Draco Casablanca - Using it as a general purpose Amiga

Hi there, I have in my possession a Draco Casablanca video editing box. It is an 060 based Amiga that boots directly into the video editing software on bootup. I have not yet tried connecting a hard disk containing an installation of Amiga OS on it but I will tomorrow. Anyway, does anyone have any experience with using this machine and how compatible it is with a regular old Amiga. My guess is it's probably RTG only, and setting that up might be a *****, but I can dump the roms and provide images of the 2 hard disks I have that are loaded with the system software if any of you guys care to take a crack at busting this thing! I really want a nice 060 Amiga box, so please let me know!

Here is some info on the Casablanca: http://www.amiga-hardware.org/Casablanca

I think it lacks the amiga chipset, so no good for Workbench or games. :(

It runs workbench in RTG just fine. Nor sure which RTG, I think it has its own.

A friend of mine has owned several Draco systems and used WB 3.1 on it.

Maybe I can get him to register here :)

EDIT: I was a bit quick, didnt realise that it was a Casablanca and not a draco station. But still, with Amiga ROMS everything is possible... :)

If it can be made to use RTG, like the earlier DraCo system (it used Cybergraphx and this might possibly too) then would it not be possible to run workbench and some later (RTG) games?

EDIT: @Arnljot: I know the earlier DraCo system did run CybergraphX RTG and could use workbench, did he ever run it on a Casablanca, the later model? I know this has been where the confusion has lie in the past

Im calling him now..

Oh wow! Thanks a lot! I really appreciate the help! You are amazing Arnljot!

Just off the phone.

He never got the time to investigate the Casablanca fully. But as long as it´s the first generation Casablanca he recons it can be done. As it´s supposedly mostly a rewrapped draco.

I´ll be heading over to him now to pick up all his draco software floppies. So I´ll dissect them and try to figure out what it is.

What kind of format can you image the Casablanca disk in? (boot media)?

I can do whatever you need. I can try and read it in (the boot partition anyway, I have been told the A/V partition is unreadable by an amiga) on my A2000, or I can dump it raw, and so on. I could even send you the drives if you feel that would be more effective.

Do you have scsi on your pc? Because winuae hdf format is the best.

We'll see in a while what we can do. Maybe I can make an image in my end, using my friends floppies.

Either way, you'll then need a method to write it to disk.

We also need to find out if the casablanca is rdb compatible, since the roms are based on 3.1 it's most likely

DraCo is an "Amiga" without the custom chips, so you have to use RTG.

Well, Amiga without its custom chips, it's not an Amiga though. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheRogue

Here is some info on the Casablanca: http://www.amiga-hardware.org/Casablanca

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When I bought my Casablance (the one pictured in the link above) it cost me over £4,000!!!!!!!

I still have it but now it is collecting dust in my work room.

I can now do the same and a lot more with Pinacle software for the PC which cost less than £100!!!!

Go figure - I guess times move on.

I'll be paying close attention to this thread :thumbsup:

Dave G :cool:

Me to, I had the chanche to buy one, but declined it... Probably still available..

I searched the whole web back then, and there exists some info around it, even about os 3.9.

I think Kin put the words then: Using uae for those programs makes probably more sence///

Since it is exactly the custom chips that make classic amiga, there where uae seems to be rather slow.

I hope that the programs you like can make use of it's graphics..

The "Cassie" is based on Amiga technology, but missing the chipset as has already been said. That goes for the Draco too. The difference between the two is that the Draco has been sold with the Amiga OS pre-installed, and perhaps some tweaked ROMs. The Casablanca has a custom floppy format, which -as it seems- was due to copy-protection philisophy (go figure :(). Try inserting the Casablanca floppies to anything else than itself, and you'll see what i mean. On the contrary, Draco's flopppies can be read from other Amigas, and the machine itself can read just as any other Amiga regular Amiga-formatted disks! Been there, done that. If you have time, take a trip down www.amigahellas.gr and use Draco or Casablanca as search parameters where you'll come up with pictures of both my machines. The Draco i have is an 060 and the Casablanca an 040. I have even started a Yahoo group about this, but not much traffic as of yet.... Most everyone has the same question: how do we make an Amiga out of a Cassie? I'd sure be glad to find out! :thumbsup:

Okay

Status, he didn´t have any macrosystem draco disks. He did however have heaps of other disk for amiga, but none that will help us.

However, the draco used cybergraphics, version 2 if he recalled correctly but he wasn´t sure.

Also, RDB blocks are supported because he said it was a vanilla wb 3.1 which was used with the exception of cgx.

