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Events   Events : Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
   posted by sg2 on 29-Sep-2004 10:32:54 (21719 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
    

STORYID: 1752
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PosterThread
The_Editor 
Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 2-Oct-2004 8:57:42
#121 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 7-Mar-2003
Posts: 7629
From: 192.168.0.02 ..Pederburgh .. Iceni

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 !!


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I dont suffer from Insanity - I enjoy it

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Ryu 
Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 2-Oct-2004 13:11:57
#122 ]
Super Member
Joined: 5-Mar-2003
Posts: 1092
From: Scunthorpe

@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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DoodooHead 
Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 2-Oct-2004 16:31:43
#123 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 641
From: Reno, Nevada, U.S.

@ 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.


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Amiga user since 1985.

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DoodooHead 
Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 2-Oct-2004 16:44:40
#124 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 641
From: Reno, Nevada, U.S.

@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.


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DrBombcrater 
Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 3-Oct-2004 15:55:38
#125 ]
Super Member
Joined: 6-Feb-2004
Posts: 1382
From: UK

@sg2

This may be a silly question, but do SW-DMA and MW-DMA modes work?


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Who do you serve, and who do you trust? - Galen

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gregthecanuck 
Re: Notes about my presentation at Alchimie 4, & about DMA
Posted on 5-Oct-2004 10:48:04
#126 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 30-Dec-2003
Posts: 846
From: Vancouver, Canada

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...

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Mike67 
porn hard
Posted on 22-Aug-2007 6:51:03
#127 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 15-Aug-2007
Posts: 124
From: Unknown

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