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Thanks, very glad you appreciated it. More soon on the A1000!

Here is the definition of what a riser card is, from Wikipedia "A riser card is a printed circuit board that gives a computer motherboard the option for additional expansion cards to be added to the computer" and I did apply power to the drives at a later point.

@@RetronautTech yes in the PC and appel world but commodore has elected to call their version "Daughterboard" and the producer is the one deciding what it's called. just like if wiki said sean is the description of a redhead boy bot i get a redhead an call him michael.

@@kimshaky I know a riser when I see one ;)

It could be, one is labelled as 0 / 1, which could be ID 0/1 or indeed off/on. But, Id honestly expect on/off to be labelled as such. Using 0/1 for on off, is a bit to techy, even for an Amiga external drive.

Not sure 98% of Amiga users will be wanting to copy disks in XCopy. I'm pretty sure 99% of Amiga owners want to read disks? And a good number will want to write to them maybe? But I get your point. From what I understand, the Samsung drive definitely has a Ready signal, and I connected that to 34. But that drive is only available in 25mm high models AFAIK, so its only really of use in external drives with reversed data/power connectors, or in an Amiga 3000/4000. Still, its more the overall gist I was getting at in the previous video i.e. Pin 2 goes to Disk Change, 34 goes to Ready, DS1 is changed to DS0n and if your very lucky, you an lock it to readying HD disks as DD. But milage certainly varies, these were generally NOT intended for use in an Amiga, so....

Glad I could help. IF you can discern which model a drive is, there is often a tutorial out there for it. Mind you, they vary in quality. Myself, I could only really try out the drives I have. Maybe if I have some time, I will try and get that Samsung drive to be DD moded as well, that would be ideal.

I have quite a few models and brands. Some have jumpers and some clearly have pads. The bulk i have are Panasonic drives they seem to be not possible to convert. I also have Amiga drives pulled from systems. Im going to see what i can compile

When I tested these, I set the drives to DF1 and with the ID select switch in either position, the drives were not recognised. No life, nothing. And I had the same experience with my Amiga 4000, when I used the Samsung drive (shown in previous video). Only when I set them to DF0 did they work. So I'm not sure what the situation is with your enclosure and the Gotek.

I think you answered your own question. From what I understand, its as you say. Amiga HD drives needed specific electronics to get the drives to run at a specific speed. And drives today would be 99% generic PC drives, many of which were made post 2000. I say that, as eventually they became obsolete, would I assume there are still hoards of new/old stock out there, which are good to use, as they have no mechanical wear.

I'll give it a go, the tutorial which had that advice, stated that they had tested it, and it worked. I must admit, I'm not THAT likely to use X-Copy myself, my pirating days are far behind me. However, its worth trying. Have you one of these Alps drives yourself, which you have tested? You sound like you have walked this walk?

@@RetronautTech I've done a lot of tests with many drives. Problem is some drives motor going into sleep mode like samsung. I've also done alps tests with diode mod, all diode mods are obsolete because they are not 100% compatible and causing problems in some combinations (ea. with external drives, built into external drive case, bootselector, Kick/WB1.3 format...)

@@analognexusI think the main gist of the video is it IS possible to at least get drives that read and write to 880kb disks, and HD disks, to one degree or another. Which is many % better than having no drive at all. Of course these days, most rely on Gotek devices, but I think still being able to read real media is (for now) useful. But I guess its only a matter of time until ALL floppy disks are too old to use. Its sad, but its probably going to happen. The good news is, 99% of all the software written for the Amiga seems to be already backed up as digital ADF files :)

I think if management at Commodore took things more seriously instead of acting like they were trying to get "rich quick" they we would likely seen games and or demos come out in 1.76MB format.

Sounds interesting.

No, because PC drives are hardwired to be drive 1, and for an Amiga it needs to be drive 0. The Disk Change signal from pin 34 could be swizzled over to pin 2, but then what about the Ready signal? This is not connected at all, so again an intermediary board would not do the job. So yeah, on balance, some wire, a soldering iron and a bit of patience is more effective in this case...

Then get to it. Mind you, my experience is, there is certainly a lot of variety in manufacture and how you convert them. Would be interesting to see if someone can get the Samsung drive to be forced to DD mode by default. Thats quite a useful feature in these conversions. I may get another one and have a go at it at some point.

From what I understand, there is no way to get a PC 2mb drive, to work on the Amiga. I understand there was some extra circuitry and the drive had to run at a different speed. Now, having said that, yes, from what I understand newer Amiga models sometimes had 2mb drives. But, here is the question. Are they REALLY that useful today? Quite often we have Goteks, or data transfer via SD card or CF Card. So I personally think a drive that can read 880k disks, is generally the most useful, as pretty much all games/apps/cover disks etc came in that format as it was compatible with ALL Amiga models.

@@RetronautTech Sure, but why do you have floppy drives in your A2000?

