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## DATE: 16/Sep/1992 21:58:49
## AUTHOR: Giuliano C. Peritore
## AMIGADEVNO: ETI020
## OBJECT: Hypertext for SCRAMmer 37.3b
## VERSION: 1.1
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
SCRAMmer 37.3b Guide 1.1 - Semptember, 16th 1992
Documentation Index
Disclaimer
Beware !
Notes
Copyright
Developers
Trademarks
Introduction
Running methods
The gadgets
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer
Disclaimer
The author has no responsibilities for incidents or damages
that may result from the correct or incorrect use of this program.
If you use it you are on your own risk.
Particular attention has anyway been used during the develo-
ping process. The program has also passed perfectly the testing
with Enforcer and MungWall .
This application has been tested on an Amiga 3000, 25 MHz, 136
MB HD, 2+4 MB RAM, with a Janus XT Bridgeboard, under AmigaOS 2.04
and 2.1. It has been designed to work on higher ended Amigas too.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Beware !
Beware !
This program performs some hardware related operations which
may affect the safety of your data and the integrity of your sys-
tem. When you are about to click over a Gadget, think again, es-
pecially if you are not a pretty much experienced user.
Here are some hints:
1. Avoid floppy and hard disk activity while you are using SCRAM-
mer until you have got a good experience. You are advised.
2. The modification of system parameters allowed by SCRAmer is not
well accepted by Commodore. I made this program to have an in-
vestigation tool by which I could examine my system and by
which I could change parameters to get speed gains. I had NO
problems with my A3000. Remember anyway that if Commodore says
"Don't do it" there is a valid reason. You are advised. (Look
in TheGadgets/Ramsey & Gary)
3. SCRAM operations like Test SCRAM, and Page Detect, will proba-
bly hang the system if used with non Static Column RAM ZIPs,
or with slow RAMs on A3000s. You'll have to reboot. You are
advised.
4. RAM checking is very critical and may cause a lot of trouble to
time-critical activities.
5. Turning off Write Allocate will cause trouble.
6. Since there is no way (I suppose) to know if BERR or DSACK is
the default timeout, SCRAMmer will set BERR on startup.
7. Read instructions carefully.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
Notes
1. Owing to its particular functions this program requires for its
complete functionality an A3000 (or more) with its 68030 (or
more) CPU and its custom chips. Static Column ZIPs are recom-
mended but not needed.
2. The manipulation of special system parameters should be done
through the operating system. I've done it when possible.
3. Source code has not been included to avoid too many people know
this tricks and make software that changes special modes and so
affects future compatibility and system reliability.
4. You may wander why there are a lot of operations very dangero-
us in this application. This happens because many features are
not correctly supported now but I always hope on future better
Amigas. For example I think that the owner of a 68040 with Co-
pyBack enabled may safely turn off Write Allocation. Other to-
ols are useful for testing and investigation purposes.
5. Please send me your full configuration and RAM speeds.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright
Copyright
SCRAMmer V37.3b is copyrighted © by: Giuliano C. Peritore
Via Amaseno, 6
04100 Latina - ITALY
Phone: (+39) 773 491692
E-Mail: mc6040@mclink.it
This program may be distributed freely as long as this archive
and the copyright notices remain intact. The program may not be
modified, nor compressed in an executable form (owing to 68040 in-
compatibilities with some crunchers). No profit may be gained
from its distribution without written permission of the author.
If the reports of the program or informations derived from its
use are used anywhere please state that they are SCRAMmer results
and specify SCRAMmer version. Software and Hardware companies may
include this program on their disks, CDs, and tapes.
Explicit permission is given to Fred Fish to include this
software in his disks. Thank you Fred.
Donations of software, hardware, money, postcards, ecc. are
very welcomed togheter with comments, suggestions, bug reports,
infos, and ideas of new features. Big donations will provide you
newer versions of SCRAMmer.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Developers
Developers
If you are not an Italian, nor an English or American user, it
is a *VERY* good idea to take the file SCRAMmer, translate all the
strings contained therein and send me the translated file. This
will provide users much more localization.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Trademarks
Trademarks
Amiga is a registered trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
Amiga 3000 is a trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
A3000 is a trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
Workbench is a trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
Introduction
The idea of writing SCRAMmer prompted suddendly while I was
following a debate on A3000 RAM chips on MCLink . I want to thank
Paolo Baliano, Stefano Iacus, Massimiliano Marras, Baldassarre
Profeta and Andrea Suatoni for allowing this debate.
