NOTE: LIV2 has tested the autoconfig stuff on his new A2000 and it seems to work properly when used alongside an A2091 - ie. the correct response should be what we saw on the A500+ with an A590, whereby 4MB of the GottaGoFastRAM memory should be disabled to accommodate the 2MB of RAM on the A2091 which gets assigned first. I worked out 18/02 that the problem I had was due to the Signetics 68K CPU I was testing with! With a Motorolla it works the same as in the A500 with the A590! It's a minor point in any case because you can always disable RAM on either the A2091 or the A590 or many other Zorro boards etc, to allow the GottaGoFastRAM to provide all 8MB of RAM. You cannot go beyond 8MB of 24bit DMA RAM (ZII). The reason the TF536 can provide an additional 64MB is because that RAM sits in the Zorro III address space.
I bought one preassembled on eBay to fit it into my Amiga 1000. Technically, it works (it's a tight fit though), but mine had a faulty RAM chip. I didn't want to send it back, so I ordered a replacement chip and swapped it. Works fine now. Why am I posting this not very exciting story here? To say thank you for your videos! I have the equipment to do SMD work but I very seldomly do it. Usually, there's no need to because most of my machines are from the thru hole era. So I don't really have much training or experience with that kind of soldering. However, when doing it, it worked perfectly fine so far and it looks great after I'm done. This is only due to me watching this process in your videos over and over again. It's so engraved in my brain how to do it that I can just pull it off without proper training on my side. Thanks for that!
Rather compact and neat upgrade. Updated the Patreon to the 32-bit tier. No idea there were now tiers so it might be worth mentioning again in a future video 🙂
Yeah, today even 8GB is nothing special... :-D Anyway, I've just ordered a 8 MB GottaGoFastRAM and a Kickstart 3.1 for my own Amiga 500 (CDTV), which also finally - after having been in my possession for nearly 30 years - finally has a SCSI controller and a couple of hard drives. That really rocks on that ol'timer! :-D
You can 3D print those mounts for the SCSI2SD on your 3D printer -- the models for the mounting brackets (many varieties) are available to download on Thingiverse -- just search for SCSI2SD on their search engine - many styles available
I'd be very interested to see how that ROM switcher works on a Rev 5 A500 board. I've got a TerribleFire 534 card that I can't fit in my machine because I also want to use the 3.1.4 Kickstart, but that Kickstart chip is an EPROM which needs an adapter board in the Rev 5's ROM socket to work. Even when using the relocator board to move the TerribleFire out of the way, it still collides with the Kickstart. If that ROM switcher is low profile enough, it might possibly allow the TF to finally fit and I can button up the case. :P
Nice memory thingy. I want one. I don't like putting female round pin headers into other female round pin headers. The legs are thicker than they are designed for and they lose some of their tension afterwards. You can try with fresh ones and you'll see that they grip the thinner male headers more losely afterwards.
That isn't what it was targetting. It was just designed to be a replacement for the MKL and Kipper2K boards which are no longer available. There is an FPGA 68K coming soon which will just plug in on top, and provides an insanely fast CPU along with either 512MB or 1GB of RAM.
I'm a little stuck. Tapping into pin 8 allowed the 8mb ram board to work with by 8088 Bridgeboard but I only see 4mb of ram while the bridgeboard is installed in the slot 4 the only remaining slot. I could live with this but is there a way around this? Maybe tapping into another pin and sending the autoconfig to take over a different slot?
The A2088 Bridge board needs 2MB of the 8MB of ZII address space! Since Zorro cards divide by 2 when they cannot fill the current block, it reduces automatically from 8MB to 4MB to give a total of 6MB used (ie. 4MB RAM, 2MB A2088). You would need a combination of 2 x RAM boards, or a ZII RAM board and the 68K RAM board - both set to either 4 or 8MB. As it polls and divides down by 2, one of the cards would half to 4MB, the other from 8MB to 4MB, and then to 2MB, giving you 6MB of RAM (Max with A2088).
Pin 28 (topside) of that board (memory expansion, not the motherboard) looks like a nasty case of green crusties. Pins 41, 43, and 57 don’t look too hot, either. Pins 10 and 13 look like the holes have been wallowed out. 🥺 Maybe it’s just a lighting or camera angle problem? Do they look that way in person?
Great Video as always :-) I presume that it would run with a TF536 in a 500? Also would be interesting to see if some WHD Load Demos will play better with the TF536 as a result as it has access to Zorro 2 as well as 3 fast memory addresses I know that 9 Fingers and Batman Vuelve have issues.
