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cip060	2 Marzo 2014 16:06:48

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nel file read me non c'e' scritto come rendere permanente al boot il comando...

ACAtune V1.7 readme - thanks for actually reading this.
date: september 25th, 2012

1. LEGAL DISCLAIMER

This software is copyrighted by its respective owner and may not be
modified in any form. By using this software, the user agrees that the
authors and Individual Computers GmbH are not responsible and can not be
held liable for any kind of problems and damage which may and can be caused
by the use of this software. Names and trademarks are the property of
their respective owners. Individual Computers is not affiliated with these
owners. Use at your own risk!

2. What it does

ACATune is a commandline tool written for the Amiga Classic Accelerator
(ACA) series of turboboards from Individual Computers. Its purpose is to
configure each card by using a range of options to enable various
functions, which are not active on power-up. By default, every ACA
turboboard starts with basic functionality on a cold start in order to boot
the Amiga. Depending on the Amiga model and accelerator, ACATune is
necessary to activate full operation of the card. Other options are
available to tweak performance related issues in order to unleash the full
power available. The most popular feature is the Maprom function, which
allows the execution of the operating system from Fast-Ram, speeding up the
whole system considerably.

3. Installation

Use your favourite file manager or a shell command to copy ACAtune to the
C: directory of your boot partition. Now open a shell and type:

ACATune -status

After pressing ENTER, you should get a complete list of all features, their
current status and, most importantly, the type of accelator you are using.
If the tool suceeded in identifying the installed ACA card, then you may
proceed now by adding it to your startup-sequence, described later in this
document.

If the tool failed to recognize the card, turn off your Amiga and re-check
the physical installation of the card. Is the card properly seated? Does
it sit firm and tight on its designated place? Do you have the latest
version of ACATune installed which actually supports your card?

If nothing helps, please contact your reseller for technical support. In
the rare case that the technicians of zour reseller don't find a solution,
they will forward your case directly to Individual Computers. Please
understand that we can only answer direct support questions if they have
been forwarded by your reseller.
There have been misunderstandings in the past, because employees of
resellers and Indivisual Computers (technicians, developers, programmers)
are active in Amiga-forums. However, these activities are pure hobby
activities - these people care for the Amiga just like you do. Please
understand that none of the internet-forums is a support forum for our
products. The official support goes through your reseller only.

4. How to use the tool

As a command-line tool, ACATune can and should be executed on every start
by adding it to the startup-sequence. It is important to note that in
order to ensure proper operation, ACATune must be the first program being
started from startup-sequence. Please note that programs that are
installed later may also put themselves in the first line of the
startup-sequence, pushing ACAtune further down (a popular example is the
Poseidon USB stack). In such cases, you need to edit the startup-sequence
manually in order to have ACATune at the top of your startup-sequence
again.

After succesful installation of ACATune, you can configure your system
using a range of options and arguments, setting the operating mode of the
card. Options and arguments are activated in the following manner:

ACATune -<option> <argument> (-<option> <argument>) >NIL:

Note that the last part (>NIL

is necessary so that ACATune is being
executed quietly, without opening the Workbench screen prematurely. Also
note that all option names and parameter names are case-sensitive. That
means you need to write "status", but not "Status" or "STATUS", as ACAtune
would not recognize the option in that spelling.

5. Available options

The following is a list of available options in ACATune. Please note that
not all ACA cards support all options. Especially new cards have been
cleaned from options that make the system instable.

5.1 maprom

Using the Maprom function, you can copy the Amiga operating system to the
on-board memory of your accelerator card, speeding up overall system
performance significantly. Note that for ACA630 and ACA1230 cards, ACATune
needs to allocate the necessary memory at a specific position, which is why
this feature should be enabled as early as possible, so that no other task
can take this memory. Owners of an ACA1231 can disregard this warning, as
the maprom memory is always kept reserved and never marked as "free" for
any other program to use. On ACA630 and AC1230 cards, this feature will
deduct 1MB of memory, regardless of the actual ROM size that you have
specified. Examples:

ACATune -maprom *

Using one asterisk, ACATune will copy the internal 512KB ROM into Fast-Ram.
This feature can be used without rebooting the system and will only be
activated if the Amiga was booted from the internal ROM.

