Sold GuruROM for GVP Series II and C= A2091/A590 + v6.16 omniscsi.device

[marco920]

I declared my interest in 2019 and I still don't know anything.

 

[TheBilgeRat]

Declaring interest.

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Declaring interest in enough to do a2091

 

[AwakeningStar]

I have one A2091 board with one zuluSCSI v1.1

The A2091 have two rom chips (image attached)

Can I order the GuruROM for my A2091 board ?

 

[Darthman64]

Declaring interest.

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2 Roms for GVP HD8+ + adapter from FRANCE

 

[thebajaguy]

Acknowledging everyone's interest. I've had to move (March), and will be moving again in the next 2 months (July) into a new home (vs the past many years of renting apartments).

I am going to try to get these latest versions made by one of my helpers to ease the demand/interest.

 

[thebajaguy]

I have a general question that perhaps someone can answer, in particular thebajaguy who is familiar with SCSI card development.
And apologies if this is a stupid question. This is not my field of expertise.


I own an A2000 & 2091 SCSI card. I cannot use the 2091 (I have a few scsi devices) since it is incompatible with both my PiStorm A2K and Vampire 500 v2+. My understanding is that it has something to do with neither device supporting bus mastering.

According to the web sites bigbookofamigahardware.com & amiga.resource.cx:
if Zorro-II DMA-capable memory is not available, the driver falls back to programmed I/O transfers

Note: The 2091 does not work even if its onboard ram is disabled. Furthermore, my Amiga does not have any Z2 RAM. So this statement does not seem to be correct.


Questions:

What 'driver' is this referring to?
Would the GuruRom allow the 2091 to function in these cases. I'm assuming not, but I figured why not ask.


Thank-you.

A couple of concepts to point to in hardware, and software:

The A2091 wants to take over the expansion bus (DMA) to transfer to/from memory to FastRAM or ChipRAM. That FastRAM, in a stock system is likely on the A2091 or antother Z2 card. Zorro II memory is, by C= Amiga developer definition, the $0020.0000-009F.FFFF 8M expansion space. ChipRAM is $0000.0000-001F.FFFF (for 2MB, or lower for 1M or 512K depending on the system).

The GVP Series II cards, with the DPRC part, will do the same 24-bit DMA transfer to any other FastRAM card in the expansion bus (or ChipRAM), but it has the unique feature that >if< there is RAM on the card, and that memory is the target, then hidden DMA transfers can be done to that onboard FastRAM memory - the CPU bus is not requested. A note that ChipRAM must still be accessible via DMA if the destination is there.

The one improvement the latter GVP's driver (gvpscsi.device) has is that the onboard FastRAM can be used as a buffer for R/W activities when the target transfer address is >16MB (defined by a mask value of 00FFFFFF). The native GVP driver automatically handles this situation. It allocates a 16K buffer (preferably in FastRAM, fallback ChipRAM) that the DMA controller fills/collects from, with the CPU copying the data to/from the 24-bit DMA inaccessible memory ranges (>16MB range).

The GuruROM is then an evolution of the GVP Series II driver. It has the same basic design, but a more robust feature set, including the sub-driver elements to drive the A2091's DMAC. Although the transfer to onboard A2091 memory (or any 24-bit FastRAM) is not hidden, this still cleans up the issue of the driver transferring to/from popular 32-bit >16MB address ranges on acceerators. The A2091 native driver relies on a poor fallback option, which is to let the filesystem use it's internal buffers, and the DMA_Mask hack to define the memory the card can/cannot access. This fails completely for anything that does SCSI-direct communications.

In both DMA card's cases, if the accelerator product does not support 68000-style bus requests to allow DMA, then no DMA card can operate in the expansion bus. The detail for support for DMA bus masters is in the Amiga Developer documentation, and if the makers of the accelerator cards chose to ignore it, then there's nothing that can be done.

I've never owned, nor tested, the Pi, nor the Vampire, accelerator products, so I have no personal answer to their compatibility or use with Zorro II DMA controllers. What I could suggest is to see if there's a GVP Series I (Impact) card around with a v3.14/v3.15 ROM on it (if you want to autoboot from the card), or just use the Expansion drawer version of that driver, and let the speed of the Pi/Vampire CPU handle the disk I/O. The GVP Series I cards are fully CPU-driven and will seem quite fast - with speeds on par with the speed impact the copy-up process to high memory would incur with one of the DMA cards. They also have a higher chance to be compatible with accelerator products that do not like DMA bus masters.

Hope this helps.

Robert

 

[Darthman64]

Tha

Acknowledging everyone's interest. I've had to move (March), and will be moving again in the next 2 months (July) into a new home (vs the past many years of renting apartments).

I am going to try to get these latest versions made by one of my helpers to ease the demand/interest

Thank you. Great news.

 

[qz3fwd]

Declaring interest.

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Declaring interest 2x GuruROM A2091

 

[Andy]

One GuruROM for GVP Series II​

Very interested

 

[ProfPlum]

A couple of concepts to point to in hardware, and software:

The A2091 wants to take over the expansion bus (DMA) to transfer to/from memory to FastRAM or ChipRAM. That FastRAM, in a stock system is likely on the A2091 or antother Z2 card. Zorro II memory is, by C= Amiga developer definition, the $0020.0000-009F.FFFF 8M expansion space. ChipRAM is $0000.0000-001F.FFFF (for 2MB, or lower for 1M or 512K depending on the system).