Since there are a lot of tricks to get more performance from
an Amiga and that there are a lot of tools to do this, perhaps too
many ones, I decided to write a unique testing and setting tool
to allow users to set crucial system parameters and test their RAM
to see speed improvements. SCRAMmer is also a very powerful tool
to know much more about your wonderful A3000.
This decision led to a program, SCRAMmer V37.0, and its suc-
cessor, SCRAMmer V37.2, which were completely fruit of my mind
since I got only ideas from other programs, but I recoded every-
thing from scratch adding many and many new features togheter with
AmigaOS 2.04/2.1 full support and a consistent and font-sensitive
user interface.
Owing to the large number of people who spoke about SCRAMmer
and to the diffusion capability of worldwide networks I hoped to
get a lot of support from users. This was not the case. I was
afraid that SCRAMmer V37.2 was the LAST SCRAMmer. But some user
support received from Baldassarre Profeta, Massimiliano Marras,
Alfonso Messeri, Hirsch and Wolf and Nicola Salmoria (thanks all)
pushed me to write the last SCRAMmer. Moreover I also had news by
some people who uses SCRAMmer in game development and putting ani-
mations on tape, because special modes allow smoother playback.
So SCRAMmer 37.3 was born. But time passes and togheter with
new functions SCRAMmer has been localized and amigaguided.
I hope you enjoy it.
NOTE: The Page Mode is very unpredictable. Sometimes it may be a
win, sometimes a loose. Its efficiency depends from the ap-
plications. So better test results doesn't always mean bet-
ter rendering times. In most cases Page Mode is faster, in
others it may slow your processing a bit. Test !
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Running Methods
Running Methods
SCRAMmer may be launched from Workbench of from the Shell. It
accepts a wide variety of ToolTypes and Command Line Arguments.
Here is a list:
NOGUI - Don't build up the gui and exit gracefully
ICONIFY - Put an AppIcon on Workbench (bypasses NOGUI)
PUBSCREEN - Specify public screen to open on, if available
DATACACHE - Cache data
NODATACACHE - Don't cache data
DATABURST - Use data burst mode
NODATABURST - Don't use data burst mode
DATAFREEZE - Freeze data cache
NODATAFREEZE - Free data cache
INSTCACHE - Cache instructions
NOINSTCACHE - Don't cache instructions
INSTBURST - Use instruction burst mode
NOINSTBURST - Don't use instruction burst mode
INSTFREEZE - Freeze instruction cache
NOINSTFREEZE - Free instruction cache
VBRFAST - Transfer vectors in FAST memory
VBRCHIP - Trasnfer vectors in CHIP memory
COPYBACK - Turn on Copyback mode
NOCOPYBACK - Turn off Copyback mode
WRITEALLOCATE - Turn on Write Allocation
NOWRITEALLOCATE - Turn off Write Allocation
PAGEDETECT - Switch on Page Detect Mode (Be careful with
NOPAGEDETECT - Switch off page Detect Mode $0d Ramseys)
BURST - Select Burst Mode
NOBURST - Unselect Burst Mode
WRAP - Turn on Wrap Mode
NOWRAP - Turn off Wrap Mode
BERRTIMEOUT - Select BERR timeout
DSACKTIMEOUT - Select DSACK timeout
KBRSTENON - Enable KBRSTEN (Don't use on normal $00 Gary)
KBRSTENOFF - Disable KBRSTEN (Don't use on normal $00 Gary)
You can run SCRAMmer clicking on its icon (check the ToolType)
or calling it from the Shell. You can put it in your WBStartup
drawer (may be with tooltype ICONIFY), or you can use it in your
user-startup to turn special modes on at every reboot cycle.
When exiting from SCRAMmer a requester will pop up. It allows
to cancel, to exit and to put SCRAMmer's AppIcon on the Workbench
screen.
IMPORTANT NOTES !!
Don't forget to copy with SCRAMmer the following files if you
don't want to see annoying requesters:
Shell & user-startup & WB users:
SCRAMmer - In any directory
SCRAMmer.info - In the same directory
SCRAMmer.guide - In the same directory or in AGuide's path
catalogs/#? ALL - In the same directory or in LOCALE:
WBStartup users:
SCRAMmer - In WBStartup drawer
SCRAMmer.info - In WBStartup drawer
SCRAMmer.guide - In AmigaGuide's path (Use PathEditor)
catalogs/#? ALL - In LOCALE:
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
TheGadgets
The Gadgets
Motherboard info Ramsey & Gary
System RAM info CPU settings
SCSI info Battmem Bits
RAM Tests Battclock
Help About SCRAMmer
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Motherboard info window
Motherboard info window
It is the first informative window of SCRAMmer. It shows many
system carachteristics. First are shown which CPU and FPU are
installed on your motherboard. This is an important information,
since it allows to see if the software recognizes the processors
correctly and takes advantages from them. It is also important
because it can be used to check if the special 68040 mathematical
library has been loaded.
