a4000_atapi.device 5.11 (07.03.95) Copyright © 1994, 1995 Elaborate Bytes, Oliver Kastl GENERAL This device allows you to use an ATAPI CD-ROM drive with the A4000 or A4000T embedded IDE controller. A4000 users can use the very popular and cheap CD-Roms for PCs without any major disadvantages against SCSI CD-Rom drives. The major advantage for A4000 users without a SCSI controller is, that they don't have to buy one. The major advantage for A4000 users with a SCSI controller is, that they have an unused IDE port in their machine anyway and SCSI CD-Roms are usually more expensive. The device maps SCSI-II commands to ATAPI packets using the standard Commodore HD_SCSICMD interface, so any "CD-Rom specific" programs (Multisession Filsystems, Audio Players and Photo-CD readers) designed for SCSI-II CD-Roms should work. This has been tested with CacheCDFS, PlayCD, CD32-Emulator (all written by me) and PhotoWorX (an excellent PhotoCD Reader by Corporate Media). However, I cannot guarantee that every SCSI-II specific program will work, but I do not expect any major problems. The device is fully interrupt driven and will use only a small amount of CPU time for the transfer (exceptions are listed below). The device is still in beta state, use at your own risk! Further, the device will remind you after 15 Minutes, that you should BUY the real thing (when it is finished). A4000T (Tower) Users, Users with A4000 & A2091, A4091 I don't have such a configuration. Please give me a short note, if the a4000_atapi.device works for you. Franz-Josef Reichert (thank you!) reported, that the device works with his A4000T as expected. Please contact me immediately if you encounter any problems! COMPATIBILITY WITH EXISTING IDE HARDDISK Every (and I mean it!) IDE drive that works with the original Commodore scsi.device WILL continue to work if the a4000_atapi.device is installed. The reason is simple: My device will use the code of the Commodore scsi.device (if present) to access the IDE harddisk. If you connect an ATAPI CD-Rom and you harddisk stops to work, this usually is a hardware, not a software problem. Check cables & jumpers. Some harddisks must be rejumpered, if a slave drive is connected. Consult the manual that came with your harddrive before doing so or ask your dealer for assistance. Make sure, the CD-ROM is configured as a slave device. Some CD-Roms (e.g. the Wearnes CDA-120) have an option to enable or disable interrupts. As the a4000_atapi.device is interrupt driven to reduce CPU use, it will NOT work if you disable interrupt generation on the CD-Rom drive. Please consult the CD-Rom installation manual. RELEASE NOTES Version 5.5 First public beta release Version 5.6 Changed the device, that it will work if NoIDE 1.12 (by Matthew Frost) or a similar "I don't want the Commodore IDE device to mess with my IDE-port" utility is installed. Such an utility will speed up boot time if you don't have any IDE harddrive connected to your A4000 IDE port. The "This is a beta-demo..." requester popped up too early, sorry. Added an installer script (luxury). Added "IsA4000" program used by the installer script (more luxury). Version 5.7 If no IDE Harddisk was connected to the IDE port, the machine could lock. This is fixed now (Reported by Franz-Josef Reichert). Version 5.8 Got the Mitsumi FX-400 to work with interrupts Some cleanup of the code done. Version 5.9 If an IDE-HD was connected and NO CD-Rom present, the device didn't failed to open, which was quite fatal. Added a new strategy to determine, if ATAPI drives issue a pre-DRQ Interrupt. This was previously done with a look-up table, now the drive is "tested". This is more flexible, if new drives hit the market. Got the Chinon CDS-525I to work with interrupts (due to this new method) Enabled interrupt use for the Sony CDU-55E (should work now). However, I can't test if this works, as I no longer have the drive. If the Sony CDU-55E does NOT work (machine hangs), please tell me immediately! Version 5.10 Imporved Interrupt handling, no longer requiring clearing the signal on entry of the SendPacket