Posts by trixster

Good morning! Thanks for the reply. Yes, I appreciate this is a niche case. I thought I’d just post up my findings in case someone else finds it useful

I have side-stepped the LoadModule issue by adding this to startup-sequence before setpatch

C:CPU >NIL: CHECK 68040

If not WARN

C:LoadModule LIBS:Icon.library REVERSE

Else

EndIf

When the Blizzard 1260 is in use cpu command detects the 060 and runs Loadmodule. When the Bliz is disabled and the ACA500Plus 68000 profile is in use, CPU CHECK 68040 causes a Warning, Loadmodule is not run and the startup-sequence continues as normal.

I'd still like to know why LoadModule in the startup-sequence was crashing the 68000 profile.

Jens

Regarding disabling the Blizzard 1260 - is there a way to make this ‘permanent’ until the machine is either turned off/on or until the user returns to the ACA500Plus menu and loads a new profile?

as I mentioned in the previous post, loading a profile which disables the Blizzard works fine until a soft reboot occurs, and upon doing so the blizzard ‘wakes up’ and gets in the way!

I've returned to this after a few months as the 1260 is now in my aca500plus machine full time, and I wanted to try again to get the machine set up so that I can reliably load WB1.3, WB3.1 42Mhz 68000 and WB3.1 060 configs without having to remove any hardware, including the A314.

I can report that i think it's now pretty much sorted. I had not realised that there was a Map ROM ACA500Plus option, and i had not appreciated what this actually meant. As such with Map ROM left to 'On' it was mapping the 3.1 KS to the Blizzard's ram regardless of whether the config was trying to disable the accelerator in favour of the on-board 68000 or not... and the 1260 would kick into life when the profile was booted! With Map ROM set to 'ACA500Plus' in my 3.1/68000 profile the 1260 remains inactive once the profile is booted. If I select the 1260 profile with Map ROM set to 'A1200 accelerator' the map ROM maps 3.1 into the 1260's memory and all is well.

I have noted a few minor issues though:

using the 3.1 68000 profile, the AUX CF card does not seem to be detected. If it is set to On then the machine just reset loops when the profile launches. The AUX CF works perfectly for the 1260 profile, and works fine for the 68000 profile if the 1260 is physically removed, so i cannot currently fathom what the issue is here.

When using the 3.1 68000 profile if, once loaded into Workbench, I soft reboot then the 1260 wakes up! If I try and hold key 2 to stop the 1260 activating I get no further into a reboot than a black screen. So essentially to reboot the 3.1 68000 profile I have to reboot, drop into the aca500plus menu and then boot the profile again afresh.

Loadmodule causes a green-screen hardware error on the WB3.1 68000 profile if i try to use it to update icon.library unless I use the REVERSE flag. I also have to use the NOREBOOT flag to avoid the issue in the previous post, but this results in icon.library not updating until a reboot has happened which as shown above I cant achieve! Is LoadModule trying to push icon.library into an area of memory already in use by the aca500plus, hence a green screen hardware error?

A few things to report!

I removed the A314 from the system. This 'fixed' the 2.2GB chip ram anomoly and the machine now correctly reports 0.5MB chip ram

Also, the removal seems to have fixed the original problem of not being able to disable the B1260 - the CPU Switch option now works as advertised and I can boot the machine with the aca500plus's 68000

So the lesson for me is to report problems with a stock machine, not with other things attached!

I will put the A314 back in and do further tests, but to report on your previous test suggestion - if I pressed F10, 68000 and then return the machine 'booted' to a purple screen and got no futher. In Clock mode it reported a Supported A1200 accelerator.. but then pressing X similarly got no further than a purple screen.

Thanks for your time on this, Jens, it's appreciated.

The board is this one:

https://github.com/niklasekstrom/a314

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=97171

It is an interface for a raspberry pi (like all new Amiga stuff it seems!) for adding a bit of extra ram, to use the ARM as a coprocessor, and a few other things. It is providing the extra 512K which the ACA500Plus is turning into chip ram.

I will remove this board and run showconfig debug again to see if it is part of the issue you have noticed.

I will try this all this evening, thanks again for the reply.

one thing I think pertinent now to mention - this machine has an A314 in the trapdoor expansion slot and this is providing the additional chip memory (to give this A500 1MB chip), so I wonder if this is the cause of the overlap you have mentioned?

I did not mention this earlier because I forgot! And also because the machine has been working great prior to adding in this B1260 with just the ACA500Plus and the A314 - no problems!

I will try the cloaking mode and the F10 68000 test this evening!

Sorry for the delay! Attached is the showconfig output. The id seems to match what the amiga hardware database has for the 1240 ERC and 1260.

Ah, you are correct. It is indeed a B1240 with an 060!

I have just updated to v0.135 and the behaviour remains the same as I described.

So unless I have misunderstood how to disable the B1260, can anyone lend any help?

Hi all,

I have connected my Blizzard 1260 to the ACA500Plus and it seems to be working great.

I'm struggling to disable it however, in order to use the ACA500Plus 68000 with different profiles (when wishing to use KS1.3 and Workbench 1.3 for instance, or running a 3.1 profile at 48Mhz).

The wiki describes this:

• CPU switch: If you have an A1200 accelerator card that can switch off it's CPU (ACA1233n, B1230IV, B1240, B1260), you can use this menu item to downgrade the computer to the 68ec000 processor of the ACA500plus. If selected, the 68000-only options (such as Action Replay Freezer and CPU speed settings) can be changed. The actual CPU switch is only executed when launching the profile. The CPU setting becomes part of a saved profile.

If I set the CPU switch to 68000 I assume that this is what will disable the Blizzard when I activate the configuration. The CPU Switch option shows two possible configurations: ACA1233n 68030, and 68000. I find this odd as I expected to see reference to the Blizzard there, not an ACA card...?

However, when i save "68000" to the NVRAM and launch the configuration, the ACA500Plus commences the boot, the rainbow flash of the Blizzard 1260 still appears and the accelerator still functions like normal, it is not disabled. Indeed, if I let it boot straight through into workbench the 060 is still active.

So how to disable the Blizzard so I can occasionally use the ACA500Plus' 68000? I do not want to use the Cloaking Device as I still want to be able to use the ACA500Plus ram and IDE whilst the Blizzard is disabled.

Is my firmware out of date here?

My ACA500Plus has ROM v0.129, HW ID $08, Flash rom ID $1C/$16

BigDismo V1.9 oct 10 2018

Ok, thanks for the reply, Jens

The idea is to use the ACA500Plus alongside something like the PiStorm or the Buffee.

Hi,

Is it possible to have an option to disable the cpu on the ACA500Plus and use the motherboard cpu whilst retaining the other ACA500Plus features?