New board: MonSTer

[GokMasE]

Cheers!

And yeah, I guess sleep is a luxury these days and

But he is so worth it, needless to say

[saulot]

any news about fixed flasher for ste / mega ste? It would be cool to try 4.04 tos for ste/mega ste by ggn.

[joska]

There's no reason why the current flasher tool shouldn't work on an STE. Mega STE is problematic due to conflict with VME addressing range.

A new version of the flash tool is in the works. PM me if you have a Mega STE and would like to do some testing.

[saulot]

Yes, I've got mste I could do some tests.

I've tried to connect sd ide adapter to primary ide port with 8gb and 4gb sd cards, but device isn't detected by hd driver(9.09). IDE cable is new and very short. LED for power is on, but there is no 'activity' led blinking. I have connected acsi 10 pin. Any ideas?

Probably I will check this adapter on mega st to have a comparison.

What for are three pins beside blitter jumper on mega ste board?

Regards,
P.

[alanh]

There should be no reason why it doesn't get detected. Are you sure HDDRIVER has been configured to search the IDE bus ? You can go into HDDRUTIL and use Auto-Configure mode.

The other 3 pins are no use at this time.

[saulot]

Hi,
I've connected ide sd adapter on mega st and it seems that I've found the problem with not detecting devices. I've connected acsi int cable to wrong pin (there are two and I've connected second one instead of first one). I will check it on mega ste probably today. So, it seems that I screwed things up a bit.

But aside of this there are other problems (I don't know yet if this is faulty cable (which looks fine) or it is hd driver related) - I'm talking about mega st version to be clear.

After auto configure step, there is detected sd adapter (ide 0.0, but additionally something on ide no. 3 'something is detected'. Entry is blank or there is something like '!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'). I've seen something similar on f030, so I'm not sure if I should worry about it or not.
Second thing device cannot be partitioned in hddrutil 9.09, selecting partition option with selected ide device crashes hddrutil (I've managed to partition sd card on usatan only, but haven't managed to boot from it).

Regards,
P.

[alanh]

There are two ACSI pins on the MonSTer to connect to, it shouldn't matter which one. They are physically connected together on the board.

Do you get bombs with HDDRUTIL when partitioning ?

Maybe upload some pictures to show what is happening.

[saulot]

two versions of hddrutil behave differently 9.09 bombs out after selecting device and choosing option partition (two bombs, gem window is displayed with some garbage in the title). In older hddrutil (9.04) I've managed to open it, but I didn't managed to partition sd card. I will post some screenshots later this day. Anyway experience is quite different that with acsi devices.

[joska]

I've tried to connect sd ide adapter to primary ide port with 8gb and 4gb sd cards, but device isn't detected by hd driver(9.09).

What kind of IDE-SD-adapter? Are there other devices on the IDE bus?

[saulot]

joska: no other devices just one adapter like this. With short 2,5" cable (for one device).

[joska]

Looks like this one. I have several of these, and they work perfectly with all my IDE-equipped Ataris (Falcon, STE w. IDE, Mega ST with MonSTer, STM with homebrewed solution...). However, they are not of the highest quality. I've had one that didn't work, maybe yours is broken too.

[RA_pdx]

I am very interested in this board! I already have some of your very well working IDE-Boards.

One question - is the access to TT-Ram faster than to ST-Ram on this board? And if yes how much? (Sorry if you metioned this already but i didn't read the whole thread.)

[alanh]

No, it's accessed at the same speed as ST-Ram.

[RA_pdx]

Thanks for the quick answer even i hoped for faster TT-Ram Access.

Nevertheless i ordered one for the STE - first i wanted two but it seems there is just one in stock.

[qq1975b]

Sorry, deleted...

my mistake.

[troed]

You don't have to desolder the ROMs. All you need to do is to separate the OE-pin on each ROM from the GLUE. On the STE you can do this by removing the W102 jumper and solder the middle point to 5V via a resistor. Taken from memory - please double check with the schematics!

Ok, I checked the schematics and my suggested way of disabling the onboard ROM will only work with certain 32 pin ROMs. If you have 28 pin ROMs you must cut pin 22 on each ROM and solder these to 5V via a resistor (10k is OK). That should work on all types of ROMs, but is not as neat as using the jumpers.

Why a resistor? (Yes, of all the things I studied in school electrical engineering was sorely lacking .. )

I've about to install my MonSTer in my Mega ST and was hoping that removing the W2 jumper and connecting W2-2 (OE) to 5V would be enough. But I had no plans for a resistor ..

/Troed

[joska]

Why a resistor? (Yes, of all the things I studied in school electrical engineering was sorely lacking .. )

To limit current. Just in case.

I've about to install my MonSTer in my Mega ST and was hoping that removing the W2 jumper and connecting W2-2 (OE) to 5V would be enough. But I had no plans for a resistor ..

Well, I have to admit that I did not follow my own advice and dropped the resistor myself. I have used a DPDT switch on the OE line and the MonSTer FLASH ENABLE jumper so I can switch back to ROM TOS with a switch, but I did not have a resistor at hand when I did that.

Btw the latest EmuTOS snapshot now detects and enable MonSTer alt-RAM itself. No need for a driver anymore if you're using EmuTOS.

[BlankVector]

Btw the latest EmuTOS snapshot now detects and enable MonSTer alt-RAM itself. No need for a driver anymore if you're using EmuTOS.

Hehe. Get it there:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/emutos ... /20160530/

[troed]

MonSTer now installed in my Mega ST4 (and my memory on what this particular machine contained was off - no six chip OE-disable method needed since the two chip TOS was in sockets .. ). I had forgotten to buy a 2.5" F-F 44 pin cable though so my IDE-SD adapter will be tested tomorrow at the earliest - but everything else seems to be working as it should.

This being my first ST ever with "TT-RAM" I was slightly confused by the values in sysinfo. A bug in sysinfo or some values M_ALTRAM.PRG doesn't set (and likely for a good reason I guess)?

altram.JPG

Total ST-ram: 12MB
Total TT-ram: 0
Free TT-ram: 8MB

/Troed

[joska]

Yes, this looks like a bug in Sysinfo. It probably detects alt-RAM as ST-RAM since MonSTer alt-RAM starts at $400000, creating a continous block of RAM from $0 to $bfffff. Also, "Total TT-ram: 0" sounds correct, as TT-RAM starts at $1000000 IIRC. So strictly speaking it is not possible to have TT-RAM on a 68000 machine

Please note that there's another (later) program called SysInfo that's written by Thorsten Bergner. This one reports the correct amount of ST- and alt-RAM.

[DarkLord]

What does the new GemBench show?

[frank.lukas]

I can not longer flash my MonSTer Card with TOS 2.06. I can put the TOSSEL and FLASHSW Jumper to any position, every time KAOS TOS 1.04 boots up. When I run M_FLASH Program it came up an error flashing TOS 2.06 ...

Any Ideas ?

[Bama]

I can not longer flash my MonSTer Card with TOS 2.06. I can put the TOSSEL and FLASHSW Jumper to any position, every time KAOS TOS 1.04 boots up. When I run M_FLASH Program it came up an error flashing TOS 2.06 ...

Any Ideas ?

Hi Frank,

I experienced similar difficulty. I was able to flash 2.06 after I changed the "Flash ROM address" from 0x8000000 to 0x9000000.

[frank.lukas]

Flash Rom Address is 0xD00000 in my M_FLASH Program ...

[frank.lukas]

When I remove the Graphcard I can flash the MonSTer without any Error ...

But I can put the Jumpers where I want, always KAOS TOS came up !?!