routine. Version 5.11 Oops! The changes made from 5.9 -> 5.10 were "no good idea(tm)" and caused some system hangs. TESTED DRIVES A couple of drives have been tested with the a4000_atapi.device. The test configuration was an A4000/40 with and without Oktagon 2008 SCSI controller, with and without an IDE Harddisk (Quantum Maverick 540 or Seagate ST328A). The drives were selected always as the slave device, even if no IDE Harddisk was installed. Recommended drives (work 100%): Mitsumi FX-001DE (2x speed) (Don't mix this up with the FX-001D! The FX-001, FX-001D and LU005 are NO atapi devices and will NOT work! Connecting a non IDE/ATAPI device to the Amiga IDE port may damage both your Amiga and your CD-Rom!) Mitsumi FX-300 (3x speed) Mitsumi FX 400 (4x speed) Sony CDU-55E (2x speed) <-- Worked with up to v5.8! Tell me if it fails now! NOTE: The CD32-Emulator will only work with the Sony CDU-55E, if no volume control is enabled in the emulator's preference window. Acer 6825-P (2x speed) Wearnes CDD-120A (2x speed) Chinon CDS-525I (2x speed) The following drive cannot play Audio with Amiga CDDA Audio players, but data read operation is ok. The CD32-Emulator will not work correctly due to the problems with CDDA-Audio. Unfortunately the SCSI-II Inquire command does not work with this drive, if no CD is inserted. Even if it may be used to read data, I can not really recommend this drive: Elitegroup Vertos 300SSD (2x speed) These drives use a bit more CPU as they have problems with the implementation of interrupts with the Amiga IDE port, but they work quite well (Audio & Data) and can still be recommended: NONE (All drives use interrupts with Release 5.9) TESTED FILESYSTEMS The device has been tested with the CacheCDFS (yes, this is written by me, too) and my PlayCD Audio player. It works very well with my CD32-Emulator. However, I don't expect any problems with other filesystems. INSTALLATION Installation is simple. Connect an IDE-ATAPI drive to your IDE port. You should jumper the drive as a SLAVE device, even if you do not have an IDE harddrive connected, as the A4000 may not boot if it encounters an ATAPI CD-Rom as the Master device. However, IF your Amiga does boot with a CD-Rom as the master device, you could use two CD-Roms at the same time. The unit numbers will be 0 (for the master) and 1 (for the slave). If you have an IDE harddrive, you should buy a standard PC-IDE harddisk cable, as the original A4000 cable is too short for both an IDE harddisk and a CD-Rom drive. The harddisk should be jumpered as the Master device and the CD-Rom as the slave, otherwise the Amiga will not recognize the harddrive. Copy the a4000_atapi.device to your devs: directory. The supplied installer script will do this for you. Now you must tell your CD-Rom FileSystem about the device. This differs from product to product, please consult the manual of the Filesystem you wish to use. With CacheCDFS, simply run the CacheCDFS installation program. It will automatically detect your CD-Rom. A CD-Rom connected as the slave device will have unit number 1, which will be the common case. A CD-Rom connected as the master device will have unit number 0. The name of the device driver is a4000_atapi.device. KNOWN PROBLEMS It is possible, that some drive models cannot be mounted after a reboot, because they need some time to wake up after a hardware reset. (On a PC it takes often a long time until the CD-Rom is accessed) This depends on how "fast" your startup-sequence reaches the mount command. If you have this problem, add a delay (e.g. Wait 3) before the mount command in your startup-sequence. That's it! Please send comments, bug reports, etc to: Elaborate Bytes Oliver Kastl Am Westpark 5 81373 Munich Germany Compuserve: 100447,3361 Internet: 100447.3361@compuserve.com To order the CacheCDFS, the CD32 Emulator, the a4000_atapi.device or all of the above, please contact: Hirsch & Wolf OHG Mittelstr. 33 56564 Neuwied Germany Tel.: ++49-2631-83990 Fax.: ++49-2631-839931 or NBG-USA, Inc. 482 Holly Ave. St. Paul MN55102 USA Tel.: ++1-612-2909447 Fax.: ++1-612-2909449