@Hypex

Quote:

So, I see it is 0x76. Somehow it was unclear when looking it up but looking up "0x76" on the net brought up discussions about it and old Amiga posts. So 0x76 is SpeedStor according to Wikipedia but in ID lists elsewhere it doesn't list 76 or says reserved. And when listing SpeedStor IDs gives all numbers but 76! Strange. So this 76 is hidden read only of which there are a few.

What is the point of discussing the MBR partition type used? It does not matter what it meant on other operating systems. It means absolutely nothing! The only point is, the type is rare enough to keep other operating systems from touching it when not asked to.

@Hypex

The partition type id really isn’t that important, 0x76 is just used to prevent certain operating systems from attempting to initialize the partition when card inserted in the computer. I don’t know what the issue is with you fs-uae.

Yes, changing mode on symlink of course makes no difference, it’s only needed on the device node itself to ensure user running fs-uae has rw access. And as explained, you don’t really have to use a symlink, you can provide full path in config file - symlink was just a convenience.

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@michalsc

Thanks for your extensive reply!

The configuration set up is really no problem but I was failed to get it working or accessible from FS-UAE.


Replying to your points:

1. I can fully understand using MBR and FAT on the main drive. I did think using FAT was strange but only because the Pi runs Linux natively and Linux uses Ext or similar as native filesystem while FAT is for PCs and Windows. It's comparable to formatting a boot drive as FAT for an Amiga or Mac. But I can see the "PiWare" boots off FAT so it's easy for hobbyist to plug the boot cards into Windows or anything else.

2. This would likely be done with Linux and possibly USB booters.

3. I'm familiar with Amithlon but didn't recall this partition type. So what I can ascertain is this partition setup works like an extended partition holding a container with logical partitions. But marked to be as read only and hidden with the type 0x76. Since inside the partition it appears as a whole drive unit on the Amiga side and can be divided into partitions at will. Just like a VHD does.

4. I'm not aware of any advanced options either. But I know this is possible. For example, UBoot on A1 would scan the first 16 blocks at least of a HDD looking for an RDSK ID to boot OS4. OS4 uses the same DOS RDSK and PART objects on disk. Still, if a tool was written to do this on the Amiga side that wouldn't hurt, since the modern Amiga tends to lack tools to setup hardware these days, and we took install disks and firmware updaters for granted back in the day we could rely solely on the Amiga. What I do recall with Amithlon is that Windows would destroy the RDB. So it looks like HDToolbox lacked the ability to offset the RDB to compensate. At least, since it was possible, no tool must have been created to circumvent this because the solution existed before it became a problem. But, too late to fix.

Okay so partitioning the SD card is easy enough. I found cfdisk could change type wouldn't let me enter 76. While in fdisk it let me set the drive type. On x64. Funny thing is, I also checked an old Ubuntu 12 PPC, and I'm sure that could do it from both. Perhaps older version could being more manual.

After watching the video it looks Mac is worst of all! At least on Windows and Linux a GUI can be used to partition it while finishing it off in the CLI. Of course Disk Utility would likely do that as well.

So, despite confusing 76 and 4C at various times, after some testing it turns out I had in fact set it up as required. But getting it working FS-UAE was the issue. Which I just managed to get working.

So I had decided to keep things simple and dedicate one partition to Amiga along with the Pi boot partition. Then get it working on the Amiga side before anything else. But I faced some issues:
- FS-UAE loaded up and booted AmigaOS but...
- I opened HDToolbox and it crashed and reboot.

I thought this was because there was some problem with the partition layout or it had failed to read the block device. So I went around in circles trying to fix it. As it turned out I had both of these working as they should. The problem was my HDToolbox setup. It cannot scan for devices with the ASKDEVICE tooltype. It causes an immediate hard crash with an illegal guru.

So I changed it to use scsi.device and then uaehd.devce and tested them. It load up and stopped crashing. But still nothing was showing up. It definitely was reading the block device in FS-UAE but it didn't attach it inside the emulation. No drives were showing. Still stuck.

