What does the new Menu firmware change on the ACA500plus?

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • Previously, only the ACA1233n (not 1231n) was the only card that supported soft-switch-off. We also support the B1230-IV, but still "unofficially", hence the string. Since we didn't want to introduce a list, "supported" A1200 accelerator is now the new string.


    If you go to the F3 menu from the main screen, you now have "X" to switch CPUs both ways if you have an ACA1234. Note that the ACA1234 goes into complete stealth mode, so *everything* on that card is switched off: CPU, RAM, Flash, CF-card. I'm just repeating it here (already mentioned in the product description), but I got requests about this recently, so it's better to mention it over and over again.


    Further Changes in V0.140:

    - ACA1234 support. MapROM and CPU switch off.

    - ACA12XX CPU switcher support (so far untested, development not complete)

    - ACA1233n,ACA1234 and ACA12XX switcher back to 68030 mode CPU switch support (X key in F3 menu; again: Not completely tested)

    - ACA500plus boot code now handles A1200 accelerator CPU on/off switch done by external utility. Previously it crashed with a green exception screen.

    - Disabled (strikethrough) options was drawn without strikethrough when F10 menu was entered until some key was pressed.

    - CPU switch using external utility supported.


    Older changes, developed before and during lockdown periods, but was not followed up until now (hard to put a date on any of htese changes):

    - User ROM automatic byteswap detection and swapping when flashing (useful for those who use binaries from PC-based Eprom-readers)

    - Global DF0: option was ignored - may now cause confusion, as profiles now appear to change behaviour.

    - Clear possible active MCU NMI at reset. Could have caused hang if system was reset when NMI was active.

    - Keyboard handshake delay was too small

    - Boot slot PIO mode selection was incorrectly selected. Enabled mode was higher than selected.

    - Built-in Action Replay and HRTMon are now WHDLoad freezer support compatible, WHDLoad v18.6 or newer required.

    - Built-in Action Replay does not hang anymore if CPU is 68020+ and VBR has been moved

    - CPU speed is now temporarily set to max allowed (F8 page configured CPU max speed) during ROM image unpacking to improve boot speed (this was in V0.135 already, but not enabled for all possible use cases)

    - Boot diagnostics optimized (RAM test etc), boot time before menu appears should be noticeably faster



    For the next release, the German Umlauts äöü and ß are corrected, and we also plan to have serial logging added to the RTC detection routine, as that's a long-standing bug that we can't reproduce reliably. The workaround "use a static global setting" works for everyone, but it's still more convenient to have a working auto-detection, so we'll go for remote debugging here.

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