PiStorm--Thoughts?

[stevepiatt]

I have a both Amiga 500 PiStorms and Amiga 1200 Pistorms. I haven't found a lot of drawbacks but I don't spend a lot of time in all of the programs. What are the main issues that people experience with this CPU replacement?

Regards,

Steve Piatt

 

[Lamaman1971]

The PiStorm in either machine makes it go much faster. However, incompatibility of both variants (Musashi and Emu68) with legacy software make it a little frustrating to use as a regular amiga. That said, both variants allow you to run a nice, high res, RTG (via alternate HDMI) desktop. I enjoyed Musashi as it allowed me to run, with ease, various versions of workbench and kickstart with very little hassle, changing hard disk images and so on was just a matter of loading it to an SD card and editing a config file - it also has networking and some good options for transferring files. Emu68 is much more limited in functionality and a little more complex to setup - but is MUCH faster and has a nice pre-built image (CaffieneOS) that is freely available.

As I mentioned though, both have the same software compatibility issues - Im not even sure Musashi is still supported really. Leaving you with Emu68 running lightening fast on a RTG desktop.

However, personally, I enjoying using my Amiga for being an Amiga. The shine of RTG eventually becomes an annoyance and frankly software compatibility, ironically, is much better on Chris Edwards PiMiga than it is on a Pistorm.

So, for me - I pulled my Pistorm out of the Amiga 1200 yesterday and dropped my TF1230 back in - tada! - transforming it instantly into a perfectly workable Amiga.

 

[stevepiatt]

I value your perspective and opinion. I am trying out various options and I currently have a A500 with an Individual Computers ACA500-Plus installed and on my desk. I like this options as it retains what I understand a the original feel of an Amiga running on a Dell 4x3 display (not 15hz unfortunately). I do have a GoTek drive on this model as I don't have a collection of old floppies. Again, I am a newbie in this area but I have been an admirer for some time (early 90s).

Steve

 

[YouKnowWho]

I have a both Amiga 500 PiStorms and Amiga 1200 Pistorms. I haven't found a lot of drawbacks but I don't spend a lot of time in all of the programs. What are the main issues that people experience with this CPU replacement?

Regards,

Steve Piatt

I have to say, I support the view. 68K CPU is part of the beauty and heart of the Amiga. PiStorm...well, why not just run emulation on a Pi at that point? Or on a PC? These are all impressive and fun projects that have come to reality. It makes me smile that people smarter and more knowledgable than me put this much effort into the platform to even today deliver these new interesting versions of things. But in the end, like Lamaman1971 said, 68030 just feels nice and right. Get fancy with 040 or 060 if you wish.

If I was to rank it, I'd go:
1. Amiga with a true 68K CPU - as it was intended to be. I'm all for upgrades with 020/030/040/060.
2a) FPGA CPU Amiga
2b) FPGA Amiga (MISTer, UNAmiga, etc.)
3a) PiStorm CPU Amiga
3b) Software emulated Amiga

In this era of constant data collection of our activity, phones creeping on us, AI and all the other technological intrusions, I really appreciate the return to the pure friendly computing fun that was the Amiga. Willing and able, never doing anything you didn't ask it to do. Here we are, 2023...impressed by more powerful hardware and more demanding software. Me? Personally, I'm still very much impressed by a multitasking OS fitting on an 880Kb floppy disk. By not being asked to check for updates. Thirty plus years later...it just works. No forced security updates needed. Amazing Amiga!

 

[YouKnowWho]

As a sidenote stevepiatt, I must say that TF536 is not too shabby for a 500. I like the cleanliness of it all being self contained. Really brings the 500 up to 1200 livability. I was all AGA with my Amiga choices, but eventually decided to get an ECS machine, and the 500+ was that machine. With the Indivision ECS, 2MB Chip and TF536 it is quite a lovely little thing.

The Amiga 500 was my first Amiga - mail order bride from USA! As I'm sure was the case with many of us, so it is quite a nostalgic setup. But the 030, RAM, CF and high quality video all cleanly self contained make it really special and something I would have not even imagined possible back in 1990. If this was possible back then, I would have never left the 500 probably.

 

[amifan]

I have to agree with what @Lamaman1971 said, I had a PiStorm 32-lite (twice!) and while it did make my Amiga insanely fast, the RTG was fantastic, but it did become more of a nuisance after a while. The issues when running high res and loads of colours was irritating, especially when I wanted to work in HAM modes, the hassle of changing the screen each time I ran in RTG and native screen modes just made me want to stick to native modes. After that I went back to my TF1260 and found the A1200 to be much more stable, fun to use, still very fast and it feels like a real Amiga. The PiStorm is an incredible idea and they are improving it with each firmware update but I feel that if you really want to do stuff with your Amiga, a standard accelerator seems to make more sense from my experience.

 

[Watson]

Having not used Musashi and Emu68 as of yet I have no experiance, but I have read Emu68 has less timing issues with games than Musashi.