There are also the main frequencies of the system. The VBlank
frequency is the refresh rate of your monitor. On a PAL machine
in a PAL country or on an NTSC machine in a NTSC country it should
match the Power Supply frequency, which is the frequency of the AC
of your wall's outlet. The last is E-Clock, which is the frequen-
cy which is used by CIA timers and audio DMA.
Then there are informations about the RAMs installed on your
motherboard. Their size and refresh rate are indicated. They are
very useful infos which may avoid the opening of your A3000.
In the bottom of the window there is the section of the custom
chips. For every chip is shown the name, its type, its code and
what it does. The code field is very important because newer
chips may have codes unknown to SCRAMmer, so it would have been
stupid to write 'unknown chip' and not its code (for example $43),
while may be you know (and not SCRAMmer) that $43 stands for
'Enhanced SECAM Agnus !!!'.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
System RAM Info
System RAM Info
This is the second informative window of SCRAMmer and shows,
for every kind of memory, the total amount, the unallocated space,
and the size of the maximum free segment. Note that 512k are not
reported when your Kickstart is in RAM.
There are six kinds of memory. The first kind is 'Any', which
means every kind of memory. It is a sort of global pool. The se-
cond is 'Chip', which is memory which can be accessed by DMA and
by the custom chips. The third kind is 'Fast' which is the
fastest because it is accessed only by the processor. The fourth
kind is 'Public' which refers to shared memory, which will allow
task intercommunication in order to support future Virtual Memory
systems. The fifth kind is 'Local', which indicates the memory
installed directly on your motherboard. The sixth and last kind
is '24BitDMA', which is used to refer to DMAble memory within the
24 bit range, useful to old controllers and cards.
In the bottom of the window there is a ListView gadget, which
shows up the memory zones linked in your system. Every board
should have one entry. Normally there are two entries: the chip
memory and the expansion memory. This informations are useful to
identify which board own some memory addresses, and to verify that
boards are properly recognized.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
SCSI Info
SCSI Info
This window shows which units are connected to your local SCSI
bus, their size (if available) and their names. It is very use-
ful to identify the IDs of your units and their exact sizes.
The SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) is a standard in-
terface protocol to connect peripherals, especially hard disk dri-
ves and mass storage devices, such as CDROMS, tape drives, ecc. to
computers. It may also be used to connect Scanners, Printers,
DATs, and WORMs.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
RAM Tests
RAM Tests
Here you can investigate about your RAM. Your motherboard has
four banks, which may contain 16 or 4 MB. The window shows the
sizes of the banks and their address. You can use the first gad-
get, 'SCRAM Test', to check if any of your memory banks is popula-
ted by Static Column RAM. Beware, because if you have ANY bank
filled with NON-SCRAM chips your system will probably crash. If
any bank is empty there will be no problems. Empty sockets are
correctly managed. I hope you have SCRAM memory.
Now that you have SCRAMmer you would like to know if special
modes give you better performance. So through the second gadget,
'Speed Test' you can test the speed of your RAMs. To make compa-
risons note that my 25 MHz A3000, filled with 80ns SCRAM ZIPs, in
NTSC mode gives me a Read factor of 18517-9uS and a Write factor
of 17390-3uS. Higher values mean slower RAM.
The speed test disables interrupts and DMA and performs two
cycles, one reading from and one writing to memory. The read and
write operations consist in 8192 cycles of four longword aligned
memory accesses followed by 8192 odd aligned longword memory ac-
cesses grouped with two odd aligned byte accesses each. This test
should be enough and very general.
There is now the third and last gadget, 'RAM Check'. It al-
lows you to check if all your ZIPs and DIPs are OK, and, if there
are some broken chips their socket ID will be reported. If no re-
quest appears then your RAM is ok. Don't worry about the disap-
pearance of the display when testing Chip memory. The test takes
slight more than one second per chip, so you have to wait slight
less a minute to test all the RAM of a 18 MB 25 MHz Amiga.
