exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

So with the issue of SCSI card (DMA) compatibility with the TF536, therefore preventing users from using a CDROM on the A2000, I set about to install a Buddha IDE (20 year anniversary edition) card I had laying about. I expected it to hang or crash the A2000 as soon as the A2000 goes to talk to it, as it does when using the C= A2091 and GVP HC8+ card.

Well, it works, but not with a CD ROM drive, but with an IDE CF card, with no lock ups!

When trying to mount the IDE CD drive.... I have spent a large amount of time trying many configurations with the CD drive on its own IDE channel, or set as a slave with the CF card set to master, and I get varying results. The CD drive mounts every time, but the issues range from sudden block errors on the CF card (??) or the system hanging every 2nd, 3rd or 4th mount. But up until the point of the CD drive being mounted, it works perfect!

So what is the point?

I have ditched the IDE CD drive for now, and I have moved the CF card from the TF536 to the Buddha IDE card, and I'm now running the OS and work: drives from that. I have been able to copy mass amounts of data around with no lock ups (refer to the known issue of hdd lock ups when writing lots of data with the TF536).

With the lid now back on the A2000, I have a TF536, 030 50mhz with 64mb fastmem and reliable data read/writes with no system lock ups. :D

SCSI does work with the TF536! I have my A2091 working fine with it! You have a bottleneck due to it needing 24bit DMA RAM, whereas the 32bit RAM seems to take priority, forcing it into PIO mode. But you should be able to use the "fix" on aminet to have it buffer in and out of fast RAM, pulling speed up. I had to fit ALS245's chips to my A2091, and on the A2000 motherboard. But they coexist nicely for me.