TF1260 Beta Firmware

[Duncan]

Just popped up to Stephen's house (although, that really doesn't do it justice, I think Stephen is moonlighting as a Bond villain) to get my TF1260 flashed by the man himself.

Had a great wee look around Stephen's dungeon, 8bit and 16bit computers abound, and arcade boards everywhere, i could have spent all day in there, it was like America, so it was.

Performance is greatly improved FPS stuff and Demo's are flying along, probably the biggest surprise was Quake, which now bolts along.

thanks again big man it was well worth pushing myself outside of my anxiety bubble, and a nice day for a cycle up there

[terriblefire]

Had a great wee look around Stephen's dungeon, 8bit and 16bit computers abound, and arcade boards everywhere, i could have spent all day in there, it was like America, so it was.

And you got out in one piece too! Thats the main thing

[matt020]

I have upgraded the firmware in my TF1260 but unfortunately I have to report it is unstable.

<snip>

Edit: timing fixes have not been applied. But the system was stable prior to the firmware upgrade.

edit: clarified it is motherboard HDD speed running at 600kb.

I have applied timing fixes, and contacted the builder of my TF1260 board - the support has been outstanding. Quick replies, suggestions and ideas thrown around. It's been great. We both suspect the CPLD's on my card may not be happy with the timings or not be able to run at the speed required for the faster ram speed, because going back to the original firmware, the board is rock solid again.

@terriblefire If you have any intermediate firmware, a sort of in-between, with timings not so tight, I would be happy to test and try out. Thank you in advance.

Cheers,
Matt.

[terriblefire]

@terriblefire If you have any intermediate firmware, a sort of in-between, with timings not so tight, I would be happy to test and try out. Thank you in advance.

I suspect the issue is caused by pins that are not used on the old firmware and are used in the newer ones. Lines left spare for future use so to speak. I'm going to suggest you return the card and we'll replace and investigate.

[matt020]

I suspect the issue is caused by pins that are not used on the old firmware and are used in the newer ones. Lines left spare for future use so to speak. I'm going to suggest you return the card and we'll replace and investigate.

Thank you, I'll get in touch with the builder and go from there. Thank you for your help, it is appreciated.

[voscoboss]

I'm very late to the party... but finally got around to flashing the beta firmware. I can report that it works stable. IDE works and is a bit picky but pretty fast. Nice! One thing I noticed is that on the shipped firmware it would do 75MHz nicely, on the new firmware 75MHz = instant reboot. This is with a freescale full 68060.

[terriblefire]

Yeah this firmware was all about pushing the fast ram and ide to the limit. There is a complete rewrite in the works,

[Higgy]

I bought some CD32 suitable EPROMS just incase there might be some TF360 requirement to mod the Kickstart to get CDROM to work.
(I think they can also be used on a A1200 with wiring mods to give 2 switchable Kickstarts)

[arkadiusz.makarenko]

I bought some CD32 suitable EPROMS just incase there might be some TF360 requirement to mod the Kickstart to get CDROM to work.
(I think they can also be used on a A1200 with wiring mods to give 2 switchable Kickstarts)

Which ones are needed 27c800s?

[terriblefire]

I bought some CD32 suitable EPROMS just incase there might be some TF360 requirement to mod the Kickstart to get CDROM to work.
(I think they can also be used on a A1200 with wiring mods to give 2 switchable Kickstarts)

Which ones are needed 27c800s?

For the A1200 you need 2 x 27C800s unfortunately. A18 (i think) is NC on the ROMs.