​@@andrewenglish3810 Well, the top right one works, and is there to read any disks I do have, because I do have some games on floppy disk. The disk to its left does not work, but I could replace it now, as I have a spare. However, below them is a Gotek, and this is the most useful drive right now as of course I can fit hundreds of floppy disk images on it. But... the issue is, these HAVE to be in adf format, and so they have to have been created by others, or myself, and they are not a direct replacement for a floppy disk. Still VERY useful. But, I think having a physical floppy drive in there will be useful on the occasion when I DO want to use real disks. For example, I might get drivers for a card, which are NOT on the web in any archive, and if I am going to use those drives, I need a real drive. Of course, these situations are rare these days, but there is certainly software out there which has NOT been archived.

I did not know off the top of my head that the CF port had a jumper allowing it to be SLAVE. I was thinking back to when there I recall issues were mentioned about using it. But that was an earlier revision. I switched that jumper to Slave, and indeed, the CF Card can now go on channel one, as SLAVE using the built in port. Another feather in the Dicke Olga's hat. I have an idea, why not add more Answers to you Q&A section in the manual, to cover solutions, rather than problems. Like this was a good suggestion others may not think of.

I may keep it for a while. Might reach out to Rob Smith, to see if he is up to updating his DaynaPort driver. I think the issue is it may have non-standard SCSI commands going on, which is why the CD-Rom support is not working, and the WIFI drive is not working. If those prove to be dead-ends, then I may indeed sell it, so someone else can have a SCSI controller for their A2000.

Thanks, indeed. Hopefully anyone watching these vids that like them will share their links with friends. Word of mouth can be very powerful, especially if they then also pass on the joy!

Don't even think it...

Now that IS something I did not know, interesting fact. I DO have another card here free, so I'll give it a go.

With 3.2, fat95 isn't even needed. The os ships with a version of crossdosfilesystem that supports long filenames and the mbr partition table. Instructions for making mount files are in the 3.2 faq and online help.

I am pretty sure the ID of CD0 needs to match the ID of emulated CD ROM drive. I am interested in what the exact problem is with the network.

Don't forget the Atari, SGI, Amstrad and 3D printing nerds as well :)

Of the two, I want the 1541 for the C64. I THINK the lighter one is for a VIC 20, right?

@@RetronautTech asked him said wants to keep for his collection

@@sw4ine OK, no probs, Ill keep an eye out in future shows.

Indeed, previous show, it was just me and my camera, and I filmed most of the day. This time, I also had to explain to people what the SGI Octane was all about, plus of course the BBQ! Still, there is, as you say, always next time :)

No vendors on this occasion as far as I could see. Though there were some accelerators near the 3D printing table. I guess its Summer and people are busy with other things. Also, there was the Greenford event the previous weekend (which I missed) and next weekend there is the event in Nottingham, which sadly I also HAVE to miss due to some DIY at home. Gah, really wanted to attend that, but there you go.

Retropassion was there

@@sw4ine Ahhhh…Thought I’d recognise that shiny Bald head and douche bag beard when he tried to hide his face on the stage.. No wonder he didn’t wanted to be identified with the disgruntled customers he is leaving in his wake…. 😳🙄

Yes, think that was Vins, as you bumped into on the way up there with your A4000 board clutched to your breast. Nice to chat, and nice to meet a fellow A4000 owner :)

Welcome aboard!

Glad you enjoyed it!

I appears to be the number of devices. Im putting my Amiga 2000 back together right now, and trying to get a Network and CD-Rom working on my SCSI bus. Adding the Network increased the boot time a bit, adding the CD-Rom and it took even longer. So, with SCSI it seems its best to use less, but larger devices( HD) with more partitions, rather than many devices with a partition on each.

@@RetronautTech Not so sure about that. Back in the 90's I ran a BBS with 5 drives connected to the GVP controller and it didn't boot any slower. After adding a TF536 my boot time increased immensely though.

@@anakondase Im using a BlueSCSIv2, which is acting as multiple devices. I think with real devices, you'd be right. But I have used a BSv2 on a Fastlane Z3 SCSI card, a GVP SCSI card and also a TrumpCard SCSI card and all showed similar behaviour. One device, and its pretty fast to boot, more than one and it can take an age. In my A2000 without the TrumpCard drives, it boots in about 20 seconds. But as soon as I got drives working on the TrumpCard, booting took much longer, and when I tried to add a Network card and CD Rom it was talking 60+ seconds.

@@RetronautTech I see. Sad to say my GVP controller seems to be at the end because I can't get anything to boot from mine anymore. Tried three drives but the same result.

@@anakondase What is this GVP controller, for an A2000 or A500?

