larrylaffer

Ok... I also used a satan drive with a known working SD card but with Petar Putnik's driver (and no device on the internal SCSI bus). Same behavior: sometimes boots fine sometimes not. Then when it booted sometimes I could not create a new directory but when I would connect the satan drive to my ST it all worked fine. So to recap: I have been testing with only one device at a time. One set of tests with the hard drive on the internal bus. One set of tests with the SCSI2SD on the internal bus, one set of tests with the satan drive on the ASCSI external bus. Same behavior: sometimes it boots, sometimes not, when it works sometimes I have issues (mostly with write as far as I can tell). I don't think it is a software issue as both drivers exhibit the same behavior. Everything points towards the hardware that handles scsi: I tested the disk drive and I could format, read/write successfully every time. Looking at the schematics here I can see the 5830 SCSI controller, the DCU and the DMAC being involved in the whole SCSI path... Do you guys think I should get one of each just to be safe? Or just start with the 8230 and see how it goes? Is any of these ICs known to fail?

Yeah, using the ASCSI (external) port makes sense. However using only internal HDD the SCSI2SD has built in termination and it is on. Also as I mentioned the SCSI2SD I have was previously on my other TT and it worked fine... The other thing I am thinking is to do a visual inspection of the motherboard for any possible broken contacts... But this means I will need to take out the board from the cover... But I think I should do it before I spend money...

Hi all, I bought a TT that worked just fine the first time I booted it up. However after the first boot the boot process would stop half way. I removed the hard drive and the TT would boot every time. I thought it might have been the hard drive failing (well... shipping an old hdd is not the best thing to do, especially when it is handled by USPS) so I replaced it with a spare SCSI2SD v5.1 that I have been using without issues in the (recent) past. As soon as I load HDDriver and it tries to enumerate the TT hangs again. The mouse can still move around, and no bombs show up, but the access LED of the SCSI2SD stays solid ON. I also booted the TT with TT Diagnostics cart (both v1.4 and v1.5) and when I try to run the SCSI tests it is failing at cycle 1. RAM (ST) tests pass every time. The TT is just a plain TT, I even removed both TT and ST extra memory (so it runs with the on board 2MB ST RAM only) and I also replaced the PSU with the one from my TT that I use regularly, so I know it is a good PSU. Even the old one I measured correct voltages (something like 5.2V and 12.2V) but as we know noise from the PSU sometimes is hidden from multimeters. Also I have been using the SCSI ribbon cable from my working TT because I have been bitten by a faulty ribbon SCSI cable before... Interestingly I tried to reboot it several times with the HDDriver disk in the floppy, and of course 99% of the times the TT would freeze but once in a (*very*) while the HDDriver will run to completion and the TT will boot. When I try to partition it of course I would get the same behavior: the utility will freeze and the LED will stay on for ever. ICs seem to be running cool, between (82-90 F/28-32 C) after I rebooted several times. I removed and re-sited the SCSI controller (L5380 JC-2) - the nice with this board is that all ICs are socketed, but no luck. I cannot use the controller of my working TT because it is soldered. So everything is telling me "buy another SCSI controller from Best" but before I do I thought I would share this with you and get some input before I do so... Any thoughts appreciated!

Interested if it works.

If your drive reads the other cartridges then obviously this one is bad and unfortunately I have no solution. If you only have this cartridge maybe try with another local atari fan and see if they can read? (In case your drive works but cannot read anymore). If you have no local atari friend PM me, I have a syquest 44 drive and I could try it for you...

Click speed is only one factor but it doesn't mean necessary that they need to match. Finding and fixing bottlenecks is a science on its own. I suggest you just find a configuration that works for someone else and copy it. Unfortunately I don't have a suggestion for such a configuration.

For CRT monitors better share your location and try to find someone local to meet them and take the monitor home. CRTs are very sensitive to vibrations and if the package gets banged or dropped chances are it will get damaged beyond repair.

Exactly right! 🙂 I never claimed I am an expert in the TT and I found your suggestion extremely interesting. I have applied this technique exactly zero times so far, but will do soon 🙂

@ParanoidLittleMan, why is there a slowdown depending on the graphics? Doesn't the graphics chip just reserve a part of ST RAM and DMA into it while the rest of the ST RAM is accessible? Does the TT lock somehow the ST RAM when the graphics chip DMAs into it causing the rest of the memory accesses to stall? Also I just found the reference I was thinking of when I said "wider bus": https://www.atarimagazines.com/startv5n6/tterrific.html In Burst Mode (which is a mode that only TT RAM can be, and requires non standard DRAM - Is it EDO really?) section, it says: So what I was remembering (wrongly) as "wider bus" seems partially true I think depending how many bytes/cycle (or how cycles it takes to fetch four longs) the ST RAM can fetch but I guess it would be less than the TT (PLM, I am sure you will know the answer, please share with us). On top of that, and again based on the above link the fact that other devices (such as graphics, sound, ASCSI) "lock" the memory when the DMA in/out of it? On a different note, thank you @lp060 for the info: I think it is very interesting (mostly from experimentation perspective, I guess most ST programs make assumptions they run in ST RAM and they will fail in all interesting ways if one changes their header and requires them to run in TT RAM)

