USB keyboards and Uboot - on a Sam460ex

Having some problems using keyboard with Uboot that is preventing me from... installing new uboot with better keyboard support

I am aware it's fussy about what keyboards it supports. I have some that it just fails to see at all.

But the others I have that let me press a key to get to the uboot setting or console... they work for the first keypress. Then immediately stop working again.

Do i just have to keep searching for an old keyboard that works? Or is there a trick to make these 'almost works' keyboards... work?

@NinjaCyborg
I have the exact same problem after updating to the latest Sam460ex firmware soon two months ago. Tried to buy a brand new keyboard as suggested by Acube also, but to no avail. Had some writing with Acube about it, and it ended up in me receiving an older firmware which *should* work.
But since it requires me to TFTP boot the Sam460 to start the firmware downgrade I still need a working keyboard. So that kind of blocks/contradicts itself.

So still waiting on a reply on second week on how to proceed from here. I'm stuck as you are :-/

Perhaps anyone with a working latest SAM460ex firmware with working keyboard can tell which keyboard they are using - although it is kind of a bummer to have to shell out for a new USB keyboard just because you updated the computer firmware.

Oh wow... I'm on old firmware trying to update to the latest one which I just bought..

@NinjaCyborg
Are you on one of the newer "grey background" versions?
I came from one of the old "black background" versions which worked fine for me.

@graff

it's possible to do the u-boot update/downgrade via serial terminal, connectiong a null modem cable to a PC, settings 115200 8N1.

In order to do the update from the serial terminal, under AmigaOS4.1, you need to enter before the following commands from the Shell:

nvsetenv stdin serial
nvsetenv stdout serial

and then reboot.

From this point, when back to u-boot, you can stop the boot sequence pressing 'q' key at the countdown, then enter the commands to upgrade/downgrade u-boot via TFTP.

When finished, reboot to AmigaOS4.1 and from Shell enter:

nvsetenv stdin usbkbd
nvsetenv stdout vga

to restore the original settings.

Hope this helps

@m3x
Awesome, thanks!
I'll try this out as soon as I have some spare hours for setting it up!

i tried many times to use a serial to USB cable to connect the only other machine i have but it never worked.

@NinjaCyborg

must be null modem cable, not a straight through Cable.

use putty on the PC.

to open a serial shell on AmigaOS

you can wrote the folling in shell:

newshell aux:

i have that in my user-startup, so always have a shell, I can access the computer, if the gfx has locked up.
useful for debuging.

Not sure if AmigaOS support USB2SER addapters, but my PC does.
and so I use the onboard serial port header on my AmigaONE.

Yes I know. i have null modem to USB. Plug the USB end into windows laptop. Never works.

@NinjaCyborg
Still something wrong then, it should work if: cable correct one and working (check it firstly, double check, that it not casuall null modem from shop - they call it null modem, but they not null modem ones, you need to fix them). Then be 100% sure you setup correctly putty. I wrote article about long ago with all steps and explains, checked that one ? : https://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/Advanced_Serial_Debugging_Guide

And if you still sure you made all alright and correctly, and this not work, then your serial port died. But i never heard of any burned serial port on any NG hardware, so still: double recheck cable and puttys settings (if putty settings for serial baud and co are wrong, also nothing will show up)

@kas1e

Thanks and I used your guide first time around when i spent many hours trying to make it work. I know very well how to use putty but no luck.

Anyway the root cause of the issue is not that, the root cause is the keyboard problem. I don't understand how the keypress can work to stop the boot sequence, take me to console, but then no more keypresses work. I had that with 3 different keyboards including the dumbest one i could find with no hub or compound features.

@LiveForIt

Quote:

Great tip! Thanks. I'll try this one. I've got that one Workbench which almost always freezes on boot so be good to "talk" to it. I'm sure WaitTOF() is going dead, after writing some test code, but be good to command it after it locks up since the system is still ticking away.

Quote:

That's a good question. I suspect not but OS4 does have some generic drivers for devices like floppy. You know I don't even think I thought of testing this. Or didn't bother. It's just I'm always going from Amiga machine to terminal so didn't need it.

@Hypex

Well the graphics looks it’s not normally because of WaitTOF,
but its often a bug inside a bitmap lock()/unlock() peer or intuition lock()/unlock(). Can be other things as well,
like Layers lock()/unlock(), or Screen lock()/unlock().

@m3x

The TFPT firmware downgrade worked a charm with serial cable from PC as stdin and stdout in UBoot.
Thanks for the tip!

And with the older firmware back in my SAM460ex my USB keyboards are working again in UBoot .
So it seems I have to stay on the old firmware for now. But good thing is I didn't really need it. I mostly wanted to keep up-to-date and support the maintenance work.
So next update, perhaps

At any rate, thanks for keeping the ball rolling!

@LiveForIt

In this case there is some issue with interrupts and compositing. I haven't truly got over the Update 2 notfix which introduced the rare but common on my system bug. It's a known issue with Sam 460 and R7 250 as well as RX driver. But my X1000 and R7 250 is apparently uncommon configuration. I've read about some issue with a write back function so could be an OLAND chipset glitch that rears its head.

I ended up testing WaitTOF() with a patch to print calls to serial. On a freeze compose.task is left hanging on WaitTOF(). So there is some interrupt signal missed somewhere. In my case the system is locked up but was still functional internally. Background tasks pinging out to serial still work. So the freeze looks like a graphics lock and not full hardware lock up.

@NinjaCyborg

I take it you never got serial working? Does the Sam have two serial ports and you got nothing out of both? I did set up a terminal in Windows but forgot about Putty so looked for a terminal on the MS store and was shocked how bad they were. The Amiga blessed us with good free software but in Windows, the most popular OS in the world, free software is crap!

I also set it up in Linux but it's a pain as it won't work without root. So you need to stuff around. Better software than I found on Windows but won't work out of the box.

However, my main terminal is an old PowerBook G4 with a serial to USB adapter. Running ZTerm as terminal which works fine for my usage. But, because of the adapter, it is quirky. If I leave it all plugged in and shut the lid it will lose connection on wake. So I need to quit ZTerm and reload. I can leave adapter plugged in. But I find I need to the adapter plugged in first and then load in the driver from terminal software. I don't recall if Windows is just as quirky with these adapters.

@HypexQuote:

For me works best TeraTerm on windows. Putty not bad, is powerful ( excellent for ssh ) but quite complex for serial. TeraTerm is mainly for serial connection ( and partially ssh ), is very easy to setup can send special characters like break easily. With AmigaOS / MorphOS I am using 68k Term

I agree, than USB-serial adapters sometimes picky. For me works only one from two. Allways better pure serial.
My workstation has one on motherboard. But today is simplest to buy PCIe serial card, or use cheap old notebook with serial.

And it is good to double check if used cable is null-modem ( with crossed lines ) and shut-off RTS/CTS control.