A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

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rubber_jonnie
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by rubber_jonnie »

stephen_usher wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 6:26 pm Looking at your settings you have 1 floppy and one IDE drive configured but no "Hard Drives" i.e. SCSI drives. It's also set to boot from drive 0, the IDE drive I think. Adding the SCSI "Hard Drive" may allow it to boot from there. I don't know what drive number that has though.
The thing is, the *configure boot option has no parameters to select a boot drive.

AFAIK you need two things to boot, the 'boot' option to be on and a hard drive to be set with opt 4,2 making it bootable.

Removing the SCSI drives from the equation I put the !BOOT folder into the root of the IDE drive and ran opt 4,2 on the drive having set the boot option. A couple of days ago, this worked and I was able to boot from the IDE drive and get all my customisations and drivers loaded at boot time. Then it stopped working as it had previously.

As I understand the boot sequence goes FDD, IDE then SCSI. If the FDD and IDE have no volumes set with opt 4,2 if the SCSI drives are then it will boot from SCSI. It's almost like the flag that says 'boot from IDE then SCSI' is being ignored, but I don't know why.

The SCIS drives do show on the 2nd page of *status, but the 'no hard drives' in the listing did have me confused too.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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HigashiJun
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by HigashiJun »

Seems the @rubber_jonnie's A5000 journey will last a bit more than expected...

I really admire your tenacity.

:bravo:
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stephen_usher
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by stephen_usher »

What happens if you type Shift-Break?
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by rubber_jonnie »

stephen_usher wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 9:36 am What happens if you type Shift-Break?
I'll try and see what it does. From RiscOS or at boot?
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by rubber_jonnie »

HigashiJun wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 5:01 am Seems the @rubber_jonnie's A5000 journey will last a bit more than expected...

I really admire your tenacity.

:bravo:
Thanks :)
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by stephen_usher »

It shouldn't really matter, it should do a warm reboot and try to run from disk, ignoring the setting in the NVRAM.
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by rubber_jonnie »

stephen_usher wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 10:52 am It shouldn't really matter, it should do a warm reboot and try to run from disk, ignoring the setting in the NVRAM.
No different. It'll try and boot from FDD but not IDE or SCSI.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by rubber_jonnie »

OK, so I've been testing the A5000 for a few days, and whatever instability was present previously has been fixed by replacing the latches, as it'll run all day with no problems at all.

I just need to figure out this boot issue, which is odd as it prevents a lot of the good stuff I did from loading and being useful. Meh!!

I do now have some CMOS IC replacements and given it is just 8 legs on the chip I may just fit a new one, see if it helps. If it doesn't then I will at least know it is something else.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by rubber_jonnie »

OK, small A5000 update.

CMOS IC has been replaced, but it's no different, so it isn't that. It still tries to boot from floppy, but not from any hard drives. Stability is also sill there, so that's progress.

Need to see if I can figure out what is next in line for some attention, I feel it's fixable and I don't want to give up on it.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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rubber_jonnie
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by rubber_jonnie »

OK, so I think I've fixed the A5000, I'm now able to boot correctly, get my drivers and desktop customisations.

I was looking at the *configure options and one is *configure drive X, with X being the number of the drive to boot from. I changed this value to 4, my first SCSI drive and it is booting!!!

I am going to continue testing, but it's looking positive :)
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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