ReAmiga A4091 SCSI-2 Review

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8 ай бұрын

This week on 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast ‪@10MARC‬ I am reviewing the new recreation of the Commodore Amiga A4091 SCSI Controller for the Amiga 4000. Join me as we check out the hardware, the software and see just how she runs!
The Github page knows all and sees all:
github.com/A4091
This page has links to Stefan Reinhaur and Chris Hoopers information on the card:
scsi.me/
You want info on the ZuluSCSI too, right?
zuluscsi.com/
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Пікірлер: 48

@GPeter7 8 ай бұрын

Thank you Doug for a nice educational video, I always enjoy them 👍

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

Glad you like them!

@GPeter7 8 ай бұрын

@@10MARC I'm always do

@boydpukalo8980 8 ай бұрын

The ReA4091 is a really nice card, and thanks to the dedication and hard work of community members we can buy brand new zorro cards here in 2023. I have 3 of them. I would love to have something like a BFG with UW SCSI, USB, and I2C integrated into the card. Zorro slots are limited in count and bandwidth. Keep the videos coming. Really enjoyed this, and the recent AGA MK-III Indivision videos - lighting a bit dark though.

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, if my BFG9060 had UW SCSI that would be incredible! The lighting was dark, eh? I will have to rewatch it on KZfaq and see if it looks different than the MP4 version. I am using a different encoder than I have in the past - maybe it is converting differently. Thanks!

@curiousottman 8 ай бұрын

The new A4091 is a really nice card. I have one in my a3000 with Zulu scsi just like Doug. It’s very fast. I get just over 6.2MB/s. A new a4091 rom was just released a few days ago (Nov 1, 2023). Version 42.26. I burned it to eprom and added it. It fixed a few hang bugs I was having. Seems to be more stable. I recommend everyone upgrade. Requires a 64k eprom (27c512) or you can erase and burn it to the eeprom in the a4091.

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

I am about to send some goodies for repair to the guy who sold me my A4091 - I will ask him if he can burn me the new ROM.

@DataHombre 8 ай бұрын

Best scsi implementation on the Amiga was UW-SCSI-3 on the Cyberstorm MK3/PPC card. I remember reaching about 40mb/s with a UW-SCSI-3 10k rpm drive attached, back in the day.

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

Oh my goodness. That is really, really fast! Do you still have that card???

@jameshenry8015 8 ай бұрын

I got about that with a Seagate ST34501W Cheetah on a CS PPC in an A4000T. I still have it, but it doesn't spin up. I have thought about about getting another one and trying a platter swap.

@db_37205 8 ай бұрын

30 - 32 MB/s, not 40 -

@DataHombre 8 ай бұрын

@@10MARC Unfortunately no. I purged most of my Amiga hardware, accessories, duplicates of everything, hoard pile :) , by 2012. I think to this day it is the fastest A3000/4000 based CPU accelerator and sports best features.

@DataHombre 8 ай бұрын

@@db_37205 You could be right. It's been a while. I remember having CSPPC working in tandem with Grex 4000D busboard, and also having DCE based CSPPC firmware on it that theoretically gave some further speed improvements to the overall A4000 operation, and I know it was blazing fast as far as Amiga terms are concerned. :)

@more.power. 8 ай бұрын

Thank you Doug bloody awesome. We are so blessed with our loved preasortic Amiga's Very few other 30 year old computers that you can buy new parts for in 2023. Cheers

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

It's amazing, really. The fact that several Amiga specific stores still exist and are the full time job of the owners is just incredible to me.

@KarlHamilton 8 ай бұрын

Brilliant video Doug. Would love one of these, but would need to get an A4000 again somehow. Wish I'd never sold mine.

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

Everybody needs an Amiga 4000! Thank goodness they are inexpensive and widely available! ;)

@cullmaster7361 8 ай бұрын

Thanks for the Vid Doug 👍🏻 Watched one not too far back that Chris Edwards did on this card. I’m very tempted as my Z3 Phase 5 FastLane is playing me up and have had to revert to a Z2 Oktagon 2008 SCSI card with the Oktapussy ROM. I recommend the Oktagon for the A2000, especially with the Oktapussy ROM and software off Aminet. On the A4K it means sub par speeds of 1.5 to just over 2MB/sec 😞 And it doesn’t have DMA… How do the A4091 compare say to a Elbox MKVII FastIDE Z3 card? Yeah I know the FastIDE can only do 4 internal devices. But it would be interesting 🤔 Cheers! 🍻

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

I was impressed with the performance of my Fastlane MKIV card on my Amiga 1200 for sure. The performance is quite good, but it also uses a lot more CPU cycles. So the demonstration I was doing copying a 70+ MB file from disk to RAM while running other apps close to full speed would not be quite as impressive. The Oktagon is good for a 2000, but certainly not an A4000!