Totally agree. Mine also has a lot of TT RAM because I run MiNT and other things that are more demanding. Also I think the backwards compatibility with the ST line of the TT is not good. So if you want to be playing games for example better use an STE/MegaSTE with enough memory (4MB is more than enough) than a TT. I think TT and Falcon are separate chapters on their own.

Still looking for a mach64 ISA.

Yes, you will need an extra board and extra memory SIMMs to expand your TT memory. It is always dangerous to make generalizations about performance but yes, as a general rule the speed in the TT comes from the TT RAM. First of all I need to say that I said exactly the wrong thing in my first reply: It is the ST memory that is being used for DMA and graphics, not the TT. TThe TT memory is used only by software that is aware it is running on the TT. The TT memory has a wider bus, which means you can access more memory per clock cycle, so the program can indeed run faster if it runs there. But if the software is written for Atari STs (including F/M/STE) then it won't land there. This is at least my findings from research, someone who has done programming for it please verify the validity or not of my understanding.

The TT has ST RAM and TT RAM. The TT RAM if I remember correctly is where the devices DMA into. Both are boards that get connected to the motherboard. Thre one under the hard drive enclosure is the ST memory where thre other one closer to the cartridge slot is the TT memory.

All this PayPal protection is so overrated!!! They make it extremely difficult to have buyer protection... maybe we should all start filing claims in Best Business Bureau... not that they have the power to reverse PayPal's decisions but at least they keep public records showing a ton of people complaining about it...

Other than the bogus seller, it sounds as if you have issues with PayPal and buyer protection, right? Lately I am almost ready to give up on PayPal. The few times that I needed their buyer protection I either had to put a huge amount of effort to manage to get it, or I got disappointed... when for example I purchased an Atari item from Europe and it arrived damaged and the seller was pushing back, PayPal ruled "in my favor" that I could return in on my expense!!! So I had to pay from my pocket and then there was always the risk for further damage and who knows where that would end... In your case "a" tracking shouldn't be enough... a tracking number to your address maybe... but just a random tracking number... man... and then they keep increasing their fees... Sorry if I diverged...

I found a mach32, but still interested in a mach64. Still ISA bus is a requirement. And of course we can trade too... Thank you

Hi all, I am looking for a mach32 or even better mach64 VGA card but it has to be ISA. Can not use a VLB or PCI version. I have a few things to trade. Such as an atari 800, an 800XL, a pentium laptop, a few other vintage PC cards, a few pcmcia network cards, home ethernet switches etc etc... Just let me know if you have such a card and we can figure out the rest.

Did a trade with @eightbit. Great communication, great packaging items as described. Absolutely awesome to deal with!

Oh, sorry, I forgot an important aspect, didn't I? $175 (shipped as I mentioned) will also edit the initial post...

MSX Megaflashrom + 512MB + SD slot for $175 shipped in USA. Works great, I have been using it very little as you can see. Other than running ROMs on your MSX (or MSX2 or TurboMSX) from it (like am everdrive) it will add 512MB of memory and it also implements the SSC+ sound chip so you can run these ROMs too. You will need to use your own SD card I will only send you the cartridge. They normally come from Europe at that price + shipping, get it from US priority mail with shipping included (+PayPal fees if not f&f) and save money and time as getting stuff from EU these days takes for ever. Thanks for looking!

Found one, thank you!

If shipping is with the Ebay international program I would do it. It is very efficient and the least delay in customs (at least pre-covid19): usual 2-3 days where buying directly from a seller in EU I had a recent experience having my package waiting for a month in the US customs...

Also things might get a bit more complicated if you have other devices on the ascsi bus (for example with a mega ste you have the built in hard drive) and you need to make sure that the device ID doesn't clash with another device ID on the same bus... But playing a bit around with the utilities and googling around you should be able to find your way...

First of all, the driver will make OS "see" US as a hard drive. But then no matter which driver you use you will need to create partitions on that drive. All 3 drivers come with such a utility but you need to be paying attention to the size of the partition because depending on the TOS version you will have different limits. This is also important if you connect the same US to more than one STs with different vTOS version. I think Jookie in his page had a comparison of the drivers. I bought both PP's and HDDR because I want to support maintainers to keep doing what they doing. I am pretty sure both have trail versions with limitations.

Bump