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Events : Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA |
| posted by sg2 on 29-Sep-2004 10:32:54 (22437 reads) |
Hello All!
The html pages which are available at http://s.guillard.free.fr/alc4/index.html are just an introduction slideshow that I presented as a starter, it does not relate what I shown and said afterwards. Please find below a couple of notes about my presentation at Alchimie show.
1 ? Show highlights
Here is a quick summary of the presentation I did :
- I booted with boot delays set to 1 second for UBoot and for SLB (second level booter), thus less than 20 seconds after power on, we were with a fully loaded Workbench with Amidock.
- I started with the small html slideshow, presented on IBrowse. You can find those pages at the URL above. IBrowse loaded in 2 seconds with its about : page fully displayed. Browsing through the pages of the slideshow was instantaneous.
- While we were at it, I browsed the OS4 install guide, also as fast as can be, must say I also find this responsiveness impressive myself :)
Then I demoed as many things as I had time to during the 2 hours I had. Everything worked, fast & stable, and was smooth and impressed. I showed mainly:
- All os4 system, tools, utilities, prefs & stuff
- MUI, IBrowse, Amitradecenter
- Yam, SimpleMail
- ClassAction (M. Elsner's file manager)
- MakeCD
- MooVid running a DivX
- DVPlayer running an mpeg2
- AudioEvolution 4 with the demo project, cursors auto moving smoothly, the playback was smooth also, with mostly no CPU usage.
- AmiPDF with the AE4 manual and another heavy PDF file, very fast
- USB. I plugged a Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical into my USB hub, and we had 2 mice to control the system
- Crisot's slach5 winning demo (got applauses which it deserved)
- chip's rayrace realtime raytracer demo. When the juggler appeared, audience was impressed, but really took measure of what they were watching when I moved the mouse. Wait for the Altivec version !
- FPSE, AmiDog's PS1 emulator, with an oldskool game which ran nicely ('Cotton')
- some other visual toys I had at hand
The demos only grimreaped twice, and I anticipated the grims before they popped up :
- One was native glsokoban / w3d, when I launch it does a base page access (a ?null pointer? bug in glsokoban). I didactically shown the disassembly which is available in the grimreaper window, was a store to r4, r4 was null etc. I clicked on continue, and it all went fine & fast.
- One was frying pan 0.3.1, I shown the app, and at one point I said 'now it should grim? and it did. It still loaded fine though. I quit the app, clicked on reboot and less than 4 secs after, wb was up with amidock. That was the only reboot of the show.
I forgot to show (because of short time):
- Petunia... Almos, sorry, I had prepared something for that (side by side windowed jit & nonjit runs of voxelspace), but i both forgot, and was asked to stop at this point by the party organizers cause it was already 5:30 pm while I was scheduled until 4pm.
- ArtEffect
- USB with MassStorage (ie USB key or digital camera)
At the end, I had many fair questions to which I answered; my feeling is that the audience really appreciated the effort behind what I shown, and was conscious that we are not far away from a releasable 4.0.
Then came the expected question, 'and why doesn?t DMA work ?'
I said 'All what you saw was DMA since the 1st boot'.
I copied a few 100 MB files in a snap, with zero CPU (thanks to Pete Gordon for the clock/CPU docky, helps a lot). Then I switched to PIO, they saw 4 x slower and 80% CPU.
The audience understood that it was indeed DMA, and that was fast, and that was part of the overall smoothness of what I shown.
Then I explained the things below (this is the reference for my statements, please don?t rephrase or extrapolate or invent or whatever):
- IDE UDMA works on VIA and Articia on AmigaOne SE / XE / µA1 MK2 (as I demoed) ...
- ... except when the Ethernet chip goes online and is used.
- the Ethernet chip only triggers the problem, but it is not at all related to it (a test using a PCI Ethernet shows the same behaviour)
- We have made a driver for a Silicon Image 680 PCI IDE UDMA133 controller chip, this does UDMA 133 nicely, including when Ethernet is used at full speed.
- The fact that a PCI IDE controller solution works, shows that the problem is *not* related to Articia, since PCI DMA is *also* handled by the Articia, and that works.
- The full Alchimie show demo was done using UDMA, both from the VIA and from the Si680, without problem (but with Ethernet off, would the Ethernet have been turned online, I would have had to revert the VIA into PIO before).