@tekk9995 8 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing this! Didn't know that the SCSI has less strain on the CPU etc. Even more reason to buy it. I assume it works with BlueSCSI cards as well. Maybe do vid on Blue vs Zulu :)

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

Yep. Especially when the SCSI controller does DMA! But even non DMA SCSI should use substantially less CPU cycles. I have both BluSCSI and ZuluSCSI, and while both work, Zulu feels much more professionally designed. They are based on the same open source tech.

@slaapliedje 8 ай бұрын

It is one of many of the reasons why SCSI was always more expensive than IDE. Most of the control was done via CPU, and the controller for it was simple, and only needed to support a master / slave on each channel. SCSI, had much more to the controllers, with support for non-harddrive/optical drives as well, like scanners, ethernet, etc. SCSI, back in the day, was freaking awesome.

@paulmuadibatreid 8 ай бұрын

I would really love some solution to get SCSI on an Amiga 1200 using a modern accelerators. The Blizzard are just way to expansive right now.

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

About the only other way is to find a SquirrelSCSI for PCMCIA and I don't think those are bootable! A reasonable compromise are the IDE speedup hardware devices that can bring PIO 4 speeds to the A1200. Mine worked fine, but was physically too big to use with my Indivision MK2 so I had to take it out.

@Mrdibzahab 8 ай бұрын

SCSI was nice, but those required (thick) external cables were extremely expensive. I don't miss it at all :)

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

Oh sure USB is a lot more fun and useful today, but back in the 80's and 90's it was darn impressive. I hooked up my Syquest 44MB drive last night and the whining and squealing drive me nuts. We are surely spoiled today!

@slaapliedje 8 ай бұрын

You mention the early start up. Sure the Amiga had that. The ST (at least as of 2.06) had a nice thing with holding Alt if you wanted it to boot raw GEM/TOS, or hold Control to load off the hard drive, but skip the AUTO folder. Always thought that was useful, especially when you were playing around with new software.... the annoying thing was it didn't have scripts to determine boot order... it loaded based on age of file, so you had to use a program to tweak that to make sure some software loaded before others... not a great design...

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

Interesting. I never knew that about the ST. I think my 1040 only has 1.04 ROMS so I guess I don't have that feature.

@carbonara2144 8 ай бұрын

I have a scsi2SD in my A3000 and speeds are slower than my old original scsi drive had. Both are fast enough. I just don't see mentionable difference between those, except that SD solution is totally quiet, which I like. New controller might be nice but I don't see myself getting it unless A3000s own scsi quits working.

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

I assume you have the version 5.x SCSI2SD? That one is pretty slow, only maxing out at about 3 MBS and realistically only getting about 2.2 to 2.5. the version 6 is a lot faster, and the ZuluSCSI is faster still. I can get 3.5 - 3.8 MBS on my A3000 with ZuluSCSI. You won't see a lot faster than that. ZULUSCSI is easier to use in some ways, since you don't have to connect the entire device to a PC to configure it. Also, make sure you move your kickstart ROM to Fast RAM for a noticeable speed boost

@carbonara2144 8 ай бұрын

@@10MARC That's correct Doug. My old 2 Gb spinner gave over 4Mb/sec and the scsi2SD is a little over 2 Mb. When using the A3000 it does not feel slow to me. I have added plenty of buffers for it. Its great that talented people make new HW for us enthusiasts. Who knows, maybe some day I feel like tripling the scsi speed in my A3000! I'm in no hurry though. Right now I'm planning to get my A500 external floppy fixed. I think it needs a new belt to its motor.

@sircathal7505 8 ай бұрын

Have you tried activating the synchronized mode? I don't just mean the jumper on the card, because the mode must be activated in the RDB for each SCSI ID. My CyberSCSI on the Cyberstorm 060 had between 5 and 6 MB/s with the Zulu without it. But after I set the syncron bit in the RDB it also manages 9MB/s

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

Ok... So my jumper is set for Synchronous mode, and I have set it on my A3000 onboard SCSI with the SCSI PREFS utility... Is there another utility for use on the A4000/A4091 that I missed? Do tell!

@sircathal7505 8 ай бұрын

@@10MARC What you need is RDBFlags-1.3.lha from Aminet. This allows you to set directly in the RDB that the synchronous mode is activated. All three locations must be configured for this to work. 1) The jumper on the A4091, 2) synchronous must be activated in the Zulu config and 3) syncron must be activated in the RDB. I don't know why KZfaq didn't accept my comment a few days ago, so I'll try again now...

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

@@sircathal7505 Well that is just spiffy! 30+ years of owning an Amiga and I learn new stuff every day! I will check that program out. Thanks!

@KarlHamilton 8 ай бұрын

Was the SCSI implementation on the A4000T basically an A4091 integrated, or was it different altogether?

@10MARC 8 ай бұрын

I think it was a bit different. I will ask Chris Edwards which SCSI chip it has

@cdhaiki 8 ай бұрын

Same controller as the A4091 (53C710), but slightly different implementation as the 53C710 in the A4000T is directly on the 030 bus.