Phil C's Raven build

[PhilC]

Another quick update re my Raven and it's off ISA card combo. It turns out that what I thought was an ethernet port on the second card is a multi-line ISDN interface. So unfortunately not a great deal of use for me not having a 32 line ISDN connection.

So just messing around with a few of the on board jumpers I've been able to remove the second card and have the Graphics card working fine without the second card. If anything, it's actually a lot more reliable now I've done that.

So I've now been able to put my rtl8019 ethernet card back in and have the Raven running pretty nicely once more.

[mrbombermillzy]

The Raven doesn't have an ST blitter but the Nova drivers do make use of the blitter in the W32i but I guess you are coding for the ST blitter directly?

Yes, its using the ST blitter to transfer screen data to the (non BLT enabled ET4000AX in this case) card. Unfortunately, its still early steps and there are only very rudimentary hardware feature testing routines in the code (mainly shifter/Seurat/ET4000).

However, blitters are blitters; apart from any advanced functionality, they should all be able to be programmed fairly likewise (other than sometimes an +/- extra byte count here and there on the modulo/line lengths, but no biggie. :)

Im sort of knee deep in ATW800/2 code ATM, but at some point I need to update the code to work on an ATI Mach32 card (using the M32 blitter).

When Im at that point, I will also include the W32i as an optional output in the build and you can test if you like. I dont know if @agranlund has included 8514/A VGA blit compatability to the Raven?

(I think I need another Mega ST4 to save all this swapping cards about! :lol: )

BTW, does anybody know how many working Ravens are in the wild now?

[PhilC]

@mrbombermillzy I'd expect there's less than ten Ravens at the mo but am hoping as things get more interesting, there will be more people interested in having one.
I'm slowly setting mine up now so that I can start programming with it.

[mrbombermillzy]

Thats great news Phil. :)

Ive never spoken to you about this, but have you coded before, or will this be a new start?

What language will you use?

[agranlund]

As far as I am aware @dml 's will be the 10th, assuming it works :)

[sety]

As far as I am aware @dml 's will be the 10th, assuming it works :)

We should probably be documenting this somewhere so we can have serial numbers :D

(I'm guessing that's what the solid rectangle silkscreen adjacent to the Raven logo is for?)

[PhilC]

Thats great news Phil. :)

Ive never spoken to you about this, but have you coded before, or will this be a new start?

What language will you use?

Back in the day I used to code in 68000 but have forgotten it all but over the last few years I've been programming in Ladder, function block and C++ for my work stuff.

I'm planning on using Pure C and maybe 68000 on the Raven. As you know, the hardest part in getting started with it all is getting all the software installed and running properly.

[mrbombermillzy]

Well, just give me a shout if you need any help (more with assembly than C :lol: ).

[DoG]

@agranlund Ok, my ram is 256x16, so that explains why it won't work then. Wasworth a try though (but I may still have a try anyway :D)

I was looking through this thread and saw two cards that looked very familiar. I also have these two cards. I got them a while back so I can't remember how much I pay for them or where I got them from. I don't think I have even tested them. I also got 1Mb on mine.

Anyhow, the problem to get interleave working is to have all memory chip to to be the same manufacturer, type, speed (50ns or faster) and so on and of course how it is wired. But there seems to be very little difference between "normal" 2Mb and interleaved 2Mb card (CAS and A9). Yes, the ram needs to be 32 bit wide but you can have ram chips as you like. Two 16-bits chips is 32 bit after all. Or 8 chips with 4 bits each is also 32 bits wide.

Alexandru talks a bit about ram-speed problems when he designed his replica pcb for his interleaved W32i card. But he used faster ram chips. Some got lucky and got it to work with 70ns apparently. You probably have two MT4C16257DJ-7 (70ns) fitted from factory on yours? But I don't think this card is wired as interleaved.

ET4000 W32i memory design 1.png

ET4000 W32i memory design 2.png

ET4000 W32i memory design 3.png

[PhilC]

thanks for the info @DoG,when I get time I do plan to have a bit more of a play with interleaving to see if I can get it to work.

Both sets of chips are 70ns, the originals and the replacements, although the replacements are of a different brand, sop again, that may be the issue.

To be honest, I'm happy with the speed as it is but if you can get more, then why not .