Also, can you get to early bootup on your casablanca? Both mouse buttons down from power on, it´s possible on the draco.

So lets get to making that image of the hd. :)

The Draco system disks are a set of a couple of floppies, and a CD. The CD takes about 15MB of space. Basically, the installation of the OS (3.1) takes a dump of the CD contents and throws it to an empty hard disk.
However, I'm not willing to get into any sort of trouble for "upping" this, since i don't know the status of legality on the content! I've goofed already once mentioning i was willing to accept an image of something else..:) So, unless someone RESPONSIBLY states that there's no issue with the matter, i'm very sorry.:(
To give you a better picture of the situation, and show you how serious this stuff is, i will only tell you a detail which you might not be aware of:
There's these guys who have built a "special" AOS 3.9 version for the Draco on a CD. In order for you and me to be able to purchase the CD, we have to prove that we are legal owners of the actual WB 3.9 and the Cybergrafx 4! Maybe it's insane, maybe not. All i can stress is that this is valid now, not some years ago! I personally find it insane, due to the fact that a Draco owner doesn't necessarily have a hold of the aforementioned software, since the Draco never came with the 3.9 nor the CGfx 4 package... If that was the case, we wouldn't need the "special" CD:huh:
And being a Draco owner, doesn't neccesarily mean you're an Amiga owner, does it? However, i have already purchased the 3.9 (Amiga version) and am planning to get the CGx 4 too, so i can then prove i got them, and pay 50 E for the Draco version..
Hope this covers the case!

---------- Post added at 16:50 ---------- Previous post was at 16:19 ----------

Some additional info: My Casablanca came with a 3-button trackball-type mouse. Pressing any combination of either 2 or 3 buttons at startup doesn't take me anywhere else...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by davideo

When I bought my Casablance (the one pictured in the link above) it cost me over £4,000!!!!!!!

I still have it but now it is collecting dust in my work room.

I can now do the same and a lot more with Pinacle software for the PC which cost less than £100!!!!

Go figure - I guess times move on.

I'll be paying close attention to this thread :thumbsup:

Dave G :cool:

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At least you used your one, I own 2 cube Dracos (one I paid a grand for the other was given to me; after I brought out his entire collection he found it hiding) and haven't fired up either :blink:

I do mean too, eventually :nod:

one day maybe!

as for paying for things; yes, in 1985-86 Amiga stuff was very expensive, I still have receipts of items that'll curl your toes ;)

some info here

http://www.kernersville.com/videoworks/dracofaq.html

Obviously, we're not getting much info about the Casablanca unit. Rarely has something detailed been written about it... Anyhow, since this thread has involved the Draco in the conversation, i did some scanning.
Hope y'all find it interesting. :)

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...ACOREVIEWA.jpg

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...ACOREVIEWB.jpg

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...ACOREVIEWC.jpg

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...ACOREVIEWD.jpg

---------- Post added at 08:46 ---------- Previous post was at 07:33 ----------

Some more interesting info on the Casablanca, translated from an Italian site ( http://www.amigazette.org/numero_11/casablanca_01.html )

"MacroSystem engineers have devised a simple but effective antipiracy protection. Every Casablanca has a serial number within the system ROM; when you insert a diskette in the drive, the system software checks wether it is a disc for Casablanca and if it has already been marked by another Casablanca.
The album marked with a time stamp, can only be read by the machine that matches the serial number. To allow marking of the disk, the floppy must be unprotected. Protection may seem silly, but it is not; in fact, the Casablanca has a proprietary format, which allows it to utilize more than 1.8 MB compared to the 1.44MB floppies for Win and Mac, and at the same time prevent duplication of the disc.
Apparently this choice seems to penalize your being honest, because you're prevented from making backup copies permitted by law, but it's not that bad. In fact, once the software is installed on hard disk, the floppy disk is no longer needed and can be used as a backup, it must be stored in a safe place not subject to excessive changes in temperature and away from magnetic fields. In case of accidental damage you can ask MacroSystem, or your local distributor, for a new disk, simply enter the machine code and send the faulty disk."

This seems to be a major obstacle for anyone attempting to "hack" the OS..

What is the status here, do you have SCSI capabilites on your PC?

You could send the disk to me, but it´s VERY time consuming and also risky as things can be damaged in transport.

Just to add to the confusion comparing the Draco with the Casablanca is like comparing the Amiga 1200 with a 4000.

They are very similair but in another way completely different.

