Work on the Minimig core?

[Higgy]

That MegaAGS.hdf is working again with that new Firmware (last post on previous page)

[robinsonb5]

That MegaAGS.hdf is working again with that new Firmware (last post on previous page)

Great - thanks for testing! (And apologies for breaking it in the first place!)

[uchristo]

OK this should fix it.
(The problem was the firmware generating a Fake RigidDiskBlock for all hardfiles, not just "filesystem" hardfiles - slipped through in refactoring some of the harddrive code.)

When will these fixes go upstream?

[robinsonb5]

When will these fixes go upstream?

The HDF fix is just the removal of one line of source - I've already pushed it to my branch and pull-requested. Probably best to make sure it fixes everyone's problems before re-releasing though?

[slingshot]

Let's wait for the original reporter (Sheldon) to respond.

[kolla]

Problem solved here

[NegSol]

Problem fixed see last line: One of my hdfs that worked before does not work with the latest firmware (26.11.2020). I created the hdfs with UAE and it still boots fine in UAE. Anything one has to consider when creating hdfs? Is there a size limit? The HDF is 3.9 GB? Anything I should try?

Capture.JPG

Edit: Ok - It does work again - Maybe booting it with UAE fixed the image on the SD-Card??? Anyhow it works now! Thanks anyhow.

[robinsonb5]

Problem fixed see last line: One of my hdfs that worked before does not work with the latest firmware (26.11.2020). I created the hdfs with UAE and it still boots fine in UAE. Anything one has to consider when creating hdfs? Is there a size limit? The HDF is 3.9 GB? Anything I should try?

Edit: Ok - It does work again - Maybe booting it with UAE fixed the image on the SD-Card??? Anyhow it works now! Thanks anyhow.

Glad it works again, but do let us know if you have any more problems.

As far as size goes, the limit is 4GB since you can't create anything larger on a FAT32-formatted SD card.
Additionally, there was a size restriction for one type of hardfile. MiST supports two types of hardfile:

The first is "disk image" - which is, as the name might suggest, just an image of an entire hard-disk, complete with RigidDiskBlock partition table - so this type of HDF can have multiple partitions (with custom filesystems such as PFS), and can be up to 4 GB in size.

The other type of HDF is "filesystem" - where the hardfile contains just the contents of a single disk partition and no partition table. In this mode MiST has to generate a RigidDiskBlock on the fly, and also has to guess what the partition's CHS disk geometry would be. For hardfiles of this type there was a limit of around a Gigabyte, because it would always base its guess on 32 sectors per track and 1 head, but since the number of cylinders can't be more than 65535, the size wraps around after this point. The new firmware tries to guess using variable numbers of heads, to bring the number of cylinders within range - so larger hardfiles of this type now work - but this needs more testing.

[NegSol]

Interesting - thanks for the explanation.

[kolla]

@robinsonb5

Anything that can be done do improve the position of OSD when using RTG?



(And 16bit modes would be great, though it has been mentioned by certain OS and P96 developer that support for 15bit modes may improve as well.)

[robinsonb5]

@robinsonb5

Anything that can be done do improve the position of OSD when using RTG?

Yes, probably. (I'll try to find a way to do it that doesn't bring it way over to the left for regular modes!)

(And 16bit modes would be great, though it has been mentioned by certain OS and P96 developer that support for 15bit modes may improve as well.)

Yes, I do plan to do that - it should be relatively trivial. It would be nice to support the new screen-dragging feature, too, but that's slightly less trivial.

[kolla]

Cool!

Btw, I notice you use your own vendor ID on the "4MB Zorro 3" expansion... and that one is not registered in the semi-official boards.library (which sadly relies on one single person for updates) - previous minimig zorro expansions have been using 5020 (Rok "chaos" Krajnc) vendor ID (and apparently Sorgelig just re-used those for his z3 expansion boards on the MiSTer) which is registered with boards.library - doesn't it make sense for everything Minimig to use a "Minimig" vendor ID, instead of such personal IDs for people that may come and go through the years? I notice that UAE seems to use same vendor ID (2011, not 1803 for some reason) for all their ram z3 expansions.

[robinsonb5]

doesn't it make sense for everything Minimig to use a "Minimig" vendor ID, instead of such personal IDs for people that may come and go through the years?

An "official" Minimig vendor ID is a good idea, but equally I like the fact that users on MiSTer see Rok's name in the board info, given how much of his work their core contains. (The same goes for the Chameleon version, too, of course.)

(The Autoconf stuff was originally implemented as a single board by Tobiflex, and used Individual Computers' vendor ID when it was on their C-One and Chameleon products. I added the Zorro III RAM on Chameleon, and registered my VendorID for use on ports to other platforms, but never actually used it. Rok then used his own VendorID when porting the core to MiST and adding the AGA stuff.)

Registering a VendorID for "Minimig" also raises the question of who actually owns that name, given that actual hardware was sold under that name for some years.

[8bitguy1]

I'm sure this is going to be a very silly question but... I'm trying to setup the Picasso96 and RTG modes (and I barely understand what those are) on my MIST. When I follow the instructions linked to and posted by Negsol on November 2nd and from within the readme files on the MinimigUtils disk everything seems to install fine. But I get an error at launch saying "Could not create graphics board context for 'minimig'. The other issue I have is I cannot change the Tooltype to minimig on the minimig icon in Dev:Monitors folder.