Really informative video. Like the 8Meg Ram board, will probably get one for my A2000 when i get it fixed. Would be interested to see benchmarks for the SCSI2SD interface! I have been using the Buddha IDE 20th Anniversary Edition in my A4000/060, but have not been impressed with speed of interface, with any Hard-drive or CF card i have used with it. My A4000 IDE has always been faster?!?
Thanks =D I've covered benchmarks on the v5.1 SCSI2SD on a few videos in the past. It tops out around 1.1MB/s - not very fast. But later revisions of the SCSI2SD can provide around 2MB/s.
Hi, great stuff! I have just got this ram upgrade. It works fine till I plug in my Gvp Hd8+ then it is disabled. The ram is disabled on the hd8+, by the jumpers, I just use it for a hard disk. Do I need the jumper wire on pin 11 like you did? Thanks!
Yes, if you have a Zorro card plugged in, you will need that wire mod! That said, the very latest firmware (which may or may not be public yet) is automatic and doesnt need that wire.
@@GadgetUK164 The one I have in my A600 is working beautifully (I bought it 4 or 5 years ago). I keep seeing people use CF cards and I haven't seen a good explanation for it except for maybe the fact that CF card adapters have been around for much longer. I don't think there's a technical reason for it?
@@RainerK. CF cards tend to be faster than SD cards from what I understand. That might not be the case with the later standards of SD card, provided the reader supports it properly. It getting harder to find CF cards though.
@@GadgetUK164 With the relatively low read/write speeds of the Amiga it probably doesn't matter all that much. :D Guess I will be sticking to SD then. The A600 doesn't feel slow with it even though I only have an 68020 card in it.
@@RainerK. The primary technical reason is interface simplicity. CompactFlash is basically a Parallel ATA and PCMCIA implementation in a different form factor making it ideal for use with later Amigas. I'm actually struggling to think of any benefit to using Secure Digital that doesn't have a corresponding detriment.
@@GadgetUK164 For the NL branch, it unfortunately does not. I have to supply a VAT number and if I don't I get a polite email that they will not sell to consumers. For obvious reasons I can't use the UK branch....
@@GadgetUK164 From Github: CDTV The CDTV's DMAC takes up the first autoconfig slot, so if you intend to use this with a CDTV use the CDTV specific .JED file to program the CPLD, in otherwords it needs to be programmed. Curious to know if it will go well if I already have 8mb installed on the CDTV expansion slot 1MB+8MB fast Ram, can 17mb be achieved?
@@GadgetUK164 Yep.. I was on about this on my forum a few weeks ago that price has ramped up. The price in Farnell was DOUBLE!! in RS £4.60 + VAT, £5.52 and you have to buy them in a pack of 5. I managed to find a source, but still £5.20 each.. cheaper than RS technically ;)
Yes, I believe you can do that! One benefit is WHDLOAD can use the "quit" key. Without that the stock 68K cannot support it I think. 68020 onwards its OK.
NOTE: LIV2 has tested the autoconfig stuff on his new A2000 and it seems to work properly when used alongside an A2091 - ie. the correct response should be what we saw on the A500+ with an A590, whereby 4MB of the GottaGoFastRAM memory should be disabled to accommodate the 2MB of RAM on the A2091 which gets assigned first. I worked out 18/02 that the problem I had was due to the Signetics 68K CPU I was testing with! With a Motorolla it works the same as in the A500 with the A590! It's a minor point in any case because you can always disable RAM on either the A2091 or the A590 or many other Zorro boards etc, to allow the GottaGoFastRAM to provide all 8MB of RAM. You cannot go beyond 8MB of 24bit DMA RAM (ZII). The reason the TF536 can provide an additional 64MB is because that RAM sits in the Zorro III address space.
great stuff - I miss the Amiga days of old - I miss the scene and the boards...
I bought one preassembled on eBay to fit it into my Amiga 1000. Technically, it works (it's a tight fit though), but mine had a faulty RAM chip. I didn't want to send it back, so I ordered a replacement chip and swapped it. Works fine now. Why am I posting this not very exciting story here? To say thank you for your videos! I have the equipment to do SMD work but I very seldomly do it. Usually, there's no need to because most of my machines are from the thru hole era. So I don't really have much training or experience with that kind of soldering. However, when doing it, it worked perfectly fine so far and it looks great after I'm done. This is only due to me watching this process in your videos over and over again. It's so engraved in my brain how to do it that I can just pull it off without proper training on my side. Thanks for that!