The Casablanca has no CD drive. It can have an internal SCSI HD and an external one as well. But unless you disconnect the internal drive the external one is not seen. Thus allowing you to work on two projects at once by fitting and removing the HD (or as I did just swap the SCSI drive out in its tray). An IDE HD can be used with a SCSI to IDE bridge.

And as per salaxi54 post all software is keyed to the ROM code and once installed can't be installed on another machine.

If I get chance over the next few days I'll whip the top off my Casablance and do some piccys for the thread along with some extra information.

Dave G :cool:

@davideo: cool! the more pics, the better! :thumbsup:
Here's some of mine i shot last year:
www.amigahellas.gr/uploads/photos/614.jpg
www.amigahellas.gr/uploads/photos/613.jpg
www.amigahellas.gr/uploads/photos/612.jpg
www.amigahellas.gr/uploads/photos/615.jpg

:woot: Hardware pr0n alert!:woot:

All to the battle stations: Zetr0 alert!:woot::woot::woot:

Well, I'd think that it has an Amiga ROM, even "patched" using loadmodule and a split rom from another amiga one owns, I think that one could have a casablanca boot onto a normal wb.

What I'd do would be to dissect the casablanca hd, and transplant files (such as rtg) onto another hd. Also, I'd want to find out if there was a draco ahi driver that could be used with the casablanca.

Are you saying that the casablanca scsi device (what ever it's called) won't support a cdrom on it's chain if one used a normal devs:dosdrivers/cd0 mountlist entry?

Also, that casablanca "keys" the floppy to it's rom doesn't worry me. As floppy isn't so interesting anymore.

And if amiga trackdisk.device can see it, then I'm hope that one could load normal rom modules to access the floppy drive as at least a pf0 with cross doss. But floppy isn't important.

hd, rtg and ahi is vital.

How to get files onto it? I guess that either it would have to be cdrom or a cf card on a scsi-ide-cf adapter type setup.

Does it have serial? If so, then I guess even amiga explorer is an alternative when wb is up.

Other than that I think ethernet and usb is out as it doesn't have zorro.

@arnijot: There's a few more details to take into consideration..
The Casablanca has an (optional - not in my case) DV port, an external SCSI, a parallel port, and a mouse and keyboard port. No other "computer-related" ports. Other than that, we don't even know if it actually boots any form of Workbench! You see, what it does once the system is installed, it boots into an environment where you start video-editing. That means that there's no actual desktop, and you see nothing inbetween. Plus, you can't get off that area through any selection or menu, shell, what-have-you. Think of it as an exclusively video-editing device as it is. You can't say that the floppy isn't important, because it's the only way to install the system. And remember, what was registered into the floppy, is passed as security info to the hard disk installation. Which means that the hard disk is also aware of the machine's serial number!
Anyway, to cheer things up a bit, i've found a few mor of my pics :)

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...54/CASSIEa.jpg

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...54/CASSIEb.jpg

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...54/CASSIEc.jpg

It does have serial as the mouse included with mine is a standard serial Logitech trackball. Mine has the firewire expansion if anyone wants to see it. Let me know and I'll crack mine and take pictures. It's been a while since I've had it open, but I seem to remember it looking totally different to the pictures above!

About the Casablanca: you wont have audio, sound chip is unsupported by current AHI drivers, Chip is an Analog Devices AD1845JP more info on it at http://datasheet.octopart.com/AD1845...heet-21662.pdf
Tocatta soundcard uses Analog Device 1848KP chipset which may be compatible with the 1845JP
details at http://datasheet.octopart.com/AD1848...eet-117009.pdf

About Casablanca floppy format:
The floppy disk is a pc one and it uses special pc format (blocks of 1 Kb with specially encoded mfm values to protect against copying on pc), but the file system is a typical amiga file system adapted to this format (changed block sizes).You can easily mount an image of this floppy disk using simple mountlist on a real amiga.

ROM/Kickstart: It uses Amiga 3000 kickstart roms plus other custom made, that heavily patches the first ones.

A workbench approach which MAY have some result:
1-Take out the harddisk from the casablanca put it in a PC, make a backup of its content (disk image).
2-Run WinUAE and add the harddisk to it
3-Format the disk using FFS
4-Instal workbench 3.1
5-Install Picasso96 or Cybergraphx Retina/Altais drivers (You should play a bit over here)
6-If casablanca is a 060 install a proper 68060.library
7-Put the harddisk back to your casablanca
8-Cross your fingers and pray... You may be able to watch something on the screen.

NOTE: Check the motherboard of the casablanca for the graphics chip it is using, and change the driver accordingly (If the driver exists). I dont know which chip it is using, i am assuming it is some NCR Altais variant!