I found more was needed but the HDD page for FS-UAE lacked the information and it was hidden elsewhere. So, first I need direct access as listed here under Using real hard drives:
https://fs-uae.net/docs/hard-drives

Along with your advice and kolla's I had the device ready to go. Linking to a file was convenient but since it didn't show up in the GUI became redundant. It needs resetting permissions on the block device when ever inserted anyway.

Then I found this after a Google:
https://fs-uae.net/docs/options/hard-drive-0-type

For some reason this is missed on the main HDD page. This was what I needed. I set type to RDB and the drive showed up! Well the partition did. In uaehf.device. Then I was able to install it as drive in HDToolbox.



FS-UAE. Seriously!

@michalsc

Quote:

What is the point of discussing the MBR partition type used? It does not matter what it meant on other operating systems. It means absolutely nothing! The only point is, the type is rare enough to keep other operating systems from touching it when not asked to.

I just didn't know what it was. I read your guide on github. Which used this Windows command on the CLI so it looked something technical specific to Windows to me. I looked up the command on MS docs online and they didn't even list the numbers. Great documentation for their own software!

When I follow instructions I need to understand what I'm doing. I just don't like to just follow it blindly as is in case I make a mistake. Despite it saying "0x" 76 on your site I had forgot this when trying to set it up so I became stuck on this because there wasn't much info online and it didn't always show up in tools like fdisk or cfdisk. I also wasn't aware that it had some Amiga history.

Also, before I ran into this, I did basic setup of my PiStorm SD card. Copied a kick to it for the very useful soft kick feature. Booted first time. Tested a few CU disks on hand.

Then I tried to load Workbench 3.1. However I made the "mistake" of using an unofficial OS3.9 BB4 patched kick. It caused stall on boot. Fixed it to 3.1 ROM and all was good again.

So then booted install disk for HDToolbox. It was able to see the card. Note at this point it only had one partition with PiStorm base system. Thought I'd have a go at installing it with HDToolbox! Read the definitions. It was a negative size. Oops. Tried to write it. It gave me a write error! Despite the warnings I didn't wreck the base files.

@Hypex

Congrats!

Just s comment regarding MBR and FAT on pi… yes, it’s a weird thing that ARM pi needs MBR and FAT to boot, it’s a legacy from embedded systems which, where development mostly originated on old PCs back in DOS days. I recall Tivo systems with mips CPU using Macintosh partitioning and ext2/3 as the development happened on macs. And modern PCs use UEFI and the EFI partitions are FAT32.

The main benefit of using MBR and FAT is that it’s something supported on just about all operating systems.

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@kolla

Thanks!

So I found the issue I had was, as well as needing to insert the device point (or file) into config file as a harddisk, I also needed to set harddisk type as RDB. This was important as without that, since FS-UAE looks for RDSK signatures, with an unformatted drive it defaults to a partition file. That latter which didn't work as nothing will show up in HDToolbox. It also needs to be set with uaehf.device in HDToolbox which I tried when the ASKDEVICE tooltype kept crashing. I also found I had 68040/NOMMU set which I thought may be crashing it but no still crashed on 68020. For some reason my emulation is slow though JIT is enabled.

I found, given the symlink didn't show up in the file dialog, the convenience became redundant. And the permissions of device node needs updating whenever it is inserted. Suppose this is a problem for all Linux programs wanting direct access to a partition.

These days I expect embedded development would be done on old Windows PCs if they get old. Actually, I did hack a DLink router with recompiled firmware, so that it would act as a client. DLink is one of the best companies as their toolchain and sources are easily compliable. Others I tested only had partial source with tools I could not find or it lacked info on configuring it. So, the DLink I had was from 2013 when they updated the GUI, and the firmware was built on a 32-bit PC workstation. I got stuck on this as I was using my x64 laptop and it broke. Simple fix, delete 32-bit toolchain binaries, then rebuild. Now I didn't need to deal with FAT or reply on it but I could see, that their workstation was setup to do build the firmware and was at least ten years old, but it worked and was already setup for what they need.

