A2620 & A2630 Amiga 2000 accelertor questions

[playgeneration]

According to this site: http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=165 the Commodore A2620 and 2630 accelerators have boot roms on them, and they need to be of a specific version (6.6+) to be able to boot OS2.0 and up.

I'm wondering why these accelerators need boot roms at all? As far as I see it a rom is needed to boot unix (the cards have no SCSI), but wont Amiga OS boot at all if you just take the roms off the accelerator? or are the roms a necessary component of the accelerators being recognised by the amiga?

And the other question is does the onboard RAM on these accelerators occupy the 2000's 24bit RAM space? therefore if I bought one of these accelerators would I need to ditch some of the RAM on my HC+8 SCSI card to keep within the 8mb limit?

 

[r0jaws]

Re: A2620 & A2630 Amiga 2000 accelertor questions

.....And the other question is does the onboard RAM on these accelerators occupy the 2000's 24bit RAM space? therefore if I bought one of these accelerators would I need to ditch some of the RAM on my HC+8 SCSI card to keep within the 8mb limit?

Yes it does, and yes you will unfortunately.

The rest I have no idea about I'm afraid.

 

[Kin Hell]

Re: A2620 & A2630 Amiga 2000 accelertor questions

RE: your question about the ROM for the A2630;

It's part of the cards Logic & most accelerators have/require their own Logic. Specific versions of ROM image patch/update later operating systems for enhancements &/or bug fixes.
The ROM also carries the Boot Menu option of selecting either 68000 or 68030.

The A2630 can address only 4Mb of ZIP ram at best, unless you have the DKB A2632 Memory Expansion Board for it.
There is one still for sale according to this thread here on AmiBay.

Kin

 

[playgeneration]

Re: A2620 & A2630 Amiga 2000 accelertor questions

That sucks, I do have an EPROM programmer, so if there were images of the 7.0 ROM files on the net to download I could use them. But from my brief amount of searching it appears that there aren't any dumps of those roms to download anywhere

Seems to me that most of the accelerators for the 2000 are comprimised in some way, I think buying a 3000 instead would have been a better idea, 030 and SD/FF out of the box.

 

[Kin Hell]

Re: A2620 & A2630 Amiga 2000 accelertor questions

PM Zetr0. He might be able to help/advise you looking for the latest version.

If he can't, Effy might be able to & I can fwd his Email address if you require it.

Kin

 

[Zetr0]

Re: A2620 & A2630 Amiga 2000 accelertor questions

@playgeneration,

Alas I dont have the A2630 ROM dump as you know, I do believe that Chain might be able to help, he did post in the thread that he has the data you seek.

now may I ask you a question,

the ZIP ram that is present on the card, could you give me the details of that ZIP ram (i know its 20pin 256x4bit) I need the designation of the chip as I am curious to the pinout.

 

[playgeneration]

Re: A2620 & A2630 Amiga 2000 accelertor questions

I don't actually have one of these accelerators yet, just wanted to know a bit more before trying to buy one.

 

[TheCorfiot]

Re: A2620 & A2630 Amiga 2000 accelertor questions

@playgeneration

When you need the firmware drop me a PM and I will email it to you, there is a hi & lo image and you just need to programme them into 2 suitable Eproms...Same firmware for both 020 & 030 cards.

As far as I am aware this firmware is not under any copyright restrictions due to it being a bug fix and compatibility update, besides you will own the previous version when you buy the card.

TC :mrgreen:

 

[playgeneration]

Re: A2620 & A2630 Amiga 2000 accelertor questions

Thanks a lot mate, but there shouldn't be any need now, as I have just purchased a GVP 030 card which will hopefully be breathing new life into my 2000 soon