Ok, the hard disk in my Cassie is this one: http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-dri...CSI3-ULTR.html I might as well plug it on the Squirrel ASAP :) It will however take some time dismantling it from the tray, because the whole assembly is a bit rough.. I'll take a picture for advice. My dillema is if it's necessary to remove it from it's tray or use as is. The reason being, the tray's back has no power socket on it. Just the female SCSI port; is it possible the power goes through the SCSI too? Can't explain it otherwise... hmmm

I cracked mine open just now, and found a totally different graphics card then I've seen in any pictures of the Cassie. It is one piece, has a pass-through female "euroconnector" opposite the one that connects it to the cassie mobo. It is marked "MacroSystem Casablanca Motion II VL2" and also has 2 high density "scsi-esque" connectors, one male one female on the op of the board just behind the audio in jacks. The roms on the mobo are labeled "08.97 - U5 Casablanca CROM1.6-H" and "08.97 - U4 Casablanca CROM1.6-L" on the two large ROMs and "Casablanca U11-09.09.97 Ser. Nr. 15073" on the small one. My motherboard is labeled "Casablanca V1.3 MacroSystem" and there is an interesting unused IEC Connector on the left edge of the mobo just to the left of the floppy IEC connector. It is female and has 26 pins. Pictures to follow when I find my bloody camera!

Just found this on P96 driver tooltypes:

Quote:

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FakeNativeModes
if set (Yes) the most common native Amiga chipset screen modes will be patched to use a Picasso96 board to ease use and installation of Picasso96 on systems that don't have a native Amiga chipset like the Macrosystem Draco or that have no monitor attached to the native chip set signal connector or that don't have a flicker fixer and no 15 kHz capable monitor. Defaults to Yes for the Draco Altais and No for all other cards. If you use it, you should remove all native Amiga monitor drivers (!). Now, when the system uses one of the native Amiga screen modes (currently only LowRes, HighRes and SuperHighRes and their interlaced counter parts), a 640x480 31kHz 60Hz screen mode on the graphics card will be used. Note: this mode is not configurable and it is not intended to be, because you should use real Picasso96 screen mode IDs whenever you can. It is only there to get the workbench on a VGA compatible screen when the current screenmode.prefs contains an invalid mode id. May also be useful for some (stupid) programs that default to a custom screen with a native Amiga screen mode after installation.

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So the question is, is it the "NCR 77C32 BLT" chipset which is in the Casablanca, or what other RTG system is installed on top of the Amiga ROM on that machine...

Here's a list of tips I collected over the years of using my Casablanca.

Some of these also refer to the Draco.

I'll try and get some pictures up of my Casablanca later today.

Dave G

Alright, sorry for my delay to respond, but there's just so many projects taking place simultaneously, that it's hard to keep up.:)
Here's the promised pictures of the HD tray.

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...54/CASSIEd.jpg

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...54/CASSIEe.jpg

I'm not sure that just plugging this directly to a regular SCSI connector will give me power for the drive. Any bits of knowledge can come in handy... :roll:

@davideo: Thanks for the tips you upped, these can be helpful mostly for those that just want to stick with what a Casablanca already is, a NLE machine. Nevertheless, it's some useful stuff :thumbsup:

That looks suspiciously like an IDE drive tray to me. Are you absolutely sure it's a SCSI one. If it's not, you could end up releasing the Magic Smoke from your equipment.

Andy,

The original drive is a SCSI through and through on the Casablanca - I can't be sure of the Draco though.

You could fit an IDE/SCSI converter inside the disc tray and use an IDE though. One of my drives is full SCSI the other IDE/SCSI.

It was the cheaper option at the time to get a bigger HD (40GB).

I'll shove some piccys up shortly.

Dave G :cool:

The hard disk is definitely a SCSI one, check a previous link for data on it, the Cassie has only SCSI (both int/ext), and for anyone with a Squirrel, i'd say compare the two sockets. Anyway, i might go through disassembling it just in case...

Here's a couple of piccys of my Casablanca HDs.

The one on the left is the original SCSI the one on the right is SCSI/IDE minus the HD - I knicked that a while ago for my 4000D.

Dave G :cool:

SCSI devices do not get their power though 50 Way Centronics connectors.

The ribbon cable is a 68 way affair to the drive, meaning it's deinitely a SCSI device.

