Vampire 600 V2 - Amiga 600 FPGA accelerator Pre-order

[CraigsBar]

Since there is option that kickstart will be included in flash each person who pre-orderd card will have to save his kickstart 3.1 img and upload it to our FTP so we can use his img in his own Vampire board. Details about the procedure to follow.

Since I just recently bought a 3.X from cloanto I assume I can use this too?

 

[majsta]

Anything will do as long you use your own kickstart 3.1 to save img.

 

[CraigsBar]

So an image of my 3.X is not ok then? No worried I can swap them over again and dump it. Unless a EPROM programmer dump is also ok? I am sure your later details will clarify this, I'll wait and see lol.

 

[gump]

This make me confused. Is kickstart needed in flash?

Are you talking about maproming kickstart?

I have allready dumped my own kickstart 3.1 and custom made it with patched scsi.device i NEED that driver for my china sata-pata adapter to work. On top of that i made a 3.9 with the same. Soo it has a kickswitch.

Can it be flashed later by myself or do it need jtag for this ?

Anyway. MY A600 is on aos3.9 with kick 3.9 at cold boot.

Soo i think if you need to flash i will upload that kickstart.

Edit: dont forget to explain if the eom should be byte-swaped or not.. probably a dump will doo. I just eant to clear things out

Soo i could probably answer my own question. Kickstarts you are using in winuae will not work cause of byteswap.

Dump directly from rom is not swaped and will work.
I think.

 

[Rakeim132]

Hey Majsta, I can't thank you more for the great news of this project arriving to its end. It's fantastic that you will start to ship soon and all the great communications you did on the way.
Just a question: will you check the shipping address with buyers prior to sell? Personally I have no clue which one I gave you at the time of order...

 

[majsta]

@ Rakeim132 One lesson from the past teaches me that I should check address and all other details before I put label on the package

 

[Rakeim132]

Great! I know since I have a Vampire 1 already... ?

 

[supaduper]

Hi guys what is the best software to save the Kick ROM image ?

 

[timmie]

Great to see this materialise!!! Looking forward to the A1200 version that is announced for later. And I even saw some talk about maybe an A3000/A4000 version in the future. That made me think. Is it already possible to implement PPC ln FPGA? Eventually, and I know that will be off for years, we could have a sort of "UltimatePPC" in the end. One can dream, no...

 

[everblue]

Just awesome! I am waiting for the A1200 version

 

[gump]

Hi guys what is the best software to save the Kick ROM image ?

Im going to download remus to grab my kickstart in A600 right now. Or just go for aminet. There should be som grabers there to use.
Edit:
Romsplit in remus does not grab my kickstart.

But both kick2f and grabkick from aminet grabs my custom 3.1 kickstart(different scsi device)

Those with aca cards can test this kickstarts with acatune -maprom path:/kickstart/kick40063

If you want.

 

[kipper2k]

Hi All,

here is some info. (not yet ready, just a heads up)...

People can log into my FTP server 174.5.66.205 port 21 (login anonymous) to deposit their Kickstart 3.1 ROM images. The file can be uploaded, seen, but cannot be downloaded.


When you upload the image please upload it with the following naming convention...


amibaynickname_kickstart3.1.bin


Before uploading it, please verify it is the original and not a modified kickstart as checks will be made to ensure the checksum is valid.


To verify the checksum you need to have a utility in order to read it. If you need one, you can download here.


http://esrg.sourceforge.net/utils_win_up/md5sum/


(I am using Win7 and downloaded gfsw.exe)


Below is successful read (and correct checksum) of the a600 3.1 kickstart read




[001/001] E:\emulators\winuae\roms\Kick31.rom


Size: 524,288
CRC-32: FC24AE0D
MD-5: e40a5dfb3d017ba8779faba30cbd1c8e
-------------------- FILE SIGNATURE COMPLETE --------------------


If you are happy with the checksum results then upload your bin file. Once the checksum has been verified or found bad it will be moved into the appropriate folder to show whether it is good or bad.


HDMI Cable clearance


The location of the HDMI connector is close to the floppy drive, certain HDMI cables if they have a big plastic housing will not fit so you have a few options...

- look for a cable that doesn't have a thick plastic housing
- use a utility knife to cut away excess plastic
- use an adapter i am building to feed it to the RF module (more details later)

 

[CrazyBob]

@Kipper2k:
Uploaded my rom this morning, just curious: is there a flashrom included on the Vampire board or is the rom loaded into the FPGA?

Do you have a photo which shows how much space is between the Vampire board and the diskdrive?

Thanks

 

[cthulhu]

@kipper2k, @majsta:

Will it be possible to change the kickstart later on? That is, will we be able to do that by ourselves?

 

[gseb]

Vampire 600 V2 - Amiga 600 FPGA accelerator Pre-order

Yes, very good question !
I also would like to know if it's possible to upload the ks ourselves... More details on the subject would be nice.

 

[CraigsBar]

What is the KS on the vampire used for?

 

[everblue]

Does HDMI support 50hz and vsync?

Thanks!

 

[trydowave]

K im confused... can someone please explain this KS situation simply pls. What's needed.. what's it for etc.

 

[gump]

Kipper2k

I have 2 questions.

Is it okey to change my original kickstart with another scsi.device.

2. Is it okey with custom 1mb rom?
I have both original kickstart 3.1 and amigaOS 3.9
If second question not okey. Can i at least have the scsi.device patched. I will need it. Or my ssd will not be detected.

 

[khimru]

K im confused... can someone please explain this KS situation simply pls. What's needed.. what's it for etc.

Vampire carries tons of flash and RAM (not that much compared to modern smartphones but huge amount for Amiga).

And that flash and/or RAM is FAST. Much faster than access to the original Amiga ROM. Now, you have a choice:
1. You could use Kickstart from original ROMs in sockets on the motherboard.
2. It could use copy of Kickstart stored in the memory of Vampire itself.
But for that to work these versions must match! Technically it's possible to use different versions of ROMs there, but this is risky, could lead to unstable system, and, may be more importantly, questionable from legal POV. Thus you need copy of THE ROM. Not some abstract ROMs, but specially the version from your Amiga.

Now the big question noone have asked: what if your Amiga have two ROMs? I've bought nice Amiga 600 with two ROMs and nice switch to pick one of these. Will I still be able to do that? Could I leave the old Kickstart alone (and use it without Vampire) or is it just impossible to do? Or maybe I could just embed two ROMs into the Vampire and they would be selected by the very same switch? Questions, questions, question... and majsta is too busy to answer them...