New MicroA1 owner asking questions

@Mikey_C

One theory was if you only used the primary on board ide bus, but not the second ide bus, both front & rear usb ports could be turned on. Another theory was if you commented out all the unused ide drivers in kickstart/layout, both front & rear usb ports could be turned on. I never tested these theories out myself.

I use both primary & secondary ide busses myself, so my rear usb ports are off, never used them anyway.

@Mikey_C

Hey Mikey, like I said above, the front USB ports never worked for me either until I removed the sii drivers from Kickstart. Now it's fine. Must be a resource conflict.

@Mikey_C
Quote:
The rear ports on my ?A1 work. Before I switched back to PS2 input I had my keyboard/mouse plugged into the rear ports. As I mentioned before, my system is more stable with PS2 inputs but the rear ports work. I use my ?A1 with USB printer plugged into the rear port and use the front ones for USB flash drives (memory sticks). Right now I'm using my SAM Flex but I reconnect my ?A1 periodically to keep the software up-to-date so that it is ready as a backup system.

Quote:
Comment out the following lines in the "SYS:Kicklayout" file by putting a ";" in front of them as shown:

;MODULE Kickstart/sii0680ide.device.kmod
;MODULE Kickstart/sii3112ide.device.kmod
;MODULE Kickstart/sii3512ide.device.kmod

Of course this assumes your not using any of these card in you uA1.
I've done it on my uA1 and all the USB ports are now enabled and working fine.

On another note, I've used a wirelss card in my uA1's PCI slot successfully and am currently using a Catweasel.

@ktadd

Would be nice if the OS installer commented out the unwanted modules to customise the install for the hardware. I've commented out quite a few in my Kicklayout file in an effort to shave some time of boot.

@ktadd

Thanks Matey I tried your fix - and it definately Works!

+1

@all

I have now tried the recommended EUAE versions but none of them seem stable enough. Even the one I used in old machine crashes with ISI error. Any ideas how to debug what could cause the instability?

bump!


@all
Can anyone please help me with the instability of EUAE when running on MicroA1? So far I have tried following EUAE versions:

SDL version from OS4Depot
version which comes with RunInUAE package
E-UAE 0.8.29-WIP3 SDL (this was the version I used without problems in A1 XE)

All of these crash at some point of the game (for example, WormsDC) with ISI error. The whole machine crashes, not just the emulation), forcing a reboot.

OS4 is the same version I used in XE (the A1 XE boot partition was copied to the uA1 boot disk). So all the system files (including SDL files) are same as in XE.

Can file system (SFS) cause instability ?n EUAE (old one used FFS)?

@GrumpyOldMan

You need to use euae with easygui (grab it here). That version also have some fixes in UAE itself (like crash on exit). So, you can try to use that one. I use it on my peg2 with aos4.1 update 2, and all the games works fine (worms, aladdin, super stardust, slamtilt pinball and so on), without DSIs.

@GrumpyOldMan

You tried RunInUAE? I mean, its the dogs doodahs, invisible emulation, you'd think by the way Chris H has set it up that your AmigaOS4 is running it natively, or like its built in.
Its absolutely superb and I whole heartedly recommend it.

Just double click an ADF or a HD image and the game loads as if it was an OS4 Application. No fuss, no hassle.

Brill.

@Mikey_C

Ok, I'll try it. Problem is that I already separately tried the uae version which comes with RunInUAE and it gives me similar fatal ISI crashes like the other versions I have tried (these include the EasyUAE version kas1e suggested)

I never encountered this kind of problems when running E-UAE on A1 XE. Maybe it is some other problem (even HW related) than actual E-UAE which causes the instability and ISI crashes. Sadly, it only seems to have a effect on E-UAE (no other programs have stability problems).

So I am now looking for suggestions for those other instability reasons - and of course possible remedies. All help is greatly appreciated. Things that come into my mind are:

Low graphics mem (running E-UAE from 16-bit WB)?
Wrong resolutions/screen depths?
Conflicting applications?
Faulty memory?
Memory leaks?

@GrumpyOldMan

As usual, I got here late.

Lots of good information has been gathered here. In the interest of making it just a little more complete:

The Micro boards DO have battery problems. Or at least some of them do. I have found that anything less than a very fresh battery causes instability for me.
A bit of research lately shows that a "BR2032" battery holds it's voltage better than the usual "CR2032". I have one on the way right now. If you have battery issues, it might be worth a try.

If you like to play with MIDI devices, the built-in joystick/MIDI port is useful for MIDI OUT only. the MIDI input problem was never solved. To get a working MIDI IN you can either put a soundblaster card into your open PCI slot (which also gives you a whole new sound board) or you can use any USB MIDI devices that follow the USB-MIDI "class compatible" interface. This is the preferred way to go, and you can have many MIDI ports active at once. More details are in the usbmidi.lha driver package on OS4Depot.

It was mentioned earlier, but you need to be cautious of the serial and USB pinouts on the micro motherboard. The page that #6 mentioned in post 7 is useful for that.

Have Fun,
LyleHaze

@GrumpyOldMan

I am using a MicroA1, it works fine here. You should not get any fatal crashes. I haven't had one yet.

Maybe a configuration problem? (btw I use a 3.1 Rom)

Mikey C