ACATune -maprom **

Using two asterisks, ACATune will copy 1MB internal ROM memory to Fast-Ram.
Otherwise, it works the same as the 512KB option.

ACATune -maprom <romfile>

In addition to using the internal ROM, you can load any 256KB, 512KB or 1MB
romfile into Fast-Ram and use it as operating system. Just specify the
name of the romfile, including the full path, and ACATune will attempt to
load and execute it immediately. After loading the file, the screen will
flash shortly and your computer will be rebooted using the new operating
system.

ACATune -maprom off

To disable the Maprom function, you can specify the "off" parameter, which
re-enables execution of the actual ROM chips in your computer. ACATune
will reboot the computer immediately, making the 1MB of Fast-Ram available
to the system for ACA630 and ACA1230 users.

ACAtune -maprom * p

With Kickstart in fastmem, the computer starts extremely fast. Sometimes
so fast that the Gayle chip is not yet out of reset state - it will miss
some accesses. As a result, the computer does not find a harddisk and
comes up with the "insert disk" screen, waiting for a bootable disk to be
inserted. By adding the "p" option to your maprom command line, ACAtune
will attempt to patch the kickstart and insert a short waiting period on
every reset. This will give the Gayle chip and harddrives enough time to
wake up from reset condition and go into normal operation. The screen is
turned light brown during the waiting period.

5.2 setc0mem

In order to enhance compatibility with old programs, ACATune allows
enabling a special kind of memory configuration, which resembles an Amiga
500 with a memory expansion. Back in the old days, programmers did not
care much about different hardware and software configurations, the result
being that old programs, especially games, expect to find memory at a
specific position in the 24 Bit address range of the 68000. On modern
Amigas, which usually map their memory in the upper 32 Bit address range,
those programs will either fail to recognize the memory, or crash, because
the operating system dared to place system structures at a different place
the program expects. Using this option in combination with maprom and
setchipmem options allows you to recreate the most popular memory
configurations from the old days. With compatibility never affected in a
negative way, we decided to have this option always enabled on ACA1231,
ACA1232, ACA1220 and ACA620 cards with 1MByte available in that space.
Examples:

ACATune -setc0mem 512

By passing "512" as argument, a 512KB memory expansion is simulated.
ACATune will reboot the computer immediately. Note that due to the
hardware design of the ACA accelerators, enabling this option takes away
2MB of Fast-Ram. When the maprom function is active, the amount of
Fast-Ram being used is 1MB.

ACATune -setc0mem 1024

By passing "1024" as argument, a 1MB memory expansion is simulated. The
rest works the same as the "512" option.

ACATune -setc0mem off

By passing "off" as argument, the memory expansion is disabled. ACATune
will reboot the computer immediately, making the 2MB available as Fast-Ram
again.

5.3 setchipmem

In order to enhance compatibility with old programs, ACATune allows
limiting the Chip-Ram to a specific size. Back in the old days,
programmers did not care much about different hardware and software
configurations, the result being that old programs, especially games,
expect to find memory and system structures at specific positions. On
modern Amigas, those programs may not work, because, due to the increased
Chip-Ram, the operating system dares to put system structures at different
places the program expects. Using this option in combination with the
maprom and setc0mem options allows you to recreate the most popular memory
configurations from the old days. Examples:

ACATune -setchipmem 512

By passing the argument "512", the amount of Chip-Ram is limited to 512KB.
ACATune will reboot the computer immediately.

ACATune -setchipmem 1024

By passing the argument "1024", the amount of Chip-Ram is limited to
1024KB. ACATune will reboot the computer immediately.

ACATune -setchipmem 2048

By passing the argument "2048", the amount of Chip-Ram is limited to
2048KB. ACATune will reboot the computer immediately.

This option is only available for ACA1230 and ACA630. It is not available
on later accelerators.

