A570 drive and TF 536

General hardware issues and troubleshooting etc

Moderators: terriblefire, Terriblefire Moderator

Sozzled39
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 10, 2021 10:07 pm

A570 drive and TF 536

Post by Sozzled39 »

Hi guys,

I'm after a bit of help. I got an A570 CD drive for my A500 today but it doesn't work in my TF 536 equipped machine. I've got a 1.3/3.1 kickstart switcher in there and it doesn't work with either. With 3.1 the computer just crashes on boot and resets. With 1.3 I get a red CDTV boot screen but no disk recognition.

The drive works fine on my stock A500+.

From a bit of reading around it seems it's something to do with auto configuration of 32 bit memory on the TF causing issues with the drive. I'm wondering if there is any way to disable the memory on startup so I can get the A570 going? Or alternatively do manual config or something? Sorry, I'm not a huge techie!

Can anyone help please?

Thanks in advance!!

Andrew
terriblefire
Moderator Team
Moderator Team
Posts: 5362
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 10:56 pm
Location: Glasgow, UK

Re: A570 drive and TF 536

Post by terriblefire »

TF536 doesnt support Kick 1.3 (You wont get fastram or IDE).

The A570 drive will not work with a TF536 without serious driver patching that nobody has yet done. Its the same reason the TF536 doesnt work in the CDTV.
———
"It is not necessarily a supply voltage at no load, but the amount of current it can provide when touched that
indicates how much hurting you shall receive."
Sozzled39
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 10, 2021 10:07 pm

Re: A570 drive and TF 536

Post by Sozzled39 »

I had a feeling that might be the issue. Ok thanks Stephen.
terriblefire
Moderator Team
Moderator Team
Posts: 5362
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 10:56 pm
Location: Glasgow, UK

Re: A570 drive and TF 536

Post by terriblefire »

i know someone who said they might take a look at a cdtv driver replacement... i'll maybe ping them and see if they're sill interested
———
"It is not necessarily a supply voltage at no load, but the amount of current it can provide when touched that
indicates how much hurting you shall receive."
dalek
Posts: 224
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2018 11:03 am
Location: NSW Australia

Re: A570 drive and TF 536

Post by dalek »

Also don't get your hopes up - I still come back to looking at this from time to time. There are more problems than just drivers.

The A570 does not work the same as a CDTV. It has a Xilinx FPGA loaded by a serial eeprom that often gets stuck loading when something other than a 68000 is in the 68000 socket. I've recently noticed that the DIN signal that loads the FPGA is also connected (probably incorrectly) to the R/W line from the Amiga. I have (reluctanty) cut traces on mine so that R/W is no longer connected. This helps the situation but there are also DMA issues.

You can see this problem manifest itself when you plug in an accelerator and the A570/A500 gets stuck with RESET held low (black screen). You can check the DONE signal at the serial eeprom to confirm the FPGA didn't load.

I've done all my testing with a TF530 with all Zorro / IDE / RAM removed - just the 030 CPU interface and still can't get the DMA to work. So it's not just drivers.

Next I will be building Matze's 020TK which reportedly works with some A570s - I think the R/W mod above will get it working repeatedly but I need to test. That card has all of the BR/BG/BGACK signals running through the TK CPLD so has more flexibility in terms of trying to get the DMA correct.

So even if the driver is fixed, the TF536 won't "just work" with the A570. I think it would need a new revision with the BR/BG/BGACK signals routed through and managed by the CPLD. Unless there is something else I'm missing.

I did win a CDTV on ebay but when it was shipped from the Netherlands it got lost by UPS in the United States :( Finding a CDTV down here for a decent price is near on impossible. I would love to get one to compare the timings.
dalek
Posts: 224
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2018 11:03 am
Location: NSW Australia

Re: A570 drive and TF 536

Post by dalek »

Okay wow I skipped over the part where you said 1.3 actually does give you a CDTV screen (albeit red, but meaning the CPLD loaded correctly) - that is promising that DMA might be less of an issue on the TF536 than the TF530/TF534.

I will try my TF536 on my A570 that has R/W disconnected from the CPLD and see if that works for me. If so I can start messing with cdtv.device to get around the red screen.
Sozzled39
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 10, 2021 10:07 pm

Re: A570 drive and TF 536

Post by Sozzled39 »

Thanks Dalek! I shall watch this post closely!
sviru
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2022 10:59 pm

Re: A570 drive and TF 536

Post by sviru »

dalek wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 12:44 am Okay wow I skipped over the part where you said 1.3 actually does give you a CDTV screen (albeit red, but meaning the CPLD loaded correctly) - that is promising that DMA might be less of an issue on the TF536 than the TF530/TF534.

I will try my TF536 on my A570 that has R/W disconnected from the CPLD and see if that works for me. If so I can start messing with cdtv.device to get around the red screen.
Hi Dalek. Maybe you can help me. Bought A570... stuck on reboot loop.. or guru meditation screen. A500 rev6a 1mb chip.
Power diode on. Spins the disc. Reboot or guru screen. Tried rev5a 500 - the same. Tried KS 3.1 - no luck.

Different power supply - no luck.

Thank you for your reply.
terriblefire
Moderator Team
Moderator Team
Posts: 5362
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 10:56 pm
Location: Glasgow, UK

Re: A570 drive and TF 536

Post by terriblefire »

sviru wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 11:02 pm Hi Dalek. Maybe you can help me. Bought A570... stuck on reboot loop.. or guru meditation screen. A500 rev6a 1mb chip.
Power diode on. Spins the disc. Reboot or guru screen. Tried rev5a 500 - the same. Tried KS 3.1 - no luck.

Different power supply - no luck.

Thank you for your reply.
This is a software issue. Someone updated the CDTV driver but i've not seen the A570 driver updated.. but apparently a beta exists.
———
"It is not necessarily a supply voltage at no load, but the amount of current it can provide when touched that
indicates how much hurting you shall receive."
User avatar
alexh
Posts: 690
Joined: Tue Oct 17, 2017 4:51 pm
Location: Oxfordshire

Re: A570 drive and TF 536

Post by alexh »

Contact CaptainFuture over at http://cdtvland.com and ask to join the discord server. (Unfortunately invites are disabled or I would invite you).

On the Discord channel you can download the A570 Extended ROM v2.35 alpha (A570-98_114.zip) which works with TF536 (or rather you download the patch files and combine with v2.30 to make v2.35 ROM).
CaptainFuture wrote:The first alpha build of 2.35/A570 is available for download now. It’s pretty stable on my system and was tested with both Viper 530/128MB and TF536/64MB. I am curious how it works for you guys. The most important tests you can do is the CD-ROM support of course, especially if you use an accelerator. See if you can boot a CD-ROM and if you can use it in Workbench as an AmigaDOS device.
IMPORTANT: If you have the 2MB internal memory upgrade inside your A570 and you encounter problems, try disabling it. In my test setup I encountered problems with both the Viper 530 and TF536 if the 2MB was enabled. (Viper wouldn’t come up at all, TF536 came up but booting a CD gave all sorts of weird gurus). I have verified this is not a 2.35 specific issue, but also occurs with the 2.30 ROM from Commodore.
So please give 98.114 a whirl when you have the time and please report any problems you experience here in the 98.114 channel. Thx!!
Principal ASIC Engineer - SystemVerilog, VHDL
Thalion Webshrine - http://thalion.atari.org
STf,STfm,STe,MegaST,MegaSTe,Falcon060
A500+,A600,A4000/060,CD32,CDTV
Post Reply

Return to “AMIGA HARDWARE HELP”