That Tivo with APM and Ext2/3 is rather quirky. So people could use Apple's format externally? It was open? I imagine the MIPS ran in big endian mode. The Dlink I have uses MIPS big endian mode. A couple of years later they switched to little endian.

I have noticed that on USB, CD and main systems FAT is still embedded in for core booting. Suppose it has a legacy now but would be minimum expected. AmigaOne firmwares support it as well.

Last edited by Hypex on 23-Jun-2023 at 05:25 AM.

@Hypex

Reminders...

Linux originated from the PC world via Linus's Intel 386-based PC as a poor man's Unix clone.
The FAT file system support is common for both Linux and Windows.

PCMCIA is the PC laptop slot standard and it's useful for A1200's PCMCIA WiFi Prism2 capability. Gayle reset add-on is needed.

The lesson for DR's higher cost CP/M x86 vs cheaper MS-DOS is repeated for higher cost AT&T Unix vs Linux battles. The original IBM PC offered two operating systems i.e. a higher-priced DR CP/M and a lower-priced PC-DOS (MS-DOS). MS-DOS is a poor man's CP/M.

AT&T imposed strict licensing conditions on MS's Xenix. AT&T Unix license is not low cost.

ARM CPU has its origins as a low-end co-processor for BBC Micro since Commodore's 65xx CPU R&D roadmap was rubbish (blame Jack Tramiel).

Last edited by Hammer on 23-Jun-2023 at 06:32 AM.

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Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Hammer

Quote:

PCMCIA is the PC laptop slot standard

Is?!

25 years ago maybe, then there was also 32bit cardbus and various pccard variants.

Btw, 68k was among the first to have Linux besides i386, though it was more of a reimplementation than a port at first, it would still take some time to get 68k properly merged into main kernel tree. To this day though, it’s the exact same people doing most of the kernel work for many of the non-intel archs.

Last edited by kolla on 23-Jun-2023 at 06:24 PM.

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@Hypex

Quote:

That Tivo with APM and Ext2/3 is rather quirky.

Not really, Linux has had good support for it since the start, as did BSDs - one cannot easily hide disk layouts… also, Apple came around with mkLinux, blowing all doubts aside :)

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@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @Hammer Quote: PCMCIA is the PC laptop slot standard Is?! 25 years ago maybe, then there was also 32bit cardbus and various pccard variants. Btw, 68k was among the first to have Linux besides i386, though it was more of a reimplementation than a port at first, it would still take some time to get 68k properly merged into main kernel tree. To this day though, it’s the exact same people doing most of the kernel work for many of the non-intel archs.

PCMCIA is 16-bit. I reused my old PCMCIA devices when I purchased A1200 during the COVID-19 lockdown.

My old ex-corporate Dell Inspiron 5150 (Mobile Pentium 4 + GeForce 5200M), Dell Inspiron 510m (Pentium M), and IBM T20 ThinkPad (Pentium III + S3 Savage IX8) laptops have 16-bit PCMCIA slots. Core Duo-based ASUS W3J9(ex-corporate), Core 2 Duo-based ASUS G1S (personal, GT8600M GT), and Sony VGN-FW45 (personal, Mobility Radeon HD 4650) laptops have ExpressCard slots.

Last edited by Hammer on 25-Jun-2023 at 03:07 AM.
Last edited by Hammer on 24-Jun-2023 at 07:02 AM.

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Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Hammer

Is ExpressCard different to PCMCIA then? Bugger, because my old Windows 98 laptop has an WiFi ExpressCard! No good?

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John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Sheesh, yes, much different. ExpressCards are not even the same connector.

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@kolla

Thanks, no point dusting that old laptop off then!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

ExpressCard is based on PCI-Express and it's useless for classic Amiga.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

Hello everyone and I'm back.

I've been experiencing some issues while still being on the nightly releases that are still there after I updated to the recent 1.0 full release.