Note that if your system has Kickstart in RAM then some chips
may be not tested, or if your MMU locks some memory from write the
test may consider broken good chips.
The reported chip IDs are in the form Uxxxy, where xxx is the
chip number and y may be:
D - DIP (Dual in line package)
Z - ZIP (Zig Zag in line package)
- - ZIP *or* DIP
If your bad chip is within the range U259-U266 then I regret
since you have hard problems and need a Commodore authorized repa-
ir center. This because chips U259D-U266D are soldered onto the
motherboard.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Help
Help
This gadget brings up the Amiga hypertext system, called Ami-
gaguide (tm) and calls this document.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ramsey & Gary Window
Ramsey & Gary window
The gadgets in this window allow the control of the special
functions that may be performed by Gary and Ramsey. Through the
gadgets in this window you can advantage from the presence of
SCRAM chips, activating the Page Mode , which improves linear
memory access times. You can activate the Burst Mode , which al-
lows the CPU to fill its cache very efficiently, or you can adjust
the Wrap Mode , which, depending on the application will optimize
burst transfers.
The Page Mode is a special technique which improves linear me-
mory access times leaving the current page open until a different
page is required. This avoids page openings and closing at every
memory access. But a bug in $0d Ramseys prevents this mode to be
used safely. Here's sentences from messages appeared on Usenet in
area comp.sys.amiga written by Michael Sinz and Dave Haynie.
...due to a bug in RAMSEY (0d), the DRAM timing messes up when
this mode is used in cunjunction with hard disk activity. So dont
use it... ...The place that Ramsey fails in page-detect mode
causes a violatioin of a critical 80ns DRAM parameter by about 20
ns. If you have 60ns DRAM, or just get lucky with 80ns DRAM
(perhaps on a nice cool day), you won't see this failure. Or you
will only see it every million bytes or so. Which should be a
warning that it's never safe to use, since you don't know just
when it' causing a problem. The lucky ones get it failing all the
time, so they aren't tempted to try and use it... ...The mode
set by the ROM *does* utilize the SCRAM chips, just not the Page
Mode. It is Page Mode that does not work with DMA from the SCSI
hardware. (It may work sometimes as the problem has to do with
timing of some signals to the RAM chips and some RAM chips can
handle the timing and others can not and others sometimes can...
...The mode set by the OS sets the *right* mode for overall best
performance...
Moreover you can enable/disable the bus timeout feature, which
normally terminates accesses to non existent memory without han-
ging the system. You can also select to use BERR or DSACK time-
outs. DSACK is quicker. Beware of disabling timeout. If you di-
sable it then a single access to non existent memory will hang the
system. It may be anyway useful to detect bugs (references to
wrong memory zones) or to debug hardware plug in cards, to check
if they appear correctly in their addresses.
The last gadget is KBRSTEN, which allows to enable or disable
the keyboard reset feature allowed by enhanced Garies.
*IMPORTANT* The A3000 Ramsey chip (Code $0D) doesn't support the
Page Mode correctly. But sometimes it seems to work.
*IMPORTANT* The A3000 Gary chip (Code $00) doesn't support the
KBRSTEN feature. It affects timeout settings.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
CPU Settings
CPU Settings
There are a lot of adjustable parameters regarding the CPU.
They are data and instruction caches, which speed up the software
reducing memory accesses, the WriteAllocate and the Copyback
modes (provided also on the 68040), and the existence of the VBR
register. To reach the maximum speed you should enable caches,
bursts, Copyback, (I suppose) disable Write Allocate and move your
VBR to Fast memory.
Remember anyway that Write Allocate causes a lot of problems
on standard A3000s when disabled, that Copyback may cause trouble
to bad written programs, togheter with caches and VBR. You are ad-
vised.
The Copyback is a special feature of the cache of the 68040
which allows data to be written only in the cache delaying until
possible its path to system memory. This enhances the performance
a lot.
The VBR is the Vector Base Register. It is the interrupt ta-
ble of the CPU. Transferring it in Fast RAM will improve system
throughput speeding up interrupt driven operations such as serial
downloads, vblank processing and so on. It will not improve tests
results because interrupts are disabled during the RAM Speed test.