5.3 fastmem

With this option, you can enable and disable all on-board Fast-Ram. It can
also be used to decrease the speed of the system, since the CPU is forced
to execute all code from Chip-Ram. Note that this option has no effect on
the maprom and setc0mem settings. Examples:

ACATune -fastmem off

By passing the argument "off", Fast-Ram is disabled and the computer is
rebooted immediately.

ACATune -fastmem on

By passing the argument "on", Fast-Ram is enabled and the computer is
rebooted immediately.

This option is only available for ACA1230 and ACA630. It is not available
on later accelerators.

5.4 chipcache

On most Amiga accelerator boards, accesses to Chip-Ram either disable the
CPU caches completely, or only allow instructions, but not data to be
cached. The reason for this are DMA operations performed by the chipset,
altering data which may still reside in the CPU data cache. The result is
lack of consistency which may compromise system stability. On the other
hand, performance might be gained in some cases when enabling the data
cache on Chip-Ram operations, which can be accomplished with this option.
Be careful though, as there is always the danger that data might get
corrupted and ultimately lost. Examples:

ACATune -chipcache on

By passing the argument "on", the data cache is enabled during Chip-Ram
operations.

ACATune -chipcache off

By passing the argument "off", the data cache is disabled during Chip-Ram
operations (recommended setting).

This option is only available for ACA1230 and ACA630. It is not available
on later accelerators.

5.5 z2cache

On the Amiga, the term "Zorro II" usually refers to a memory area, which is
8 MB in size and where a multitude of expansions may have their resources
mapped, which is, in most cases, memory. Additionally, on Amiga 600 and
1200 computers, this area is also occupied by PCMCIA memory expansions. In
order to speed up memory operations in this area, you can activate the CPU
caches using this option. Examples:

ACATune -z2cache on

By passing the argument "on", the caches are enabled during Zorro II memory
operations. Caution: This may corrupt accesses to Z2 or PCMCIA IO cards!

ACATune -z2cache off

By passing the argument "off", the caches are disabled during Zorro II
memory operations (recommended setting).

This option is only available for ACA1230 and ACA630. It is not available
on later accelerators.

5.6 fastchip

In order to use a fast CPU in your Amiga, memory acesses to Chip-Ram have
to be slowed down in order to not violate the timing specifications given
by the chipset and the bus designation of the original on-board CPU. All
ACA accelerator boards emphasize maximum compatibility by default,
implementing the Amiga chip interface as close to the original as possible.
However, on many Amiga systems, Chip-Ram performance may be increased by
aborting memory cycles a little earlier, which can be enabled using this
option. Note that, depending on your configuration, especially the Amiga
model and the type of memory chips used in your particular board, enabling
this option might lead to an unstable system, resulting in data loss. Use
it with extreme caution. Examples:

ACATune -fastchip on

By passing the argument "on", fast Chip-Ram memory acesses are enabled.

ACATune -fastchip off

By passing the argument "off", fast Chip-Ram memory acesses are disabled.

This option is only available for ACA1230 and ACA630. It is not available
on later accelerators.

5.7 fastz2

On the Amiga, the term "Zorro II" usually refers to a memory area, which is
8 MB in size and where a multitude of expansions may have their resources
mapped, which is, in most cases, memory. Additionally, on Amiga 600 and
1200 computers, this area is also occupied by PCMCIA memory expansions.
Since the Zorro II area is usually part of the original Amiga mainboard,
memory acesses have to be slowed down on fast CPUs. To gain maximum
compatibility, all ACA accelerators implement the timing specifications of
the original bus as closely as possible. However, performance might be
increased by reacting to data transfer acknowledgements coming from the
Zorro II device as fast as possible, which can be enabled using this
option. This might work in some, but not all configurations, resulting in
possible data corruption. Use this option with extreme caution. Examples:

ACATune -fastz2 on

By passing the argument "on", fast Zorro II memory acesses are enabled.

ACATune -fastz2 off

By passing the argument "off", fast Zorro II memory acesses are disabled.

This option is only available for ACA1230 and ACA630. It is not available
on later accelerators.

