I´m planning to build a little hardware-adapter to power off your sam by just pressing a button e.g. in amidock. A little commodity will first lock all drives and then waiting for finished disk activities and then turn off the computer by sending a "power off signal" to my small circuit. Basicly its a simple relay-circuit that is parallel-connected to the power on/off-button.

It´s planned that is connected to the serial-Port of the sam but i have to know is there a simple way to sending a command to serial by console?

Last edited by fingus on 22-May-2012 at 08:23 AM.

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@fingus

I have been thinking of something along similar lines, my idea was to connect to one of the internal connectors and then sending a signal to one of the data lines, ACube released some info on that some time ago if I remember, but I never got as far as making an interface.

The circuit to switch on and off looks simple enough, a relay controlled by a transisitor connected to a data line would do the trick if you want to open and close the power switch.

To take this further, you could have something watching for activity on another data line, which is controlled by a program running on startup, if that activity stops, the amiga has froze and needs a reset. so we have another relay pressing the reset button for us. (A Watchdog Timer)

Edit: Seems the info from Acube is for programming the FPGA, so might not be quite as helpful as I first thought

Last edited by AmigaOneProductions on 22-May-2012 at 02:44 PM.

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@fingus

Is command just a string?
Then maybe you could use

- SerialEcho
or
- echo2debug

CU,
Mario

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Once a friend of mine had a system how he could control A1200 power on/off from the (separate, modded from A500) keyboard. IIRC it also had SW poweroff, but after one power on-off loop error, he removed the SW part of it.

His solution was to leave the keyboard power on and with some key combination he powered PSU on and off. IMHO, it was cool solution. You could have a computer case with no buttons on the case at all.
(in real life his diy case was full of buttons (amplifier control, video switch box etc), just not the power button )

Last edited by KimmoK on 22-May-2012 at 05:00 PM.
Last edited by KimmoK on 22-May-2012 at 04:58 PM.

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@fingus
Why bother using the big external serial port, when you could use the Sam's small internal I2C serial bus? ACube even released AmigaOS support for it, IIRC. Just an idea anyway.

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@ChrisH

Seconded. If you're using actual message decoding (rather than just using the level of one of the serial lines), then it would be just as easy to use the I2C bus, leaving the serial port free for things like debugging, connecting old Amigas, running case LCD modules etc...

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@fingus

A proper Amiga-style hardware hack for the SAM!

I'd agree with the i2c suggestions. However, if you insist on using serial then sending commands to the serial port using C is dead easy. This is as good a starting point as any: http://wiki.amigaos.net/index.php/Serial_Device#Serial_Device

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@KimmoK

Quote:

but after one power on-off loop error, he removed the SW part of it.

That should not be happen with this circuit:



Now i have to collect Informations how to send signals to the I2C Bus.

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@fingus
The big forgot from Acube, the PowerOff via software as other systems, instead of nostalgic system from Amiga 500.
At least turn off via software the hard disk would suffer less.....

@fingus

Why do you need to build a circuit? Doesn't the Sam have proper power off circuitry? I thought since the AmigaOne the Sam series fixed all these faults so we had standard working hardware. Makes me womder what the point is if they can't get a simple standard right. It never ends!

You shoud be able to turn your system off using no more than software. Does that mean even Linux can't turn the system off?



I hope my X1000 can be turned off via software. Needing to hold down the power button for four seconds is looking a bit backwards right now!

@Hypex

Quote:

I hope my X1000 can be turned off via software. Needing to hold down the power button for four seconds is looking a bit backwards right now!

Ah, it looks like someone has been talking!

Yes, you wll be able to perform a software power down on your AMIGA1-X1000

TrevorD

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@TrevorDick

Excellent. Thanks for the news. Oh BTW I was hoping, as I'd never investigated the subject.

@Templario

Quote:

At least turn off via software the hard disk would suffer less.....

Interessting statement.

Especially as I asked a similar/realted question and got a completely differnt answer/opinion.

CU,
Mario

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********** AMIGA - More Than Just Standard **********

@fingus

Something else I have been looking into to achieve the same result

USB controlled power strip

It would probably need some driver software writing for it, but would probably work quite well

I have not found where to buy it from yet, so have no idea of cost, but might be an easier option

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Remains to be seen.

@fingus

The Sam440ep may switch-off with some firmware modifications.

On the big sister Sam460ex it's already possible to switch off the board from U-Boot with the "shutdown" command.

This command writes a value into a FPGA register, which modify the state of one of its IO pin connected to the PIC microcontroller responsible for the switch on / off and reset functions (U-Boot source are available on our website)

The Sam440ep board has the same hardware auto switch off function of the Sam460ex but:

- the FPGA firmware is lacking the register to comunicate to the PIC microcontroller to "switch off"
- the PIC firmware needs to be modified

Sam440ep FPGA firmware sources, and instructions on how to reflash the FPGA are available on OS4Depot and our web site (sam440ep_latticexp.lha) and we can provide the PIC firmware source code (or provide a compiled hex file)

Hope this helps

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@padrino

Hey friend, your post has date of: Posted on 22-May-2012 15:07:35
I that days I hadn't one Sam or two, I have my Sam three years ago, and in 2004 only I have my Amiga 500 and WinUAE, and neither Internet regualr accces to answer you.

@Templario

What?

The post was from "yesterday" (that day ).
As you state 22nd May 2012.

I just found it interessting, that you opinion was the oposite to BrianK's, which makes a 1:1 and I am as clueless as before... =)

CU,
Mario

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********** AMIGA - More Than Just Standard **********

@padrino

Ok, we don't argue with you, +1 or more.