible to configure it to a basic A500 with 512KB chip and 512KB slow RAM for floppy games compatability without removing the ACA 500.


    So I read about this new cloakmode on the PLUS version which should make you able to do the above mentioned without removing the ACA 500 PLUS. Will this work even if I have an accelerator like the ACA 1221 plugged into it?


    Also, since the ACA 500 PLUS is using an overclocked some kind of 68000 CPU, does this mean that by itself, without any other accelerators plugged in it should be more compatible with troublesome whdload games that require the 'Cache' tooltip to avoid slowdowns? The type of slowdowns you get when using 020 accelerators in A500s or A600s. Related to A500s and A600s only having a 16bit bus VS A1200 having 32bit bus?


    Another question. From what I was reading 7MB of fast RAM is available for whdload. Another MB is reserved for maprom/kickstart. Is it possible to free up this 1MB and add it to the fast RAM for a total of 8MB fast RAM if I install a real kickstart 3.1 chip in my A500?


    Thanks

  • So I just ordered this and looking forward to using it. Now, I already have the old version, the ACA 500. Using a fully unlocked ACA 1221 in combination with this. With this setup it seems impossible to configure it to a basic A500 with 512KB chip and 512KB slow RAM for floppy games compatability without removing the ACA 500.

    Correct.


    So I read about this new cloakmode on the PLUS version which should make you able to do the above mentioned without removing the ACA 500 PLUS. Will this work even if I have an accelerator like the ACA 1221 plugged into it?

    Unfortunately not, no. The reason is that the ACA1221 cannot be switched off, so the computer will stay in 68020 mode all the time. Only the ACA1233n allows switching back to 68000, allowing you to use the cloaking device without physically removing the A1200 accelerator.


    Also, since the ACA 500 PLUS is using an overclocked some kind of 68000 CPU, does this mean that by itself, without any other accelerators plugged in it should be more compatible with troublesome whdload games that require the 'Cache' tooltip to avoid slowdowns?

    Yes, absolutely. The ACA500plus even improves compatibility, as you can choose memory configurations in the cloaking device menu that you would otherwise need to modify the computer for. Besides, the "Cache" tooltip will not apply to a 68000 system, as the CPU does not have any caches :-)


    Another question. From what I was reading 7MB of fast RAM is available for whdload. Another MB is reserved for maprom/kickstart. Is it possible to free up this 1MB and add it to the fast RAM for a total of 8MB fast RAM if I install a real kickstart 3.1 chip in my A500?

    Almost :-) 512k is always reserved for MapROM, but if you choose to disable AR3 emulation, your fastmem will be a bit bigger, as the whole area from $40.0000 to $ad.ffff can be used for fastmem, giving you 7.3MBytes of fastmem. 128k at the end of this memory space is reserved for system "housekeeping" and various patches that need to be applied to certain Kickstart versions to give them access to the CF card slots. Note that there is no physical ROM on the ACA500plus - all code that is executed is only executed from RAM. Loading from flash is considerably slower, and executing from flash would be horribly slow. So some of the generous amount of RAM is always used for emulating ROM space.


    All this is publicly documented - see Wiki.

  • Thanks for the answer. This is very good news, as I was planning to use the ACA 500 PLUS with no other accelerator plugged into it.


    So great things I've seen from reviews and things I've gathered from here:


    - More compatible with whdload games VS 020 accelerators used in A500s and A600s because 68000 CPU and various settings on the ACA 500 PLUS

    - 68000 CPU is still blazing fast anyway because overclocking and the fast RAM

    - A little bit over 7MB fast RAM available which should be enough for most whdload games

    - Possibility to turn it into cloak mode for floppy games compatability without removing the ACA 500 PLUS

    - And a ton more nice features


    This looks like a swiss army knife for the A500. A must have. The original ACA 500 is also a great product which I really enjoy, but the PLUS has improved further on this and made it even better.


    Also have a 3D printed case for it on the way, to protect it. Comparing the ACA 500 Plus to other internal solutions I've seen for the A500, the ACA 500 Plus just does everything better VS the others.

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