5.8 cache

This option is intended as a replacement for the "cpu" command and its
options. It is recommended to activate it for maximum speed. Examples:

ACATune -cache on

By passing the parameter "on", all available CPU caches are enabled.

ACATune -cache off

By passing the parameter "off", all available CPU caches are disabled.

5.9 burst

This option is intended as a replacement for the "cpu" command and its
options. A burst access makes use of the fact that consecutive memory
accesses are much faster than random memory accesses. With cache enabled,
a cache line consists of 16 bytes of consecutive data or instructions.
With programs usually being executed in forward direction, it is very
likely that the following data word is also required, so fetching data from
memory in bursts in order to fill a cache line will increase the overall
system performance. If you enable caches, you should also enable burst.
Examples:

ACATune -burst on

By passing the parameter "on", burst mode is enabled.

ACATune -burst off

By passing the parameter "off", burst mode is disabled.

This option is only available for 68030 accelerators. Please note that
68(EC)020 processors do not have the capability to do fast burst accesses.

5.10 status

Entering:

ACAtune -status

will show the current state of your ACA hardware configuration.

5.11 help

Entering:

ACAtune -help
or
ACAtune ?

will show a short summary of all available options for your ACA card. Note
that not all options mentioned in this document may be available for your
specific ACA model. If in doubt, please consult the short summary.

5.12 slowpcmcia

This option is not an actual ACA card option, but will re-configure some
registers of the PCMCIA controller in your A600 or A1200 computer. Slowing
down accesses to PCMCIA cards may increase compatibility. Examples:

ACAtune -slowpcmcia on

By passing the parameter "on", PCMCIA accesses are slowed down.

ACAtune -slowpcmcia off

By passing the parameter "off", PCMCIA accesses are made at normal speed.

5.13 slowpcmciamem

This option is not an actual ACA card option, but will re-configure some
registers of the PCMCIA controller in your A600 or A1200 computer. Slowing
down accesses to PCMCIA memory cards may increase compatibility. Examples:

ACAtune -slowpcmciamem on

By passing the parameter "on", PCMCIA memory accesses are slowed down.

ACAtune -slowpcmciamem off

By passing the parameter "off", PCMCIA memory accesses are executed at
normal speed.

5.14 resetpcmcia

This option is not an actual ACA card option, but will configure some
registers of the PCMCIA controller in your A600 or A1200 computer. Sending
a reset pulse to a PCMCIA card may be required to make it compatible with
the quick startup process of the Amiga. This may or may not work depending
on the revision of the Gayle chip that you have in your computer. Example:

ACAtune -resetpcmcia

5.15 noargcheck

This option will suppress any error messages if unsupported options are
requested by the user.

5.16 kick12

Kickstart version 1.2 is not compatible with A600 and A1200 computers,
because a defective memory-search routine confuses the Gayle chip with
memory. As a result, memory is added to the free memory pool, although it
is not physically present. Adding the kick12 option to your maprom command
line will add a patch to repair the memory-search routine in order to
properly work, even if a Gayle chip is present in the system. This will
let you use very old or badly programmed software, like Microsoft´s Amiga
Basic.

5.17 kicksum

Adding this option to your maprom command line will correct the checksum of
your kickstart file. Use this option if you want to test your own patched
kickstart files. Currently only works on 256K kickstarts.

5.18 delay

Some options of ACAtune will initiate an immediate reboot of your computer,
so it is extremely difficult to read the output messages of ACAtune. Add
the delay option to your command line to get an extra ten seconds delay
before a reboot is executed. This will give you enough time to write down
any error messages.

5.19 patfile

This option lets you specify a #?.pat file from the SKick package
(available on Aminet). This option is currently experimental.