Thanks =D Glad you fixed it!
No this has to be one of the most amazing amiga mod made... would love one for my a2000 hopefully if this goes in production anywhere. great vid
Rather compact and neat upgrade. Updated the Patreon to the 32-bit tier. No idea there were now tiers so it might be worth mentioning again in a future video 🙂
Wow, thanks ever so much!!! =D
It's so weird thinking "fast ram" and 8mb with today's computing. Enjoyed the video!
Yeah, today even 8GB is nothing special... :-D Anyway, I've just ordered a 8 MB GottaGoFastRAM and a Kickstart 3.1 for my own Amiga 500 (CDTV), which also finally - after having been in my possession for nearly 30 years - finally has a SCSI controller and a couple of hard drives. That really rocks on that ol'timer! :-D
Very neat upgrade!
I've had an account with RS online since 2008 or so. Excellent and humongous assortment, prices are OK and they have a relaxed 30 day payment term.
You can 3D print those mounts for the SCSI2SD on your 3D printer -- the models for the mounting brackets (many varieties) are available to download on Thingiverse -- just search for SCSI2SD on their search engine - many styles available
Yes, I provided the link to Dennis - I just forgot about this! I don't have a 3D printer =/
Sweet little board.
Amazing job well done
Thank you! Cheers!
Nice little board that.
Yes, LIV2 has done a great job!
I'd be very interested to see how that ROM switcher works on a Rev 5 A500 board. I've got a TerribleFire 534 card that I can't fit in my machine because I also want to use the 3.1.4 Kickstart, but that Kickstart chip is an EPROM which needs an adapter board in the Rev 5's ROM socket to work. Even when using the relocator board to move the TerribleFire out of the way, it still collides with the Kickstart. If that ROM switcher is low profile enough, it might possibly allow the TF to finally fit and I can button up the case. :P
Nice memory thingy. I want one.
I don't like putting female round pin headers into other female round pin headers. The legs are thicker than they are designed for and they lose some of their tension afterwards. You can try with fresh ones and you'll see that they grip the thinner male headers more losely afterwards.
Tip: make a cable tie drum. Then you can pull it out.
I prefer soldered crimps too. Less to go wrong!
Nice, but I wonder why they did not do hardware 68K or faster emulation on the FPGA instead of having to piggyback the old 68K
That isn't what it was targetting. It was just designed to be a replacement for the MKL and Kipper2K boards which are no longer available. There is an FPGA 68K coming soon which will just plug in on top, and provides an insanely fast CPU along with either 512MB or 1GB of RAM.
@@GadgetUK164 I have been following the new one, but it seems like a missed opportunity on this since all the hardware is already in place.
I'm a little stuck. Tapping into pin 8 allowed the 8mb ram board to work with by 8088 Bridgeboard but I only see 4mb of ram while the bridgeboard is installed in the slot 4 the only remaining slot. I could live with this but is there a way around this? Maybe tapping into another pin and sending the autoconfig to take over a different slot?
The A2088 Bridge board needs 2MB of the 8MB of ZII address space! Since Zorro cards divide by 2 when they cannot fill the current block, it reduces automatically from 8MB to 4MB to give a total of 6MB used (ie. 4MB RAM, 2MB A2088). You would need a combination of 2 x RAM boards, or a ZII RAM board and the 68K RAM board - both set to either 4 or 8MB. As it polls and divides down by 2, one of the cards would half to 4MB, the other from 8MB to 4MB, and then to 2MB, giving you 6MB of RAM (Max with A2088).
@@GadgetUK164 totally makes sense. Great explanation and thank you very much.
Sweet little RAM board. Does putting true fast RAM into an A500 give a speed boost to the system in the same way as with an A1200?
Fast RAM will give a speed boost in general (when its used) but the main benefit is additional RAM for games etc.
I remember buying half meg 512k upgrade for my amiga and thought that was lots 🙄🤣
Pin 28 (topside) of that board (memory expansion, not the motherboard) looks like a nasty case of green crusties. Pins 41, 43, and 57 don’t look too hot, either. Pins 10 and 13 look like the holes have been wallowed out. 🥺 Maybe it’s just a lighting or camera angle problem? Do they look that way in person?
It's just a reflection of green stuff on the roof I think ;) I need to clean the roof outside when it gets warmer. The pins look fine up close!
Great Video as always :-) I presume that it would run with a TF536 in a 500? Also would be interesting to see if some WHD Load Demos will play better with the TF536 as a result as it has access to Zorro 2 as well as 3 fast memory addresses I know that 9 Fingers and Batman Vuelve have issues.