Moreover many old games may have problems, because they expect to
find the table in the hard coded position of the 68000:0x00000000.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Battmem Bits
Battmem Bits
This is the gadget which pops up the window which controls the
battery backed up memory of your Amiga. It allows you to set the
default timeout for SCSI devices, since some Sea.ate and Max.or
hard disks seem to have very long power up sequences. Then there
is the LUN gadget, which controls if the booting process should
test only one unit or all LUNs (Logical Unit Numbers) connected to
a single SCSI address. Testing all LUNs on controllers which
doesn't support them may cause a little trouble. See the RKM ma-
nuals. The third gadget allows to enable (or disable) synchronous
SCSI transfers, which may improve disk performance. Then there is
the fourth (and most dangerous gadget), the HostID. It is used to
specify which Hard Disk unit should be used in your computer
booting sequence. You can select units 0-6 or disable the boot
from HD. If you disable the boot be *sure* to have a copy of
SCRAMmer on floppy disks or it will be *VERY HARD* to reset bat-
tmem to a proper value.
The last part of the window shows the 'Amnesias'. If the bat-
tery backed RAM looses its contents it will be reported. You can
anyway make the RAM remember of forget. Don't play !
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Battclock
Battclock
This gadget brings up a window which allows you to control the
battclock of your Amiga. It shows the current settings, which are
the decoded date and time and the number of seconds since Jan1978.
I didn't add a date setting tool, since there is the preferences
editor for this purpose, but I provided a reset gadget which
should reset malfunctioning clocks to Jan 1978. Try this if you
have problems with your clock.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
About
About
What can I say about this gadget ? It brings up a little win-
dow which remembers you my name and that you MUST send me reports,
comments, presents and suggestions. In other words I want user
feedback (if possible). Bye.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
Enforcer
Enforcer
Enforcer is a very useful debugger supported by CATS, writ-
ten by Bryce Nesbitt.
MungWall
MungWall
MungWall is a debugging tool useful to find problems with me-
mory. Its use is encouraged by CATS. It was written by Ewout
Walraven and is based on Memmung, written by Bryce Nesbitt and
Memwall, written by Randell Jesupp.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
SCRAM
What is SCRAM
SCRAM is an acronym for "Static Column Random Access Memory".
It is called so because it can be read specifying one row and then
reading the whole column without readdressing the row, like other
RAMs. The Amiga can take advantage from this kind of RAM because
it can speed up MC68030 burst cycles (Burst Mode), and speed up
memory access times leaving the current column 'open' for linear
memory access (Page Mode).
It is obvious that Amigas should use Static Column RAMs. You
can check if you have SCRAMs via the SCRAMmer program or comparing
the numbers of your ZIPs with the following list:
Static Column RAM 1M x 4 Non Static Column RAM 1Mx4
------------------------ --------------------------
Oki MSM514402 Hitachi HM514400
Toshiba TC514402 Nec uPD424400
Oki MSM514400
Toshiba TC514400
Static Column RAM 256K x 4 Non Static Column RAM 256K x 4
-------------------------- ------------------------------
Hitachi HM514258 Hitachi HM514256
Motorola MCM514258 Nec uPD424256
Nec uPD424258 Oki MSM514256
Oki MSM514258 Samsung KM44C256AZ
Sharp LH 64258 Toshiba TC514256
Texas TMS44C258
Toshiba TC514258
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
CPU
What is the CPU
The CPU is the Central Processing Unit of your computer. Amiga
computers use the Motorola 680x0 family ranging from the MC68000
running at 7 MHz used in A1000s, A500s and A2000s to 16 and 25 MHz
MS68030s used in A3000s. Some third party vendors sell fast acce-
lerators based on the MC68040.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
FPU
What is the FPU
The FPU is the Floating Point Unit of your computer. While low
end Amigas, such as A1000, A500 and A2000 doesn't sport an FPU,
using software mathematical code, the new A3000s and about all the
accelerators use an MC68881 or MC68882, generally clocked at 25
MHz. Note that the MC68040 has a built in integer FPU, while uses
software routines to emulate the trascendental math operations of
the MC68882 and MC68881.
##--------------------------------------------------------------------
MCLink
What's MCLINK ?
MCLink is the interactive telematic magazine conceived by Techni-
media, the same editor of MC Microcomputer, the computer magazi-
ne which sells the highest number of copies in Italy.
There are public and private Mailboxes and Fileboxes and a lot of
public conferences. Four are about the Amiga® Computers.
Phone numbers:
+39 6 4180660 1200-9600 MNP5 V42bis
+39 6 4180440 300/1200/2400
NUA ITAPAC: 26500140
NUA EasyWay: 26500259
Copyright (c) Giuliano Peritore - Contacts