G V P F A A A S T P R E P R E L E A S E N O T E S S E R I E S I I 6 8 0 3 0 ('030 COMBO) This file contains information that has not yet been incorporated into the documentation for the Series II 68030 processor board (also called the '030 combo board.) The Series II 68030 board features an evolutionary new RAM design that allows the Amiga 2000 to expand beyond the former 9 megabyte limit without special commands in the startup files or extra gadgets to click on. This new memory does appear above the normal address range of the 68000 chip but is well within the address range of the 68030. We refer to this memory as EXTENDED MEMORY since it extends the usable address bits from 24 to 32. This difference could cause some confusion or unusual results if not understood. This file addresses the issues not discussed in the manual. 1. Extended Memory Use All memory in the Amiga is still usable by the Series II 68030 board. The amount allowed on the standard Amiga bus depends upon the memory configuration selected. Any software that conforms to Commodore standards will function correctly with Series II 68030 board. If you are unsure about a particular software package, just ask if it will work on an Amiga 3000. If it works on an Amiga 3000, it surely will work on the GVP Series II in extended memory. 2. Hard Disk Drive Performance It may be possible that SCSIdrives already set up on other control- lers may have limits set on the memory range they can directly address. This can have an adverse affect on the hard drive transfer rates since all data from such a drive has to be buffered through the 1megabyte of RAM on the Amiga motherboard. For the fastest possible drive speeds, a SCSI drive should be connected to the Series II board and have access to the full address range of system and extended memory. To ensure that the maximum SCSI performance is achieved with the built in controller of the '030 Combo board, it is very important that the "DMA Mask" in the RDB on the hard drive is correctly set. 3. DMA Mask The drive parameter that sets the drive's usable address range is the DMA mask. This is a hexadecimal number which when translated into binary makes a list of address bits that can be used. The default value for most existing DMA controllers is only six characters long. This is enough to access all of the standard Amiga memory, but not the extended memory. With a drive attached to the combo board SCSI interface, the mask should be changed to 0xFFFFFFFE which will allow the controller to transfer data to all the standard Amiga memory AND the extended memory on the combo board. 4. Setting the DMA Mask There are two methods for setting the DMA mask for your previously prepared and formatted hard disk drives. The first is a simple command line utility called SCSIMaskFix. The program has instructions built into it and can be displayed by typing, "gvp.install:scsimaskfix ?" from a shell. The GVP Faaastprep program can also change the mask value and runs under Workbench. To set the mask to 0xFFFFFFFE, double click on the Faaastprep icon. Select the manual installation option on the opening screen. Next, use the arrows or type in the ID gadget to select the drive you want to change. The screen should display the partitioning information for the drive. Click on the first character in the Mask block and delete the string. Now type in 0xFFFFFFFE and repeat this for each partition on the drive. Once this is complete, click on the Write button to save the changes to the drive. This will not erase the data on your drive as long as nothing else is changed. It will only change the boot information only for that drive. 5. Maximizing System Performance If you did not use the Faaastprep program to set up your disk drive or a GVP factory formatted drive, you may not be taking full advantage of your Series II 68030 board. Included in the gvputils directory on the GVP installation diskette, is a program called SetCPU which can use some of the special features of the 68030 chip to make your Amiga run faster. SetCPU can turn on the processor data cache and move the Kickstart software from a slow ROM to the super fast 32 bit memory. This will make every application that accesses data from memory or uses any of the Amiga built in software run faster. The SetCPU command should be one of the first in the startup sequence on your hard disk drive. We recommend using the command, "SetCPU cache Fastrom " as one of the first you have. The GVP installation disk s:startup-sequence file is a good example of how to use the program. 6. A Reminder about multiple SCSI drives. The GVP FaaastROM device driver allows you to boot from any partition on any drive, regardless of the number. There does need to be a flag set to tell the Amiga which partition should be used. This flag is called bootpri and is displayed in the manual screen of Faaastprep. The value for the boot partition should be -10. All nonbooting partitions should be set for -128. If this guideline is not followed, you may boot from the wrong partition depending upon the type and speed of your drives. Refer to chapter 8 of your manual for more detail on using the manual mode of Faaastprep. <============================================================================> G V P 3 0 5 0 U P D A T E S 1. A Reminder about RAM The GVP 3050 has undergone several changes including RAM capacity of 32 MB using 4MB SIMMS only. Jumper J5 of the RAM card only controls the locationof the first 4MB. When shorted, the first $MB of RAM is autoconfiged. When open, the first 4MB and all additional memory is extended. 2. Autochange kit is now installed on all boards. With the two new ROMs installed, the 3050 board can be disabled at boot time by depressing both mouse buttons. This also disables the hard disk drive interface and RAM on the 3050. 3. Drive compatibility issues. The AT/IDE standard is still in transition and many drive companies do not agree on implememtation. We officially support only drives that we have extensively tested and verified to run at the fast speed the 3050 operates. The dworking drives are listed here. Quantum PRO 40 and 80AT Maxtor LXT 200 and 213A 4. New jumper, J19. A new jumper has been added to the board for future use. J19 should be left in the default position of shorting pins 2 and 3. Pin one is marked by an arrow on the white silkscreen around the jumper <============================================================================> N E W F E A T U R E S of F A A A S T R O M 4.0 1. Up to 33% faster drive access! If you own a Series II hard disk card HC or HC8 or a revision 3 Combo boards you will benefit from the Faaastrom 4.0 update. Only the ROM needs to be changed. No jumper changes are required. <============================================================================> O T H E R C H A N G E S 1. Please note that the SCSI example programs and files discussed in the FaaastROM manual have been compressed with LHARC and moved to the GVPUtils directory. You will need either LHARC or LHUNARC to decompress the files. We needed the additional space for new features in our prep and control software. 2. GVP has developed a software patch that will clear the ICD ADSpeed cache after a DMA transfer has completed. To use this patch, A. Set the ADSpeed to boot at 7MHz. B. Copy GVPscsiCTRL to the c: directory C. Add the following line between the third and sixth lines of the startup-sequence in the S: directory of your hard drive. c:run >nil: gvpscsictrl icdcache D. Move down a minimum of two lines and add a line to toggle the ICD board to 14MHz if desired.