I installed a few WHDLoad games and found all just crashed. One being AB3D2. Forcing a machine reset.

Other programs would crash on load. I then tried to load a binary into MonAM and check. I loaded a large one I had but the code was all gibberish and corrupt!

Although it shouldn't matter I suspected a max transfer issue. So then wanted to check my partition setup. But HDToolbox crashed!

HDToolbox was set to ASKDEVICE and this causes the crash. I need to check if setting the specific Pi device works. But something is off. It looks like the same crash I was getting when setting it up under emulation. But it happens on real hardware.

My Pi config is the default config. So I can update it easily. With 3.1 Kickstart as kick.rom file.

My SD card is just a small 16GB card. With 512MB partition for the Pi boot volume and the rest partitioned as a Pi container. Holding a Workbench and Work volume.

Are there any known issues causing HDToolbox to crash and memory corruption on data loading from the Pi device driver?

@Hypex

So…
What do you mean with “default config�?
Debian Linux and Musashi? Or Emu68?
With “Pi boot volume� you mean the FAT32 boot partition, but what do you mean by “pi container�? Linux partition? Amiga partition?
Is it OS 3.1? Or 3.9/3.2? ASKDEVICE suggests OS 3.9… but then, are kickstart modules updated? OS 3.9 HDToolBox also uses Reaction classes and resource.library which require 020+ - are you perhaps running Musashi with 68000 emulation? What kind of “crash�? What kind of “guru�? 8000 000B?

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@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @Hammer Quote: PCMCIA is the PC laptop slot standard Is?! 25 years ago maybe, then there was also 32bit cardbus and various pccard variants. Btw, 68k was among the first to have Linux besides i386, though it was more of a reimplementation than a port at first, it would still take some time to get 68k properly merged into main kernel tree. To this day though, it�s the exact same people doing most of the kernel work for many of the non-intel archs.

The original Linux release had 386 specifics.

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Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

@Hammer

Quote:

The original Linux release had 386 specifics.

That's why I wrote "more of a reimplementation than a port".

http://www.linux-m68k.org/faq/trinity.html
https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.5555/324696.324701

Some of us were "there" as it happened, right before CBM folded. Usenet and IRC were the places to be at the time, and after the CBM fall, there were several damn large IRC "conferences" on the topic of Amiga. Linux and NetBSD were both tempting for Amiga developers, and many left (and some are to this day devoted Linux and BSD developers, quite a few still on 68k as well.)

Last edited by kolla on 22-Apr-2024 at 02:32 PM.

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@kolla

So I'm running Emu68K from here:
https://github.com/michalsc/Emu68/releases/tag/v1.0.1

By default config I mean the included config.txt file. I pretty much just extract it all to my Pi boot volume. I leave my kick.rom in place.

By Pi boot volume, yes I mean a FAT32 boot partition, within MBR scheme. By Pi container I mean a secondary partition of type 0x76. I call it a container as I use the partition like an extended partition which acts as a container for the Amiga volumes. Inside it are my Workbench and Work partitions.

It's OS3.9. Kickstart 45.47. Workbench 45.5.

I checked and it's running BB2. But, I noticed a discrepancy. It looks like I've applied the BB4 update to it as I have a BB4 Startup-Sequence. I restored a default OS3.9 startup but it had no change on the crashes.

I checked CPU with CPU command and it reported CPU as 68040 with 68882. That could be it. I need to check for 68040.library but unsure what to use unless I missed a Pi driver disk.

It's hard to tell what's going on as I was running on an RTG mode and it freezes on screen. But I switched to AV and saw guru flicker on LEDs. It's doing something illegal. It's an 80000004. I may have the classic 68040 driver missing crash.

@Hypex

You already have 68040.library, it is built in. You can check by simply doing a «version full 68040.library». I don’t use OS 3.9 anymore, but I’d check the version of the various Reaction classes to make sure they’re of same generation. 8000 0004 is illegal instruction from what I recall, but the reason can be many. Corrupt binaries for example.

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