Understanding and Optimization of OS 4.1 for Classics

A forum for Classic Amiga specific support issues.
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danbeaver
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Re: Understanding and Optimization of OS 4.1 for Classics

Post by danbeaver »

Thank you, I share the same concern of exposing my wide devices to a lack of high-byte termination. I would think though that a 68-pin active pass-through terminator would dampen the high byte to an extent that the signal variance would remainin the stable range and then the low-bytes connect to the single device with the specific low-byte active termination. The CSPPC manual is unclear on this (maybe the German side contains more specific information). What I have not done a general search on the web, only and just specifically for the Amiga; that "data" is mostly a small amount of opinions and single-minded conclusions. I'll try to get to that before tha I-to-E bracket arrives in a week and get back to the forum with an update.

As always, thanks for your help!
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danbeaver
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Re: Understanding and Optimization of OS 4.1 for Classics

Post by danbeaver »

Calgor', I've re-examined the CSPPC manual and I believe you are right, it does state the wide-to-narrow adapter itself needs to provide the high byte termination and does not mention a wide pass-through terminator. I am going to see if I can locate the "high-byte Wide-to-narrow" adapters before I risk data loss. Oh in my world of retro computing, I acknowledge the loss of speed for an increase of adaptability. If I could keep my UW SCSI bus "clean" in the 40 M/s range, I would.

As a side note, it would be very helpful if the OS 4.1 kernel allowed additional DMA controllers; one could theoretically give each a priority similar to a task. This would allow use of the A4000T's narrow SCSI bus and USB cards.
Gregor
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Re: Understanding and Optimization of OS 4.1 for Classics

Post by Gregor »

Calgor wrote:
>No - if you are to have narrow devices on your chain, I would recommend a 68-50 pin adapter with active
>high byte termination to go from your UWSCSI cable to your 50 pin cable. And then terminate the narrow
>part of the chain with a narrow active terminator. Do not leave the upper bits unterminated. You may get
>away with it but it is not the recommended setup.

These 68-50 pin adapters with high byte termination are available e.g. from ASB Computer (in Spain). Have not tested them myself, though...

>If you were to instead include individual 50 pin devices all connected to a 68pin UWSCSI cable (a bit more >complicated), then I cannot remember exactly what adapter you need to go from 68pin to 50pin for each
>device (whether 68-50pin adapter needs to be upper byte terminated or not if the device is in the middle
>of the chain).

I have used the SCSI I-III adapters (if I remember right the title they use) from AmigaKit for this purpose. At least Iomega Jaz and CyberDrive 24 (CD-ROM) are working ok with them.

Regards,

Gregor
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danbeaver
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Re: Understanding and Optimization of OS 4.1 for Classics

Post by danbeaver »

Gregor, Welcome!

I've not ordered from the ABS site before, but I've checked it out in the past. I notice that the CSPPC manual refers to an internal 8-bit (narrow/SCSI2/Fast) inside as not needind termination if both ends of the bus/cable are actively terminated. This seems to refer to the way I want to set mine up: a 68-pin middle cable connector to a 50-pin connector that attaches outside the box to a single 8-bit device. To conform to what you guys are saying, all I need is a upper 8-bit terminated adapter before the 50-pin/8-bit device. Is this correct?

P.S., EDIT: At your recommendation I've ordered an "Int. 50F to 68F SCSI Adapter w/hi-termination" from a place called, "SCSI Source,16321 Westwoods Business Park, Ellisville, MO 63021." Price was OK and since they reside in my state (damn sales tax) I should get within a week.
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Re: Understanding and Optimization of OS 4.1 for Classics

Post by Gregor »

danbeaver wrote:
I've not ordered from the ABS site before, but I've checked it out in the past. I notice that the CSPPC manual refers to an internal 8-bit (narrow/SCSI2/Fast) inside as not needind termination if both ends of the bus/cable are actively terminated. This seems to refer to the way I want to set mine up: a 68-pin middle cable connector to a 50-pin connector that attaches outside the box to a single 8-bit device. To conform to what you guys are saying, all I need is a upper 8-bit terminated adapter before the 50-pin/8-bit device. Is this correct?
I am not an expert, but I would rather replace an active terminator at one end of the 68pin cable with that upper 8-bit terminated adapter and then terminate the last device at the end of the 50-pin cable, or put a separate 50-pin active terminator there. I think the adapter is meant to be used that way....

If you put something in the middle of bus already terminated at the ends, then a non terminated adapter should do. But as you plan to put several 50-pin devices in a chain, it will probably complicate the situation.

I have a HP ScanJet which I earlier planned to connet to CSPPC-SCSI using an upper bit terminated adapter. But the needed adapter and an ext. connector would have been quite expensive, and as there is no decent scanner software for Amiga, I cancelled the project. I use the Scanner via the SCSI port of Emplant board and with Fusion MAC emulator and HP's original software. Sounds complicated but it works... :-).

Gregor
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danbeaver
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Re: Understanding and Optimization of OS 4.1 for Classics

Post by danbeaver »

Well, i only plan to use one device at a time, but I'll likely try out both methods and report back the results.
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Re: Understanding and Optimization of OS 4.1 for Classics

Post by nubechecorre »

A very interesting thread! congratulations! very helpfull infos!! :-)

I read the thread and then browsed the web and found this:

http://www.evillabs.net/AROS/aros-sam46 ... .16.img.gz

Here, there is written that Joerg Strohmayer did an SFSSalv utiltity and maybe that utility could be updated so that we can use it under Amiga OS 4.1?.. what do you think?
http://www.os4games.it

Sam440ep mini-itx

Classic System:

Amiga 1200
PowerPC 603+ 68040 25 Mhz + 256MbRam
Radeon 9250 128Mb VRam
Voodoo 3 3000 16Mb VRam
HD-Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 Gb PATA
DVD-RW LG Dual Layer
SoundBlaster PCI 128
4xEIDE Buffered Interface Elbox
Cocolino Interface Elbox
AmigaOne White Mouse
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danbeaver
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Re: Understanding and Optimization of OS 4.1 for Classics

Post by danbeaver »

Good Call on the SFSSalv! It would be nice to have that feature.