What's everyones experiance with WHDLoad and the games, not RTG.

 

[grosi]

I use pistorm32 only as an accelerator, I always boot from the internal a1200 controller and I use pistorm only for cpu and ram, everything works very well

 

[marksealey]

Ive had a PiStorm in my A500+ for over a year now.....works well...the RTG blew my ZZ9K out the water and put it back in it`s box for a year....Swapped it for an A1200......I bought a TF1230 for it....Awesome card.....then I got a PiStorm32.....superb all in one upgrade.....As I'm not much of a gamer the PiStorm`s issues were not so bad.

 

[Watson]

Info for those that care.

I just learned that there's an hotkey to disable pistorm32 and run the Amiga at stock. This is handy for any software with chipmem timing issues.

Disable by holding down the reset keys while booting. Only downside there's no fastram when disabled.

I am not sure if this is the same for the A500 version though.

 

[SneakyPete]

Just Installed a PiStorm32-Lite to my 1200. Just using as accelerator and RAM at the moment, but having some random crashes when extracting lha archives to Ram Disk.
Anyone seen this before?

 

[Boing-ball]

Just Installed a PiStorm32-Lite to my 1200. Just using as accelerator and RAM at the moment, but having some random crashes when extracting lha archives to Ram Disk.
Anyone seen this before?

Which Pi are you using with the PiStorm? Also which Emulation. EMu68 or Musashi? If EMU68, which version? Latest build? Or older build?

 

[miggymad]

Emu68 1.0 Release Candidate 2 is the version that you should be using with your PiStorm32 Lite. This version has a couple of fixes, mainly improved instruction cache handling and better game and demo compatibility.

ZipFile - Link

Note: The special handling of DBF busy loops (better compatibility) can be enabled in cmdline.txt file by adding a dbf_slowdown keyword, or during operation of Emu68 using the EmuControl tool.

If however you are using the nightly builds, the last (at the time of posting) release was back in November 2023 - available from the following link:

ZipFile - Link
________

Main Emu68 webpage: Link

 

[SneakyPete]

Which Pi are you using with the PiStorm? Also which Emulation. EMu68 or Musashi? If EMU68, which version? Latest build? Or older build?

Thanks @Boing-ball and @miggymad I'm using the Emu681.0RC2 version.

handling of DBF busy loops (better compatibility) can be enabled in cmdline.txt file by adding a dbf_slowdown keyword

Miggy do you actuuly mean config.txt or d I need to create a cmdline.txt file?... Maybe the nightly build has fixed this?

 

[SilkWorm]

config.txt is actually for PiStorm, to tell RPi how to boot.
cmdline.txt is for EMU68 -> https://michalsc.github.io/Emu68/Options.html

 

[miggymad]

@SneakyPete

Create the file cmdline.txt if you don't already have one and copy it into your EMU68 partition. Keep in mind that any extra commands are contained on a single line so no pressing RETURN key for a new line or things won't work.

For example ...

buptest=512 bupiter=1 sd.unit0=rw sd.clock=100 vbr_move enable_cache dbf_slowdown

Is correct - everything on a single line.

But ...

buptest=512
bupiter=1
sd.unit0=rw
sd.clock=100
vbr_move
enable_cache
dbf_slowdown

Won't work.

 

[btp]

Just Installed a PiStorm32-Lite to my 1200. Just using as accelerator and RAM at the moment, but having some random crashes when extracting lha archives to Ram Disk.
Anyone seen this before?

To rule out any misconfiguration I would suggest to write the latest Caffeine OS (build 926 I think) into an SD card and boot your PiStorm32 with it. Upon boot it performs a BUPtest so that you are certain the accelerator had a solid communication with the 1200 chipset.

 

[SneakyPete]

@SneakyPete

Create the file cmdline.txt if you don't already have one and copy it into your EMU68 partition. Keep in mind that any extra commands are contained on a single line so no pressing RETURN key for a new line or things won't work.

For example ...

Thamks Miggymad, I did that and it looks good so far... I'll see how it goes.

 

[SneakyPete]

To rule out any misconfiguration I would suggest to write the latest Caffeine OS (build 926 I think) into an SD card and boot your PiStorm32 with it. Upon boot it performs a BUPtest so that you are certain the accelerator had a solid communication with the 1200 chipset.

I might give that a try through the holidays... got a bit going on in the next week

 

[YouKnowWho]

If I was to rank it, I'd go:
1. Amiga with a true 68K CPU - as it was intended to be. I'm all for upgrades with 020/030/040/060.
2a) FPGA CPU Amiga
2b) FPGA Amiga (MISTer, UNAmiga, etc.)
3a) PiStorm CPU Amiga
3b) Software emulated Amiga

I have to revise this list, moving 2b up to 2a as I now feel MISTer FPGA is just the bee's knees and better than just an FPGA CPU replacement. OCS/ECS/AGA Amiga, with RTG and Akiko implemented too? It's every Amiga hardware in one!