I'm pretty green at this stuff so if there is a basic/basic version I'd appreciative of a link on how to do this for "dummies".

Thanks

[Higgy]

RTG is quite tricky, I have tried over the years on WinUAE and never managed it.

Try looking at this video but use the MiST RTG .adf
https://youtu.be/Xq6Bctyg87o
I don't think it's the actual video I used, but the instructions are 95% the same.

[8bitguy1]

Thanks for that, unfortunately that seems to be what I did. It just didn't work. Do you require 3.1.4? I'm only running 3.1

[robinsonb5]

Thanks for that, unfortunately that seems to be what I did. It just didn't work. Do you require 3.1.4? I'm only running 3.1

3.1 should be fine - you do need some Fast RAM set up, though - preferably maxed out.

What happens when you try to change the tooltype? Maybe the monitor file in devs:monitors doesn't have an icon file associated with it?

Edit: MiST and MiSTer have different RTG implementations - you can't use the MiSTer RTG files on MiST - so make sure you're using the MinimigUtils.adf file supplied along with the MiST's Minimig core.

[NegSol]

I'm sure this is going to be a very silly question but... I'm trying to setup the Picasso96 and RTG modes (and I barely understand what those are) on my MIST. When I follow the instructions linked to and posted by Negsol on November 2nd and from within the readme files on the MinimigUtils disk everything seems to install fine. But I get an error at launch saying "Could not create graphics board context for 'minimig'. The other issue I have is I cannot change the Tooltype to minimig on the minimig icon in Dev:Monitors folder.

I'm pretty green at this stuff so if there is a basic/basic version I'd appreciative of a link on how to do this for "dummies".

Thanks

Best advise I have is follow post by toastboy » Thu Oct 22, 2020 11:37 pm - https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?f= ... b90bd16c99

but make sure you use this MinimigUtils.adf instead!
https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-bina ... gUtils.adf

or alternatively https://www.atari-forum.com/download/file.php?id=43666 - If you plan on using the HDF on both MiST and MiSTer

(Also make sure using the right picasso96 some version will not work! - This could also be cause of the error you are reporting)

[8bitguy1]

Thanks for the replies, so far I think I'm doing everything correctly and using the correct versions. (Thanks for the links). But still no dice. There is a minimig icon in the Devs:monitors folder, it doesn't look like the others, but its there. When I right click on it and go to info to change the tooltype, it lets me change it and I click save, but when I right click again on it, the tooltype has reverted back to PicassoIV. Am I doing that incorrectly?

I might try a clean install next - on a different SD card see if I can get that to work. --- It would really nice if there was an SD card image with everything preloaded --- although, admittedly, that would be less fun - I enjoy troubleshooting and making things work right up until I can't understand or google what's going on any more.

[retrofun]

But I get an error at launch saying "Could not create graphics board context for 'minimig'. The other issue I have is I cannot change the Tooltype to minimig on the minimig icon in Dev:Monitors folder.

That's the error you get when the tooltype isn't correctly set.

When I right click on it and go to info to change the tooltype, it lets me change it and I click save, but when I right click again on it, the tooltype has reverted back to PicassoIV. Am I doing that incorrectly?

Change it, press RETURN, then save.

For a first test also copy Picasso96Settings file from MinimigUtils ADF to Devs: to have some screenmodes defined. Otherwise you have to define them with Picasso96Mode tool (I only tried the uaegfx driver. Maybe with other drivers there are screenmodes defined). -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8lLfEuVI2Y&t=161

P96 Installation & Picasso96Mode - in German, no audio, but this video should be helpful to see how to use Picasso96Mode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HM1qUZGQig

Picasso96 2.0 from Aminet works fine for me, BTW.

[8bitguy1]

Thank you.

"Press RETURN" turned out to be the critical piece. I feel dumb.

Works now! My monitor doesn't sync on the higher resolutions, but even on the lower ones...looks much better!

[retrofun]

Great that it worked for you!

You are not alone. I had to struggle with the not so intuitive Transfer Mask input field of HDToolBox recently and found the solution here: https://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic ... #msg662089

I also felt dumb after not using an Amiga for 20 years.

Which Workbench version are you using, BTW? 3.1 works for me without pressing RETURN when changing the tooltype.

[kolla]

An "official" Minimig vendor ID is a good idea, but equally I like the fact that users on MiSTer see Rok's name in the board info, given how much of his work their core contains.

Sure, but that is only possible because someone added Rok's info to boards.library, your ID is not there, mr 5017

[robinsonb5]

mr 5017

Too bad this board doesn't allow you to change usernames easily - otherwise I'd totally adopt that!

(And to respond properly: true, but neither would a newly-registered central Minimig ID.)

[8bitguy1]

Which Workbench version are you using, BTW? 3.1 works for me without pressing RETURN when changing the tooltype.

I use 3.1. It these little idiosyncrasies that you forget, or don't even know in some cases, as a occasional user. That's why I think the biggest asset to retro computing as a hobby is the community. I'd take the community over any mod, every time.