DFB1 Support thread

[Badwolf]

Well, sorry but I have not read this before ... :-(
Ok, probably the easiest way is to upload EmuTos. :-)
I have one more question, can I temporarily use 29F400 instead of 29F800? EMU TOS should fit in it, probably?

It's designed for the 29F400. 1MB 29F800 support is only theoretical ATM.

However please bear in mind what I said at the start of this exchange: there seems to be a problem with EmuTOS hanging on detecting TT-RAM with the current firmware. I believe flash is working but somethign in the early stages of EmuTOS doesn't like my SDRAM controller. Declaring it later works, however.

I would (personally) assume flash is unavailable until further notice and instead use the onboard ROM with either TOS4+NVDI or EmuTOS.

BW

[markus0321]

Well, sorry but I have not read this before ... :-(
Ok, probably the easiest way is to upload EmuTos. :-)
I have one more question, can I temporarily use 29F400 instead of 29F800? EMU TOS should fit in it, probably?

It's designed for the 29F400. 1MB 29F800 support is only theoretical ATM.

However please bear in mind what I said at the start of this exchange: there seems to be a problem with EmuTOS hanging on detecting TT-RAM with the current firmware. I believe flash is working but somethign in the early stages of EmuTOS doesn't like my SDRAM controller. Declaring it later works, however.

I would (personally) assume flash is unavailable until further notice and instead use the onboard ROM with either TOS4+NVDI or EmuTOS.

BW

Okay.
When I get home I will try all the suggested options and write if there are any problems.
Thank you so much for help.

[DoG]

How did you manage to detect Alt-RAM in EMUTOS? I tried the latest EmuTOS nightly and it does not detect Alt-RAM? :-(

I ran EmuTOS from autoboot disk (I have gotek and EmuTOS is build with EMUTOS-FLOPPY-DATE-XX-XX in the nightly built in the repository). I got TOS 4.04 in ROM on motherboard.

[markus0321]

How did you manage to detect Alt-RAM in EMUTOS? I tried the latest EmuTOS nightly and it does not detect Alt-RAM? :-(

I ran EmuTOS from autoboot disk (I have gotek and EmuTOS is build with EMUTOS-FLOPPY-DATE-XX-XX in the nightly built in the repository). I got TOS 4.04 in ROM on motherboard.

I did it as you type and it works ok.
EmuTOS works fine too if I upload it as PRG to the AUTO directory and I will arrange the order so that it is first maprom prg then emutos.prg. It is worse with Flash or EPROM programming on the Falcon motherboard. In both cases I have a black screen :-( but if I turn off the DFB1 board with the jumper, the EmuTOS loaded in the EPROM on the Falcon board starts.
Is there any version of EmuTOS that is dedicated to Falcon with Alt-RAM?
Or maybe I am doing something wrong?

--I tried EmuTOS version 1.2.1 and nightly 512kB.

[markus0321]

It's designed for the 29F400. 1MB 29F800 support is only theoretical ATM.

However please bear in mind what I said at the start of this exchange: there seems to be a problem with EmuTOS hanging on detecting TT-RAM with the current firmware. I believe flash is working but somethign in the early stages of EmuTOS doesn't like my SDRAM controller. Declaring it later works, however.

I would (personally) assume flash is unavailable until further notice and instead use the onboard ROM with either TOS4+NVDI or EmuTOS.

BW

Okay.
When I get home I will try all the suggested options and write if there are any problems.
Thank you so much for help.

I checked your suggestions on my own and now everything works except one. EmuTOS does not work when I program it into the ROM memory, even when I program it into the EPROM chip on the Falcon motherboard. The symptom is that when I put the "disable" jumper in DFB1 then Falcon starts, with DFB1 turned on there is only a black screen. Maybe I am developing the wrong version of EmuTOS, I tried versions 512kB nightly and 1.2.1 and 1.0.1 and none of them works :-(

[frank.lukas]

I suspect the multi language version for the falcon is the 1MB version? Test it with Hatari...

[markus0321]

I suspect the multi language version for the falcon is the 1MB version? Test it with Hatari...

I did it on 512kB UK version. It works in Hatari.

There is another strange symptom, I must have the same content in both roms. If I program, for example, tos 4.04 to EPROM on the motherboard and 4.02 to Flash on BFG1 or vice versa, the Falcon seems to work but then it has damaged graphics if I load both memories the same, no matter if 4.02 or 4.04 it works correctly.
It looks like these two memories are somehow interacting with each other, is it weird?

Of course, I used Tos version 4.02 only for testing. I have the same symptoms when I have EmuTOS and TOS4.04 programmed or vice versa.

Haven't tried this yet:
http://tho-otto.de/emutos/index.php
Does anyone know how to set it up so that it is good for Falcon with DFB1?

IMG_20221018_010015.jpg

[markus0321]

I fixed it ;-) BadWolf was right, in EmuTOS the TT-RAM detection routine makes problems.
I can't fix it, but I compiled 3 versions of EmuToS for Falcon + DFB1 and they have the amount of TT-RAM detected permanently.
No detection, 64MB and 128MB. For me, they work properly when I upload them to the Flash memory on DFB1 and I have TOS4.04 installed on the Falcon motherboard.
There is even a problem, the reset must be Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Del but I put it for testing as it could be useful to someone.

IMG_20221018_191702.jpg

IMG_20221018_191709.jpg

IMG_20221018_191805.jpg

[stephen_usher]

Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Del is hard reset. I wonder why soft reset isn't working.

[Badwolf]

You're probably trying to get reliable results on fundamentally unreliable firmware.

I did really mean this!

I would (personally) assume flash is unavailable until further notice and instead use the onboard ROM with either TOS4+NVDI or EmuTOS.

The DFB1 board I developed the r5 firmware on didn't even have flash soldered on as I'd run out of chips so the flash support was coded 'blind' and I *know* there was at least one bug in it.

I've been researching this and things are still inconclusive at the moment. I now do have a proper 512k flash firmware (this is not the one you're using), but there are problems with detecting TT-RAM when running from the Flash at the moment. Basically the TT-RAM firmware is hanging during detection. I think it's in the write phase.

I'm looking into solutions.

Standard EmuTOS 512k is expected to work out of the box *once the firmware is fixed*.

But as of 2022-10-18 there is no firmware with correctly working flash and EmuTOS TT-RAM detection.

BW