The GVP Series II cards, with the DPRC part, will do the same 24-bit DMA transfer to any other FastRAM card in the expansion bus (or ChipRAM), but it has the unique feature that >if< there is RAM on the card, and that memory is the target, then hidden DMA transfers can be done to that onboard FastRAM memory - the CPU bus is not requested. A note that ChipRAM must still be accessible via DMA if the destination is there.

The one improvement the latter GVP's driver (gvpscsi.device) has is that the onboard FastRAM can be used as a buffer for R/W activities when the target transfer address is >16MB (defined by a mask value of 00FFFFFF). The native GVP driver automatically handles this situation. It allocates a 16K buffer (preferably in FastRAM, fallback ChipRAM) that the DMA controller fills/collects from, with the CPU copying the data to/from the 24-bit DMA inaccessible memory ranges (>16MB range).

The GuruROM is then an evolution of the GVP Series II driver. It has the same basic design, but a more robust feature set, including the sub-driver elements to drive the A2091's DMAC. Although the transfer to onboard A2091 memory (or any 24-bit FastRAM) is not hidden, this still cleans up the issue of the driver transferring to/from popular 32-bit >16MB address ranges on acceerators. The A2091 native driver relies on a poor fallback option, which is to let the filesystem use it's internal buffers, and the DMA_Mask hack to define the memory the card can/cannot access. This fails completely for anything that does SCSI-direct communications.

In both DMA card's cases, if the accelerator product does not support 68000-style bus requests to allow DMA, then no DMA card can operate in the expansion bus. The detail for support for DMA bus masters is in the Amiga Developer documentation, and if the makers of the accelerator cards chose to ignore it, then there's nothing that can be done.

I've never owned, nor tested, the Pi, nor the Vampire, accelerator products, so I have no personal answer to their compatibility or use with Zorro II DMA controllers. What I could suggest is to see if there's a GVP Series I (Impact) card around with a v3.14/v3.15 ROM on it (if you want to autoboot from the card), or just use the Expansion drawer version of that driver, and let the speed of the Pi/Vampire CPU handle the disk I/O. The GVP Series I cards are fully CPU-driven and will seem quite fast - with speeds on par with the speed impact the copy-up process to high memory would incur with one of the DMA cards. They also have a higher chance to be compatible with accelerator products that do not like DMA bus masters.

Hope this helps.

Robert

This was an excellent explanation. What I currently have now is exactly as you suggested, a non-dma scsi card.
I'm gonna pick up a guru rom anyways just for the sake of having a better 2091. Whether or not I use it, I don't know. Maybe I'll buy more Amiga toys in my retirement years (I'm almost there).

 

[dargrz1977]

Declaring interest.

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Interested in 2 GuruROM Sets - USA 48317
sets + adapters
1. A590/A2091
2. GVP HC Series II

 

[Laine]

Declaring interest.

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Interested in 2 GuruROM Sets
(sets + adapters)

1. GVP A530
2 . GVP HC+8 Series II

Canada

 

[Jim_Oregon]

Do look at back threads? I believe I have waited for a response for over a year.
Jim_Oregon - USA - Adapter+ROM - GVP-HD8 declared intrest 2018. Is this a possibility?

 

[attic636]

Many GVP HC+8 Series 2 Controllers have a so-called "DTRACK" jumper.
But I have seen a controller with latest 4.15 GVP ROM on which many chips,
e.g SCSI-Chip (long vertical rectangle shape instead of square) are 2 thirds bigger (except the DPRC), resistors have normal size and rings, not as SMD, while that DTRACK jumper is missing.
What is this DTRACK jumper- if present on this GVP card good for?
Does it have any difference or effect on the performance of the controller - and/or together with original GVP ROM or compared to latest 6.16 GURU Rom?

 

[attic636]

In the meantime I've found out by myself what that DTRACK jumper on some revisions of GVP HC+8 boards was good for. DTRACK is a signal of the Zorro bus.
That extra Pull-Up signal had to be enabled together with some old revsions of A2000 motherboards for compatibility reasons, not for better speed in data transfer.

More info on jumpers and revisions of GVP's HC+8 controller PCB can be found here:

A4008 - GVP (Great Valley Products)

Big Book of Amiga Hardware - Probably the largest Amiga hardware reference on the net!

bigbookofamigahardware.com

 

[Reborn]

Declaring interest.

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1 GVP Series II HC8

 

[RandomInexperiencedGuy]

Declaring interest.

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3 x A. GuruROM v6.16 (ROM+Adapter)

 

[Headbanger]

Declaring interest.

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Declaring interest for 1x GuruROM v6.16 (ROM+Adapter), Germany, for GVP A4008

 

[aebir]

Declaring interest.

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Declaring interest for 1x GuruROM v6.16 (ROM+Adapter) for GVP A4000-HC8 Series II

 

[Timtheloon]

@thebajaguy is this thread and are you still active on Amibay?

I see a lot of declaration of interest but thats about it and notice your last activity on Amibay was in May this year.

If nothing heard within a week I will be closing down this thread