Yes, it coexists with the 536 in a 500! I am not sure about those demos, I don't think I've had an issue with them.
Really informative video. Like the 8Meg Ram board, will probably get one for my A2000 when i get it fixed. Would be interested to see benchmarks for the SCSI2SD interface! I have been using the Buddha IDE 20th Anniversary Edition in my A4000/060, but have not been impressed with speed of interface, with any Hard-drive or CF card i have used with it. My A4000 IDE has always been faster?!?
Thanks =D I've covered benchmarks on the v5.1 SCSI2SD on a few videos in the past. It tops out around 1.1MB/s - not very fast. But later revisions of the SCSI2SD can provide around 2MB/s.
@@GadgetUK164 Thanks for the info. I will go through your other videos , always very impressed with your work! Keep the videos coming.
Hi, great stuff! I have just got this ram upgrade. It works fine till I plug in my Gvp Hd8+ then it is disabled. The ram is disabled on the hd8+, by the jumpers, I just use it for a hard disk. Do I need the jumper wire on pin 11 like you did? Thanks!
Yes, if you have a Zorro card plugged in, you will need that wire mod! That said, the very latest firmware (which may or may not be public yet) is automatic and doesnt need that wire.
What's the fascination with those ancient CF cards? Why aren't more people using SD instead?
Personally I had bad experience with one of those SD adapters - it killed the device it was connected to...
@@GadgetUK164 The one I have in my A600 is working beautifully (I bought it 4 or 5 years ago). I keep seeing people use CF cards and I haven't seen a good explanation for it except for maybe the fact that CF card adapters have been around for much longer. I don't think there's a technical reason for it?
@@RainerK. CF cards tend to be faster than SD cards from what I understand. That might not be the case with the later standards of SD card, provided the reader supports it properly. It getting harder to find CF cards though.
@@GadgetUK164 With the relatively low read/write speeds of the Amiga it probably doesn't matter all that much. :D Guess I will be sticking to SD then. The A600 doesn't feel slow with it even though I only have an 68020 card in it.
@@RainerK. The primary technical reason is interface simplicity. CompactFlash is basically a Parallel ATA and PCMCIA implementation in a different form factor making it ideal for use with later Amigas.
I'm actually struggling to think of any benefit to using Secure Digital that doesn't have a corresponding detriment.
You could have tried a little Deoxit on the internal connector of the CF card;-)
I did ;) It made no difference. Something was wrong with that CF card from the minute I first used it.
I bet that you thought that the cd32 version of beneath a steal sky was aga I thought that years ago but it was just wishful thinking 😊
Nice upgrades. Interesting work arounds for the problems.
Thanks 👍
How did you order those sockets at RS-Online? They refuse to sell them to me as I'm not a business :-(
That's strange?!?! Just go through the webpage, add stuff to basket - do guest checkout and it "just works".
@@GadgetUK164 For the NL branch, it unfortunately does not. I have to supply a VAT number and if I don't I get a polite email that they will not sell to consumers. For obvious reasons I can't use the UK branch....
RS online sells those for over €5 now...
=O Prices of everything have gone crazy!
Are these for sale anywhere?
You could ask on AmiBay!
Would it work in a CDTV?
If you can find the auto config signal - I will take a look at the schematics.
@@GadgetUK164 From Github: CDTV
The CDTV's DMAC takes up the first autoconfig slot, so if you intend to use this with a CDTV use the CDTV specific .JED file to program the CPLD, in otherwords it needs to be programmed. Curious to know if it will go well if I already have 8mb installed on the CDTV expansion slot 1MB+8MB fast Ram, can 17mb be achieved?
RS sockets are £5.52 each ;)
Mine weren't! They were less than £2 each!
I stand corrected! They've ramped the price up!!! I got like 10 of these for less than £2 each. They seem to have them at £4.60 ish EACH atm.
@@GadgetUK164 Yep.. I was on about this on my forum a few weeks ago that price has ramped up. The price in Farnell was DOUBLE!! in RS £4.60 + VAT, £5.52 and you have to buy them in a pack of 5. I managed to find a source, but still £5.20 each.. cheaper than RS technically ;)
I wonder if you could put a 68010 cpu in there 🤔
Yes, I believe you can do that! One benefit is WHDLOAD can use the "quit" key. Without that the stock 68K cannot support it I think. 68020 onwards its OK.
You can, but you need the privilege instruction trap program for the movesr (move status register) as this is now a superuser instruction.