A500 with DataFlyer 500, Supra Turbo 28, and Supra RAM RX 500

I am trying to get all three of the following to work with my A500.

- DataFlyer 500,
- Supra Turbo 28, and
- Supra RAM RX 500

The Supra's work together. The DataFlyer works with the Turbo 28. But the Amiga will not boot with the Dataflyer and RX 500 connected.

Anyone have an idea why?

-Luke

Do you have the optional ram board inside the dataflyer ? How much ram do you have in the supra rx ?

try disabling the autoboot on the device that doesnt have the bootable hdd

CrashMidnick said:

Do you have the optional ram board inside the dataflyer ? How much ram do you have in the supra rx ?

Click to expand...

I removed the 8MB ram board from the dataflyer for the purposes of this exercise.

Supra RX has 4MB RAM.

One weirdness is that the Supra Turbo only operates at 7Mhz and not 28Mhz mode when paired with the dataflyer without the internal RAM board installed. But when paired with the dataflyer having the 8MB RAM card installed then the Supra Turbo runs at 28Mhz.



---------- Post added at 01:47 ---------- Previous post was at 01:42 ----------

Tomse said:

try disabling the autoboot on the device that doesnt have the bootable hdd

Click to expand...

That would be the Supra Turbo. The Supra Ram does not have an autoboot setting. I'll try this and report back.

You mean that you had 12mb (8+4) on the expansion slot ? You cannot get more than 8mb on Zorro II address space
Stick with Supra Turbo + Dataflyer and its ram board. Its is enough for a little ECS machine ! This way you will have max ram and max speed. If you want more ram, you need a 68K expansion and add it to the system with the addmem utility as far has I know.

No no. When I say that the dataflyer and supra turbo are "paired", I mean that these are the only devices connected on the side expansion slot. So Zero fast ram and the Supra Turbo remains in 7Mhz mode. With fast ram the accelerator runs in 28Mhz mode.

Balooga said:

But the Amiga will not boot with the Dataflyer and RX 500 connected.

Anyone have an idea why?

-Luke

Click to expand...

Because you are over the 8mb limit (black screen, no boot)

For the supra 28 alone, maybe it needs some fast to operate at 28... If someone has one, could he/she confirm ?

From Amiga Ressources :

Supra 28 :

16 kB static RAM cache

• without the cache, the processor would only access the Amiga's memory at 7 MHz
• only programs loaded into Fast RAM are available for caching

CrashMidnick said:

Balooga said:

But the Amiga will not boot with the Dataflyer and RX 500 connected.

Click to expand...

Because you are over the 8mb limit (black screen, no boot)

Click to expand...

No, in this case there is no fast ram as the card was removed from the dataflyer.

---------- Post added at 08:02 ---------- Previous post was at 07:56 ----------

Combinations;

- Supra Turbo : RAM = 0MB, Speed = 28Mhz
- Dataflyer(0BM fast) + Supra Turbo : RAM = 0MB, Speed = 7Mhz
- Dataflyer(8MB fast) + Supra Turbo : RAM = 8MB, Speed = 28Mhz
- Dataflyer(0MB fast) + SupraRam(4MB) : Black screen
- SupraRam(4MB) + Supra Turbo : RAM = 4MB, Speed = 28Mhz
- Dataflyer(0MB) + SupraRAM(4MB) + Supra Turbo : Black screen.

---------- Post added at 08:31 ---------- Previous post was at 08:02 ----------

It seems as though the Dataflyer 500 (with zero internal fastram installed) does not work with the Supraram 500 RX.

Oh well.

---------- Post added at 08:33 ---------- Previous post was at 08:31 ----------

CrashMidnick said:

For the supra 28 alone, maybe it needs some fast to operate at 28... If someone has one, could he/she confirm ?

Click to expand...

Supra Turbo runs at 28Mhz with no fastram installed.

It seems as though the Dataflyer 500 (with zero internal fastram installed) causes the Supra Turbo to run at 7Mhz

---------- Post added at 08:36 ---------- Previous post was at 08:33 ----------

Tomse said:

try disabling the autoboot on the device that doesnt have the bootable hdd

Click to expand...

Still doesn't work. Dataflyer 500 (Internal RAM removed) + Supraram 500 RX + Supra Turbo (boot disabled). Black screen.

As said before, ditch the use of the Supra RAM RX and keep the Dataflyer SCSI+8Mb RAM with the Supra Turbo.

No way to attach more than 8Mb in the A500 without using an accelerator with 32bit RAM.

Also, if the A500 with the SCSI+RAM+Turbo became unstable, you must use a power supply for the extra 5V juice the RAM card requires.

rkauer said:

As said before, ditch the use of the Supra RAM RX and keep the Dataflyer SCSI+8Mb RAM with the Supra Turbo.

Click to expand...

That's what I have resigned myself to. I just wanted to try this as an exercise.

-Luke

I think the problem is in the Dataflyer itself, as it may have the RAM autoconfig firmware in the HD controller, which will reserve all the Zorro 2 space to its own card.

You can do a simple test:

With the turbo & dataflyer (without RAM) hooked in, fire up Sysinfo and check the resident devices. You can also check in the Zorro 2 devices buttons. If the Dataflyer RAM board appears (autoconfig ID 8290 /2 ) even without it hooked in, then the problem is the HD controller ROM eating all the Zorro 2 resources.

Only "ID 8290 /1" appears, size 64K.

8290/1 is the HD controller. Then the problem is an iffy contact on the passtrough connector of the Supra RAM or the dataflyer, or the voltage is dropping way too much with all cards installed.

To make a combination of Supra RAM and AddHard, I had to put the Supra RAM hooked first in the A500, then the SCSI controller powering the SCSI HD directly from another power supply. That's my experience on the matter.