MiSTer FPGA Forum

kolla wrote: ↑Sun May 02, 2021 9:09 pm What FPU emulator is this?

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/softwarefpu-307

jca wrote: ↑Sun May 02, 2021 6:43 pm Thanks for the new image. I did not test any game or application at the moment but as you added Speedometer I wanted to compare the 3 versions of the Mac which can run on MISTer: Mac Plus core, ShapeShifter under Minimig and Basilisk II under Linux.
Here are the results, all done with OS 7.5.5.

I also have vMac if you are interested to compare. It needs to be recompiled per configuration and even resolution, but I have a bunch of configurations built.

Speed wise its slower for the CPU than Basilisk II but my recollection is it runs comparatively better when you crank the resolution up.

bbond007 wrote: ↑Fri May 14, 2021 1:48 am I also have vMac if you are interested to compare. It needs to be recompiled per configuration and even resolution, but I have a bunch of configurations built.

Speed wise its slower for the CPU than Basilisk II but my recollection is it runs comparatively better when you crank the resolution up.

I suppose the vMac is running on the Linux side. I would like to test it.
Regarding Basilisk II: is there a way to go up in resolution above 640x480? I tried but is said something regarding X Server not supporting it.

jca wrote: ↑Fri May 14, 2021 1:53 pm I suppose the vMac is running on the Linux side. I would like to test it.
Regarding Basilisk II: is there a way to go up in resolution above 640x480? I tried but is said something regarding X Server not supporting it.

I have some examples linked in the README.md --> https://github.com/bbond007/MiSTer_Basi ... le_Scripts

I updated the build about a month ago..

The 20210630 Minimig update appears to have broken my latest ShapeShifter image. I spent some time trying to fix it but wasn't able to figure it out. Unless anyone knows, you can use the previous core for now, or wait until the next update...

The new minimig core requires an RDB header on the HD image, winUAE-native images often leave this out.

Sorg points out how to make a working RDB disk in this thread
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2863

Once it's bootable, just copy everything over from your current image using winuae.

There is also a lot of talk about IDEFix. Does it have to be installed and if so what is the procedure?

IDEFix in this context is being used by people who have whacky settings in their RDB for the maxtransfer value, IDEfix seems to ignore this and force the values used by amigaOS to something more sensible, but it doesn't fix the RDB itself.

There have also been issues with RDBs that have a termination flag on them - "do not look for other disks after this one". So causing issues with detecting other disks attached.

Overall the new minimig core has exposed the fact that some of our HD images would not boot or work properly if written block-for-block to a real amiga's boot drive.

Creating a new RDB disk within the minimig core will make a nice clean disk with RDB that has correct settings, which can then be mounted in UAE for prep work. It's more work, but it's for the best.

So the procedure is to initialize the HD image under Minimig, making sure transfer rate is < 0x1fe00, that they don't have a termination flag and proceed as mentioned a few posts above. No need foe IDEFix. Correct?

If the drive is created in minimig with hdtoolbox, it'll get sensible defaults for maxtransfer and termination, you shouldn't need to check them.

Thanks and another question: does this max transfer setting have a real effect under MISTer?

maxtransfer used to be ignored by the old minimig disk subsystem, but now it's obeyed, even if it's a silly value.
The max value for IDE drives is "0x1FE00". Lower values might have a small performance impact when reading large files.

Bear in mind that we're talking about a good simulation of the real amiga disk subsystem here.

On a real A1200 2.5MBytes/s was considered fast.
On an A500 with GVP scsi drive (DMA direct to onboard fastram), 1MByte/s was pretty impressive.

With that in mind, the maxtransfer setting is unlikely to have a huge effect now that the system is backed by a modern SD card, you'll get whatever that elderly IDE bus can handle.

toastboy wrote: ↑Sat Jul 03, 2021 9:19 ammaxtransfer used to be ignored by the old minimig disk subsystem, but now it's obeyed, even if it's a silly value.

It's not that MaxTransfer's ignored or obeyed by anything - MaxTransfer is nothing more than the maximum number of bytes scsi.device will attempt to transfer in a single transaction.

The IDE command set allows a maximum of just shy of 128k (0x1fe00) bytes to be transferred in a single command, so if MaxTransfer is higher than that, and you're accessing a chunk of a file that's larger than that, *and* your filesystem's not fragmented, so there are more bytes than that in a contiguous lump, then scsi.device will read the data in two consecutive IDE commands. The problem is in how it does that:

After the first set of blocks has completed, scsi.device assumes that the hard drive's taskfile registers will contain the CHS address of the last block read (as per the ATA-1 spec), increments them by one and starts the next transaction. Unfortunately that behaviour changed with ATA-2, and on command completion the taskfile doesn't have to contain the CHS address any more. (It's not forbidden, just no longer mandated). That's why the MaxTransfer problem cropped up with real hard drives, and (presumably) the new IDE subsystem isn't mimicking ATA-1 behaviour so it's happening again now.