Back on the wide-to-narrow SCSI issue I've found that a mid-cable 68-pin to 50-pin adapter with high-byte termination works on narrow devices (a DVD-RAM, several CD-ROMs, a CD-R/W, and a Jazz drive); while I put two 146Gb 80-pin Maxtor Atlas drives in powered external boxes on a narrow bus, they only worked on the A4000Ts 4091 narrow controller, the CSPPC's cybppc.device could see nothing under OS 3.9 and under OS 4.1 the external drive was unusable. My conclusion is the a Wide-to-narrow-to-wide connection loses something, but a narrow-to-wide device coughs up the goodies. Problem is that those cheesy powered SCSI boxes out there for sale on X_Bay are all narrow; I looked into swapping out the harness and cables on the narrow boxes and found the cost in the "Wow, that's expensive!" range.

As a side note, I bought a Yamaha CD-RW external box listed as, "hardly used." I found out that this was because it had a CD jammed deep inside it, and during my disassembly there was a Jolly Rancher candy wrapper left inside. Once I got deep into the guts of the beast, pulled out the disc and put her back together, it still worked. No thanks to the Candy Man.

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
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danbeaver
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Re: Understanding and Optimization of OS 4.1 for Classics

Post by danbeaver »

Just got a Thylacine USB board sent to me from an ebay dude, "superduper3037," I guess "superduper3036" was taken? A very nice Amigan; although the card was not listed with the software, he burned a CD with all the drivers, Cool!

It is sitting in my Amy running perfectly under OS 4.1 and Poseidon. I did a Hex Read of the driver and Chris Hodges did the final tweaking. It is a nice, cleanly designed board but has only one (1) version 1.1 USB port. It will be a bit slow on thumb drives and such, but fine for mice, printers, and networking (an Ethernet driver is included for that). The one port will need a powered hub, but those are easy to come by, unlike USB cards that work under OS 4.1. Even clockport expansion ports (for a Subway) are hard to get; the Deneb's doesn't count, since it is a USB card.

I put online a 2-port DVI switcher to go between the Indivision AGA MK2 and my Radeon 9200 card and found the signal excellant. Well it was until I tried to play Quake 2 at 320X240; this is fine for VGA, but a "no sync" in DVI. Play at 640X480 is beautiful, but motion is jerky, and you are quickly dead. Now I have 2 sets of inputs: DVI X 2, and VGA. For those interested, the Monoprice 2-port DRM-1712F DVI-D switcher was in the 30 USD range off the web.
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Re: Understanding and Optimization of OS 4.1 for Classics

Post by danbeaver »

An update:
The newest version of Professional File System III 18.4 Beta 5-OCT-12 became available and I have played with it. It is installed on a re-usable partition and has been error free for over a month (it comes with a full featured recovery program). I could never get either OS 3.9 or 3.1 to boot properly from it, but that is probably my error. The PFS file system is fast getting Quake2 launched in a quarter less time. The JXFileSystem crashed twice on me without any recovery possible.

My BigRamPlus 256MB card came in, and the card is "Big" because the RAM chips are all on one side. It will only install with a Mediator board in place on my A4000T if there are no wires or connectors in the way. I found a free slot and perfecto; I do have a Zorro extender socket I got a bit back from Elbox (28 grams in weight) for 20 US Salad leaves plus 40 US salad leaves shipping (odd I sent an A2630 + DKB2632 card to that country for 18 US Salad leaves). THe BigRamPlus is great -- 256MB for the cost of a 128MB Zorro 3 RAM board from elsewhere. I plan to retask the card in a newly acquired A3000.

I installed a GVP ImpactVision24 card I got off *Bay in my A4000's video slot and on its off days from being a frame grabber card, it doubles a a second deinterlacer board. I know this sounds stupid, I have a much better quality Indivision AGA MKII on DVI-D, but I count myself as a true Amiga owner who does many stupid things. Besides the card and VIU Box with software and manuals was around 60 salad leaves US, and a fool and his money are soon parted. Have not to setup the software in OS 4.1 yet, I still have OS 3.9 for odd jobs.

I also could not resist the Vesalia offer for a new Subway card (wow, they sold fast) and using AmiBay info via FitzSteve I connected it to my X-surf clockport and BOOM works fine. I didn't leave it long in my A4000 as that Amy already has a Deneb and NIC access, so I retasked both to the new A3000. I moved my SCSI Card reader (I bought from Mech's site) to an external SCSI box to transfer files between computers and free up a 5.25" slot. Since the Elbox Spider USB card was not being used by OS 4.1, I sold it.

Lots of crap being thrown abount the forums on OS 4.1, NG Amigas, Thylacine USB boards, and moving MOS to new platforms. I remain optimistic and look for news on the UltimatePP, and OS 4.1 DMA for other devices. I had a post in that thread that went super-Nova and got erased, but I had stated that negative people hurt the cause of Truth, Justice, and the Amiga-Way. No politics here.

OTD
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