Kin

I've been sure it's a SCSI all along, the thing is, do i go on plugging it as is to a SCSI socket of the opposite gender, or should i dismantle the drive from the tray? There's no outside power receptacle of the Molex type for 5 and 12V.
BY the way, the Draco is on SCSI too. And at startup, when the boot logo shows, there's a countdown stating SCSI delay or something like that. :)

Some piccys as promised. More in a few minutes

Picture 1 = the initial start screen that the Casablanca boots into
Picture 2 = the system settings screen. Setting the clock is done from here. No battery backup on clock - that could be a good thing looking at how Miggys batteries behave
Picture 3 = Video quality shows approx how much video you can store
Picture 4 = the edit screen where you put your project together
Picture 5 = the system settings screen again with the hidden info showing

Dave G :cool:

Can you tell where the molex gets its wire for power from? The CN50 doesn't carry power (centronics)
http://pinouts.ru/HD/ScsiExternalCen...0_pinout.shtml

@arnijot: Here's the molex, red arrow shows the spot.I repeat, there's no outside molex jack, this is inside the tray!

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...54/CASSIEf.jpg

It looks like there are two pcb's.

The Centronics 50 goes into the first one, then there seem to be pins between'em. And the 50 pin ribbon cable goes from the second pcb to the drive.

That accounts for data signals.

Now there are the four power leads sticking out of the molex. They seem fixed to the box somehow, could you reverse the angle 180 degrees, so we can see it from the other side?

Also, if you'd be so kind, flip the thing over on it's back so that we can see what it looks like underneath. It looks like it should be simple enough to take apart.

Ok, had a hard time removing the bottom lid, real tight fit! But this is how it looks underneath... Now that i've come this far, i might as well take it out of the tray. But it still remains a surprise, how is the hard disk's power supplied through the tray socket?:huh:

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...54/CASSIEg.jpg

That doesn't look like a true SCSI. It looks more like my SCSI/IDE drive. See my earlier piccys - the drive on the right in both pictures.

The power for either of my drives must go through the SCSI connector as there are no other seperate power feeds to the tray.

Dave G :cool:

Just for the connector: it is a SCSI 68-pin (wide SCSI-2) drive.

^^^^^^

& as I said earlier, SCSI drives do not take power from Centronics connectors. Obviously, the Draco system went outside the envelope. :thumbsdown:

I dare say you could pull the Hard drive & use it on any other SCSI system with full success. Just not on that Centronics snatch plate as it is.

Kin

I agree with Kins analysis.

For the cable/connector: I bet they made a custom SCSI cable, nothing more.

I have seen MANY an external SCSI drive tray just like that. They just put some of the duplicate signals onto fewer pins (GND and so on) to make enough space on the centronics plug for the power signals. It's a standard external SCSI drive tray if I've ever seen one. It plugs into a drive tray that contains a female centronics port, and then the other side of the port has a standard 50 pin SCSI connector and a 4-pin power plug. I've seen them for IDE and SCSI and they all look similar. I'll check mine and tell you which pins have been used for what voltages if you want. I have 2 drives in trays for the Cassie I can check.

Several more pictures of my semi naked Casablanca :thumbsup:

Rear panel connections are :- Euroscart, Audio out, Audio in, SVideo in, Svideo out, Firewire, Trackball connector, SCSI port, Serial port and finally keyboard connector.

The front panel hides a set of Audio in connectors and Svideo in.

Dave G :cool:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by salaxi54

There's these guys who have built a "special" AOS 3.9 version for the Draco on a CD. In order for you and me to be able to purchase the CD, we have to prove that we are legal owners of the actual WB 3.9 and the Cybergrafx 4! Maybe it's insane, maybe not. All i can stress is that this is valid now, not some years ago! I personally find it insane, due to the fact that a Draco owner doesn't necessarily have a hold of the aforementioned software, since the Draco never came with the 3.9 nor the CGfx 4 package... If that was the case, we wouldn't need the "special" CD:huh:

And being a Draco owner, doesn't neccesarily mean you're an Amiga owner, does it? However, i have already purchased the 3.9 (Amiga version) and am planning to get the CGx 4 too, so i can then prove i got them, and pay 50 E for the Draco version..
Hope this covers the case!

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This almost sounds like a makeshift back of the classroom project?

or is it an actual legit product from a company?

Nor does that matter if you get what you want in the end... but 50 euro? is it just me or does that sound expensive? and hellsteeth, I never complain about the amount of anything generally :lol:

I so happen to have 2 x Draco as you picked up in my first post in this thread and I own a copy of the 3.9 CD and the CGx CD... Did you go through with your purchase of this 'special' Draco CDRom?

In the next few weeks I'll be taking a closer look at my Dracos... and even open up the other one sitting in a box for the last 5 years... :wooha: :roll:

Thanks for any info