It's to do with what we want, subjectively. Some want to move the Amiga on. For me, the Amiga ended in the 90s when Commodore went bust. Commodore for me was like a family, from the C64 onwards. So once Amiga was not owned by them, I was not interested. I know, for some that is sacrilege, but the truth is Commodore failed to update the platform in a timely manner so it could not compete with the surging rise of PC technology. To be fair, that was the same for Apple too, they nearly went under as well, until Steve Jobs took a daring step and made machines that were totally different to PCs of that era. So to be fair to Commodore it was a REALLY difficult fence to jump. Remember Amiga had PC bridge-boards so it was actually riding that wave as well, to its own detriment... Now, I LOVE my Amiga's as I did back then, but for me, its more about making machines that are true to what Commodore produced. So I like to use real hardware as much as I can. Though that is something of a losing battle, and can be expensive. I took a PiStorm2000 OUT of this machine and replaced it with this card, and for me it was a good move. A PiStorm is for me an emulator embedded in an Amiga case. If you don't mind emulators and you ONLY want to use software, then thats cool. There is WinUAE, its free and to be fair its a LOT less hassle then owning a real Amiga. But I want these old machines, to put old cards in, accelerators, new ones as well, as long as they are hardware based. Its the physical aspect of retrotech I think people miss out on. The sometimes crappy keyboards, the floppy disks, SCSI controllers, etc. For me that is what I am going back to experience. I spent days repairing this A2000 and then refurbishing it. So gutting it and putting an emulator in it felt bad. Thats just me. The PiStorm IS a good product, and if you found say a totally knackered A2000 and a PiStorm2000 gets it to be usable, then thats a good thing. But yeah, each to their own.

@@RetronautTech I really understand what you mean and how you think, many people think exactly like you, this is also a way of how each person sees things from their own side :)

Glad you enjoyed it

Yes, in hindsight, it becomes more obvious that a capacitor was more the likely issue. But I'm still a relative noob at diagnosing issues like this. I made this video, because watching videos on A4000 battery damage and what it can cause, was very helpful in fixing my own A4000. So this is passing it on, if someone else's DAC circuit has issues in their A4000 or A1200 (quite similar setup) this video should help them I think.

Yes, I guess first thing is, DONT PANIC. Its usually diagnosable. Sticky part here was measuring items in circuit. The resistor read exactly as is, but they can return false values. The capacitors though, were all over the shop and could only really be measured once removed from circuit. So, unless you do that first, to pinpoint the issue, do what I did and hedge your bets with your parts order. TBH I want to build up a supply of components, so ordering 30 when I need one, is not much of an issue. But you may as well do that, as the part cost £0.20 whilst postage was £6.50+ :/

Wow, can you email me please, via the channels email address? So, where to start.... I need to do a short video on this card, as its worth focussing on, certainly. It was intended for use in broadcast TV AFAIK, as it has a 768 x 574 24bit buffer, which supports an 8bit alpha channel. On top of this, it can scroll an image on top of that, again in hardware. So it sounds like the perfect card for sports broadcast, or maybe a weather spot? In terms of the chip, yes its a Texas Instruments 34020. There was a paint package for it, which also worked on Amiga Centre For Scotlands card, the Harlequin. I THINK the software for the Harlequin, works on this card as well, not sure about drivers. The paint app was called Imagica, and yes I have searched for that, and I cant find ANY sofware of that name archived. Same for the Harlequin, there is a game of that name, but no archived drivers. BTW the hard disk was missing from this machine when bought, and no floppies or any other packaging were provided so. Please reach out via email, and we can discuss further?

And where would I get those libs from?

@@RetronautTech the Workbench disks

I agree, SCSI using DMA would be the trick in this situation I think. Maybe have a read up about the LIDE ROM, maybe it has some kind of DMA tricks up its sleeves?

@@RetronautTech Thank you for your reply. It would be interesting to share how this fine card behaves under these circumstances.

@@walkero Im afraid this machine has no network solution as yet, though I guess I could try and get a tracker setup on it and try that out. I think in the end though, if you want autonomous data read, then you need SCSI with DMA. Not sure there are that many period correct solutions with that (Fastlane Z3) but I guess more modern accelerators might have that combo?

@@RetronautTech Thank you so much for your replies. It is an interesting topic and that's a insightful discussion. Thank you.

Most software crashes with it so it is never used anyway. Its only good to pad benchmarks.

@@wishusknight3009 I did try turning it on in SysInfo, and ran a speed test, and... no difference. I then ran SpeedTest and the same. In which specific benchmarks does it have an effect. Id be willing to have a look, if I knew where to test it. But if the comment above is right, and its a crash monkey, is it worth it?

@@RetronautTech From what I understand, Zorro has no provisions for snooping. Which makes data caches on Amiga very hit and miss for software compatibility. And hardware compatability as well. Basically data caches needed to be disabled for area's of ram occupied by things like x86 bridgeboards and RTG cards for example. I am not sure but I think most 030 libraries disable this feature further up the chain which makes turning them on in sysinfo etel make no difference? That is my guess. The machine I swore i used to see the difference on was an A2000 which had an A500 socket accelerator, but had no fast ram as I was missing that part of the accelerator (it was a separate clip on). So it got all its bandwidth through the zorro bus. (yeah it was pretty pokey). I swear I used to notice a few percent differences with it on and thought that is what happened with all Amiga's. As to what cpu libraries or version of sysinfo I had, I couldn't tell you, i have not had that machine for several years. It was workbench 3.1 with a few things added. I will try this out on my accelerated A500 when I get a chance. Which currently runs WB 3.2 and its default libraries. I suspect I will see no difference and be scratching my head as to why I remember things so wonky.