First steps with the ATW800/2

[rubber_jonnie]

Oh, absolutely. I was doing the 3-finger reboot just to get out of Helios, which
was tedious, to say the least.

The easy keyboard combo to drop back to TOS is the way to go. :)

I was hitting the reset button, so definitely much more useful, especially since it works in X too.

[rubber_jonnie]

Hey Jon, just quickly logged in to say congrats on the aquisition of the ATW800/2 board. :)

FYI, some IMO exciting/cool new SW is being produced by DML on his site: https://www.leonik.net/dml/sec_atw800.py

Other than the Doom demo that everyone was raving about, I imagine you want to look at this stuff too!

Just giving this a whirl, it certainly sees all my Transputers.

[rubber_jonnie]

@dml

I'm trying to run Xptr and so far seem to be getting into the main app and my transputer core is seen (I'm not sure why the others aren't visible as I can start them with STARTNS in Helios:

IMG20260615110518.jpg

IMG20260615110542.jpg

I've downloaded the base pack and the T4 pack only, though it only seems to see Seurat (I suspect that's because I haven't modified config.jsn) and not the other two T425's. FPGABIOS is loaded manually.

As per your website instructions I'm trying to load 'Kishimisu, but it just seems to hang with the message 'Booting scene on detected cores..."

Any advice would be gratefully received, thanks.'

[rubber_jonnie]

BTW I tried changing config.jsn to this:

IMG20260615113702.jpg

I don't know if that is correct or not, it was a best guess.

But XPtr is still only showing a single transputer and it still hangs trying to load a scene.

BTW I have now added FPGABIOS to my auto folder and it is running as expected at boot time.

Ahh wait, my bad.

I re-did the config.jsn like this:

IMG20260615114249.jpg

And now it shows all 3 transputers :)

However it is still hanging on 'Booting scene on detected cores...'

[rubber_jonnie]

Hmm, this is a worry:

IMG20260615115134.jpg

Though I recall something about it not working with certain RAM configurations so I could be worried about nothing.

[Steve]

Hey Jon, did it originally see the transputers as you mentioned:

Just giving this a whirl, it certainly sees all my Transputers.

If so, did it randomly stop detecting them? Also since that march test only tests slot 1, perhaps swap the trams around (and make sure the orientation is correct) and re-rest to see if the results are the same.

[rubber_jonnie]

Hey Jon, did it originally see the transputers as you mentioned:

No I mis-spoke, I thought it had, but it only saw the Seurat core initially. Since modifying config.jsn it now does see all the TRAMs as expected:

IMG20260615114738.jpg

If so, did it randomly stop detecting them? Also since that march test only tests slot 1, perhaps swap the trams around (and make sure the orientation is correct) and re-rest to see if the results are the same.

Again, my bad for not reading that about the only TRAM tested being in slot 1. I will do as you suggest and swap them over and see what the result is.

Will get back on that shortly.

[rubber_jonnie]

If so, did it randomly stop detecting them? Also since that march test only tests slot 1, perhaps swap the trams around (and make sure the orientation is correct) and re-rest to see if the results are the same.

OK, so I swapped the TRAMs around and get the same results so I think you're right. I guess the RAM is all good and I should spend more time reading instructions...

Blimey though, the TRAMs are a super snug fit in my VME slot!!!

[dml]

Ah - the tramtool RAM test is currently hardwired to test 2MB (GeekDot's TRAMs) and I think the vintage TRAMs you have are 1MB so that would explain (A) bad RAM test result and (B) same results on each card.

I'll post an updated version soon which figures out the RAM size automatically (or maybe a quick spin of a 1MB version) but have been busy with the other thing meantime.

[dml]

The config.jsn should probably look like this, for your T4 setup:

(I'll check this is set up correctly in the .zips next time I do an upload - a new version will be along this week sometime).

Code: Select all

{
	{
		"output" : [
			{ "width" :						"256" },
			{ "height" :						"192" },
			{ "image_format" :			"tga" },
			{ "image_compress" :		"0" },
			{ "jpg_quality" :				"90" }
		]
	},
	{
		"transputers" : [
			{ "seurat" : 			"on"},
			{ "slot1_device" :	"T4" },
			{ "slot1" : 				"on" },
			{ "slot2_device" :	"T4" },
			{ "slot2" : 				"on" }
		]
	}
}

But of a tabby indent mess there but you get the idea. :)