(http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=759918&postcount=25)

The hardfiles that no longer work aren't images of complete hard drives, they're images of partitions. In the case of the Mac image, has anyone tried manually setting the device (scsi.device), unit (1 if 2nd device on 1st channel, 2 or 3 for the 2nd channel), and then firstsector=0, number of sectors = (filesize/512) - or mounting it as a ShapeShifter filedisk accessed over the shared filesystem, instead of as an Amiga drive?

If I understand shapeshifter correctly, with the new support for Akiko should that be seeing some benefits as well?

ShapeShifter working again with the latest Main update.

jca wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 5:14 am ShapeShifter working again with the latest Main update.

Just confirmed. Thanks for checking on it!

shaitan wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:23 am If I understand shapeshifter correctly, with the new support for Akiko should that be seeing some benefits as well?

Aliko is not very useful in most scenarios.

The MiSTer Minimig's fast 020 CPU (pared with some fast RAM) can way outrun Aliko chunky-to-planar conversion.

Not to mention we have RTG that is much faster for ShapeShifter than AGA....

meauxdal wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 11:59 am

jca wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 5:14 am ShapeShifter working again with the latest Main update.

Just confirmed. Thanks for checking on it!

I did not have any issues with my ShapeShifter HDF as I always use RDB.

Anyway, the performance increase is great! Really helps with Mac-II stuff which typically is more HD intensive than Amiga stuff...

bbond007 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 10:09 pm ....
I did have any issues with my ShapeShifter HDF as I always use RDB.
...

Di you or didn't you?

jca wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 11:10 pm

bbond007 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 10:09 pm ....
I did have any issues with my ShapeShifter HDF as I always use RDB.
...

Di you or didn't you?

I did not have issue with my HDF, just my proof reading...

thanks. Corrected

Has anyone tried Shapeshifter with Amiga OS3.2?

I'm having trouble booting the Mac, I get the disk icon, and when I try to load a .dsk file. It crashes. What can I be missing?

kamshaft wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 1:48 pm Has anyone tried Shapeshifter with Amiga OS3.2?

I'm having trouble booting the Mac, I get the disk icon, and when I try to load a .dsk file. It crashes. What can I be missing?

Have a look at the work by @meauxdal. There is a thread "other computer systems/core" - macintosh plus setup that provides the detail you're looking for.

I've managed to get Mac OS 7 - 8.1 working on the Mister after a fair amount of trial and error. Would have been wasier if I had RTFM manual but there you go.

Now I've done it I want to do it again ... but better.

What would be really good would be being able to access the CD drive from inside ShapeShifter. I can't even get the Amiga to see the CDs. Trying to mount them as device files from within ShapeShifter did not seem to work either ...

Is there an easy-ish guide on getting cd images working in ShapeShifter without having to slowly copy them into a mac image and then mount using Toast?

Hi, thanks for taking the time to work on this and your other mac disk image. Any chance I could get the link? you dont seem to have this one up on archive.org? Cheers.

meauxdal wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 11:59 am

jca wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 5:14 am ShapeShifter working again with the latest Main update.

Just confirmed. Thanks for checking on it!

Hi! I would love to get access to the HDF file.
Thanks!

Send a PM to meauxdal.

jca wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 6:49 pm Send a PM to meauxdal.

I would love to, but my postcount is too low for me to do that.

PM sent.

GASQBDUV wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 6:52 pm

jca wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 6:49 pm Send a PM to meauxdal.

I would love to, but my postcount is too low for me to do that.

Hi there, my post count is also too low to PM meauxdal. I'd love to play around with this HDF file. Thanks for any help!

Wow, this is an amazing project, and was really pretty easy for me to get up and running-- thanks meauxdal!

I have two questions that I can't seem to figure out, maybe someone here already knows the answer:

1. How can I transfer files into the Mac volumes? I can see the CH1 and CH2 hard files from Amiga Workbench, but I have no idea how to access their contents. Other discussions in other forums indicate that Mac-handler will mount the Mac system disk as a folder in Workbench, but when I try that I get the message "device 'Mac:' is already mounted." It seems like Shapeshifter is using the same HDF files as the Amiga, so maybe that's why, but what other way could I access the Mac drives?

2. When I select any other 8-bit display size, I only get grayscale (no color display). I can get color in the other bit-depths, but those run slooooow (as documented). Is that what others are seeing too, or am I missing something.

Again, this is an amazing project, and I'm so grateful for all the work that was put into it!

As the person that made the original script that meauxdal based his excellent work on, I can’t comment on the transfer part, but you should get 256 colors using the 8-bit display resolution, which triggers the “chunky pixel” mode using RTG, which is why it is the only performant mode. So you should be seeing color. When you say “any other 8-bit display size”, what exactly do you mean?

As for the disk image — yes, the original setup I made uses hardfiles that are hosted inside the Amiga FS — there’s a possibility to make separate image files that run “natively” as partitions instead of disk images on the Amiga FS, but the additional effort didn’t seem worth it to me, since it’s already one of the fastest classic Macintoshes out there. This may be necessary for the transfer functionality, I am not super familiar with the disk handler. Have you tried using Internet Explorer connecting to the internet as a way to get files onto the Macintosh side of things?