- Things are currently under more investigation
In the meantime there are 2 options for existing A1 board owners:
- Use the VIA IDE controller in PIO mode when using Ethernet, and UDMA at other times,
- Purchase a faster (UDMA133) Silicon Image 0680 IDE PCI card (from around $20). This is my personally recommended option as the delivered speed is noticeable faster than the on-board VIA controller in UDMA mode.
Kind regards,
--
Stéphane
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| Poster | Thread |  The_Editor
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Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 2-Oct-2004 8:57:42
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Elite Member
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Joined: 7-Mar-2003
Posts: 7629
From: 192.168.0.02 ..Pederburgh .. Iceni | | |
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| Precisely.
Heaps of FUN to be had just from trying out your old proggies, If you can get past the bad block requester !!
But thats even fun (of a sort) working out how to get that all important info off that floppy !!
_________________
******************************************
I dont suffer from Insanity - I enjoy it
******************************************
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| | Status: Offline |
| | Ryu
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Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 2-Oct-2004 13:11:57
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Super Member
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Joined: 5-Mar-2003
Posts: 1092
From: Scunthorpe | | |
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| @DoodooHead
My pleasure 
_________________
Regards
Darren 'Ryu' Glenn
----------------------------
www.IntuitionBase.com - Your Guide to Amiga OS4.x and the AmigaOne
www.Bambi-Amiga.co.uk - My A1200 webserver, running 24/7/365
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| | Status: Offline |
| | DoodooHead
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Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 2-Oct-2004 16:31:43
| | [ #123 ] |
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Cult Member
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Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 641
From: Reno, Nevada, U.S. | | |
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| @ The_Editor
I just finished entering the Titles of my 1200 DVD Movies into Final Data, Release 1, Nov 18, 1994. Maybe I can learn not to buy ones I already have!
I moved the contents of the HDs of my A3000T to a PC and then to CD in 1999. I didn't know for sure that there would ever be anything else that could run those programs or read those files. I had a graphics card in the A3000T so the majority of Apps that made it to the CD ran RTG, so they all still work.
Seeing some of the Deluxe Paint pictures I drew in 1987-88 is a little embarassing. It is strange to have every file you ever saved from years of Amiga use.
_________________
Amiga user since 1985.
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| | Status: Offline |
| | DoodooHead
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Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 2-Oct-2004 16:44:40
| | [ #124 ] |
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Cult Member
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Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 641
From: Reno, Nevada, U.S. | | |
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| @Ryu
I have the A1 with OS4 (Pre).
I would rather have apps that run under emulation than have no apps.
I have money to spend on software for A1.
Ituitionbase.com tells me what works, and where to get it.
Back in the old days, I bought nearly every software title my local Amiga dealer had. I will probably do the same again.
A little money flowing to the developers can only help our situation.
_________________
Amiga user since 1985.
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| | Status: Offline |
| | DrBombcrater
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Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 3-Oct-2004 15:55:38
| | [ #125 ] |
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Super Member
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Joined: 6-Feb-2004
Posts: 1382
From: UK | | |
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| @sg2
This may be a silly question, but do SW-DMA and MW-DMA modes work?
_________________
Who do you serve, and who do you trust? - Galen
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| | Status: Offline |
| | gregthecanuck
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Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 5-Oct-2004 10:48:04
| | [ #126 ] |
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Cult Member
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Joined: 30-Dec-2003
Posts: 846
From: Vancouver, Canada | | |
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| I'm a bit late into this thread but here is my 2 cents...
Way back in 1998 I picked up an ASUS P2B series motherboard. I waited a while for the first few revisions to come out. It turns out that even after a few board revisions (and who knows how many boards shipped) there was still a problem with the built-in USB. You had to run a jumper wire over a resistor somewhere.
This was quite a popular series of boards. I suspect there are millions out there. I believe this was even used in some HP machines.
There have been other issues as well including ACPI problems with Win2K. This required a board-level fix as well.
Have a look here for more info: USB fix and other info
I think some folks here are being a bit hard on Eyetech... |
| | Status: Offline |
| | Mike67
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porn hard
Posted on 22-Aug-2007 6:51:03
| | [ #127 ] |
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Regular Member
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Joined: 15-Aug-2007
Posts: 124
From: Unknown | | |
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