MicroBotics Multifunction Module New Documentation and Revisions v1.1 18/Nov/87 Since the original release of MFM software there have been many questions asked about several aspects of the MultiFunction Module and its associated software. This file highlights the modifications and, hopefully, will clear up any problems. These changes have not yet been incorporated in the printed documentation accompanying the MultiFunction Module, so be sure to read this entire file. Math Chip Support ----------------- Most importantly, this revision has added the programming examples for the MC68881 math chip. If you wish to use this chip in your programs, refer to the 68881 ReadMe file in the MathSample drawer for specifics. As of this writing the releases of Lattice v4.0 and Manx v3.6 compilers are imminent. We will be adding documentation for each of these as they become available to us. Should you get a copy of one of these, you should have enough information in the present readme file and the compiler documentation for you to make complete use of the chip. The specific part number of the chip to be used is MC68881RC12A. All the letters are significant. There are a number of parts in the market marked XC68881RC12 but these are not guaranteed to work correctly. Do not use them. There are also different speed rated chips such as those marked RC16 can be used, but the extra speed will not be used. Preliminary versions of the documentation did not include a pictorial representation of the board showing the orientation of the math chip. Since then, some people have been confused by the instruction to insert the math chip with the label reading upside-down. This refers to the printing ON THE CHIP ITSELF, not any paper-label stuck onto the chip. With the battery to your left and the math chip socket to your right, the correct orientation of the chip is with the gold Y embossed on the chip pointing towards the lower right corner of the socket. If you had the v1.0 release of this disk, be sure to replace the libraries with the ones included on this disk. The mathieeedoubtrans.library and the io68881.library have been modified. If you do not have a math chip installed on your board, DO NOT REPLACE THE MATH LIBRARIES ON YOUR WORKBENCH DISKS! Doing so will try to send any calls for these libraries to a non-existent math chip, which means the programs will not work. If you double-click an icon for a program that uses the libraries, usually nothing will happen to indicate what is wrong. It is only from the CLI that you would get a message stating that no math chip was found. Although we at first thought there were not any widely distributed programs that used these libraries, we were mistaken. The Calculator utility on Workbench itself uses them to get higher precision. There are bound to be others of which we are unaware. The Developer Package mentioned in the documentation is being prepared and contains information on using the math chip directly, bypassing the math libraries. This method of access is certainly the fastest, but at a cost of not being simple to do. The package includes the source code to all three libraries, the Motorola MC68881 User's Manual, and a Motorola Application Note detailing direct chip access. Prices including shipping have been set as follows: Continental U.S: $15.00 via UPS Ground delivery Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico: $20.00 via UPS Second Day delivery Canada, Mexico: $20.00 via Air Mail Outside North America: $30.00 via Air Mail U.S. orders will be sent out cash on delivery unless prepaid. Elsewhere the order must be prepaid by check or money order drawn on US funds. Texas residents please add your local sales tax. Any order can be charged to a Visa or Mastercard for an additional five percent. StarTime Battery ---------------- The battery forms a part of the Multifunction Module circuitry. You should not remove the battery even if you don't plan to use the clock. Be sure to use only high-quality replacement batteries such as EveReady or Mallory. New Startup Sequence Scripts ---------------------------- Some callers have been overwhelmed by the Startup-Sequence file. To ease the process of setting up startup scripts for your working disks, we have created several Quick-Start scripts that you can use. Also, the full startup-sequence has been more liberally commented. To boot up with a StickyDisk set up automatically you need the following files from the distribution disk: s/QS-StickyDisk devs/sddevice devs/smdevice c/SDSet c/StarTime To boot up with a JDDisk set up automatically you need these files: s/QS-JDDisk devs/jd_dev.device c/StarTime JDDisk/JDDiskInstall To boot up without a RAM disk installed you need these files: s/QS-NoRAMDisk c/StarTime To use them you should copy the QS file to your disk's S directory with the name startup-sequence, then copy the other listed files onto your disk into the same directories as they came from. For the JDDisk routine you will have to boot with the disk and cancel an error message that will arise. Then run the JDDiskInstall program to set up the MountList file in your devs: directory to reflect the size of JDDisk you want for the system. JDDisk Memory Size ------------------ When you receive your MultiFunction Module diskette, the default JDDisk size will be 1000k of RAM. If you have a 512k or 1 megabyte StarBoard2, this will be too large. You should make a copy of the release disk, boot with that disk, and run the JDDiskInstall program to set a memory size that is more in line with the capacity of your system. JDDiskInstall will prompt you for a number of "k" to allocate for the JDDisk. We suggest as starting values you use half of the available Fast RAM in your system and modify these values as your needs show a change is necessary. For 2 megabytes, we suggest 1000 k. 1 megabyte 500 k. (or 880k to have room for Workbench) 512 kilobytes 250 k. Note that to copy the Workbench into the JDDisk, as the included Startup scripts attempt to do, you will need at least 880k of RAM in the disk to succeed. For 512k StarBoards you can modify the scripts to copy only the c directory into RAM and remove all the other Assign statements. If you are not using the CLI, you probably should not bother with a RAM disk anyway. StickyDisk Memory Size ---------------------- The same memory size requirements as affect the JDDisk apply to StickyDisk as well. If you have only a 512k StarBoard2, the scripts that copy the system to RAM will not work without elimination of unnecessary files. RAM disk Read/Write Errors -------------------------- Should you ever encounter a Read/Write error when using a StarBoard2 RAM disk, you should suspect a bad RAM chip. If you are using StickyDisk, it definitely means that a chip is bad or intermittent. Using JDDisk there is the possibility that a software crash has scrambled the data, but we have never encountered such a crash. You should run the StarBoard RAM test anyway to make sure. First, save to floppy any data that you can. Then, if your StarBoard2 Setup disk is revision 1.03, E (1.04), or F (1.05), you can boot up from a power off (important) with AmigaDOS 1.1 KickStart and insert your StarBoard2 Setup disk at the request for Workbench to run the memory test program. If you purchased your StarBoard2 before February 1987 when 1.03 was released, you can call MicroBotics for a later version, or a dealer might let you copy the latest disk. For the memory test to work correctly, the StarBoard2 MUST be the first device on the Amiga's bus so, if you have an internal auto- configuring RAM board, you will have to run the test on someone else's Amiga. MultiFunction and the Amiga 2000 -------------------------------- Those of you thinking about exchanging your Amiga 1000 for an Amiga 2000 have nothing to worry about when it comes to your StarBoard2, MultiFunction Module or SCSI Module cards getting lost in the deal. The StarBoard2 and either option card can be attached to an SB2000 Adaptor Card and inserted into an Amiga 2000 100-pin slot. Everything has been designed with this in mind. All StarBoard hardware and software is functional across the entire Amiga line. Credit Where Credit's Due ------------------------- Many thanks go to Dave Milligan for the 68881 demo programs, his debugging efforts, and his kind offer of assistance via electronic mail for program developers.