5.20 vbrmove and vbrclear

VBR stands for vector base register. A vector is a pointer to a program
location that is executed everytime an interrupt occurs. This can be from
an IO card or harddisk controller, but also a recurring event like a screen
refresh. Under normal curcumstances, the VBR is placed into chipmem by the
Amiga operating system, because not all processors have the capability to
move the VBR. However, processors of the ACA cards have this capability
and can move the VBR into fastmem. As a result, interrupt-heavy operations
like serial transfers and large harddisk transfers are sped up. Don´t
expect wonders from this option - the increase is minimal and often times
difficult to measure. Examples:

ACAtune -vbrmove

The vbrmove option will reserve a space in fastmem and direct the VBR to
that position.

ACAtune -vbrclear

The vbrclear option will reverse the previous action and move the VBR back
to chipmem. These options are only available on 68020 and 68030
accelerators. Note that the 68EC000 of the ACA500 does not have a VBR
register, so this option is not available.

5.21 replace maprom
This option is under development and currently not available. It is an
extension to the normal maprom option that lets you replace a kickstart
file without having to disable maprom first. This will save you a reboot.

5.22 kickdisk
This option is under development and currently not available. It will let
you load a kickstart from an A1000 Kickstart disk or from an A3000
Superkickstart disk. This will save you the hassle of converting to a
binary file first and let you decide if a kickstart disk is worth the
hassle of converting.

5.23 maxram or maxmem
This option will add memory for the ACA620 and ACA1020 cards. Since these
cards have 24 bit address space only, memory will be scattered betwen the
normal Amiga address space. After running the ACATune tool with the maxram
option, you will have a total of 11648 kBytes of memory (11.3MByte). The
Maprom option will not cut on this memory space, and an adapted freezer
monitor can use another 1Mbyte of hidden memory on the ACA620 and ACA1020
cards.

6. Supported cards

6.1 ACA630-25MHz and ACA630-30MHZ

These cards have Zorro III autoconfig memory, making it available by
default on all OS 2.x and 3.x versions. The fastchip option should work
with all kinds of memory chips being used on the A600 mainboard. However,
the memory chips being used on some 1MB Chip-Ram expansions might be too
slow, causing data corruption. The Individual Computers A602, A603 and
A604 Chip-Ram expansions can be safely used in conjunction with this
option. All Zorro II options refer to the PCMCIA port, especially SRAM
cards. Note that the ACA630 cards are not compatible with Gayle revision
-01.

6.2 ACA1230-28MHz, ACA1230-42MHz and ACA1230-56MHz

For OS3.0 users, these cards have no autoconfig memory. ACATune will add
the memory to the system manually on start-up. On later OS revisions, the
memory is detected and added automatically by the OS. The fastchip option
should work with all kinds of memory chips being used on the A1200
mainboard. All Zorro II options refer to either third party Amiga
busboards or the PCMCIA port, especially SRAM cards.

6.3 ACA1231-41.66MHz

For OS3.0 users, this card has only 1MByte autoconfig memory. ACATune will
add 62Mbytes of memory to the system on start-up. 1MByte of memory will
not be added to the free memory pool. It is kept reserved for the maprom
option. On later OS revisions, the memory is detected and added
automatically by the OS. Tuning options like Z2 options, fastchip and
cacheing of areas that should not be cached under normal conditions have
been removed for stability reasons. All access speeds have been optimized
for the highest possible safe speeds.

6.4 ACA1231LC

Almost the same as 6.3, but either with a 68EC030 CPU (without MMU), or
with a 25MHz processor and full MMU.

6.5 ACA1220

For OS3.0 users, this card has only 1MByte autoconfig memory. ACATune will
add 126Mbytes of memory to the system on start-up. 1MByte of memory will
not be added to the free memory pool. It is kept reserved for the maprom
option. On later OS revisions, the memory is detected and added
automatically by the OS. Tuning options like Z2 options, fastchip and
cacheing of areas that should not be cached under normal conditions have
been removed for stability reasons. All access speeds have been optimized
for the highest possible safe speeds.

6.6 ACA1232

For OS3.0 users, this card has only 1MByte autoconfig memory. ACATune will
add 126Mbytes of memory to the system on start-up. 1MByte of memory will
not be added to the free memory pool. It is kept reserved for the maprom
option. On later OS revisions, the memory is detected and added
automatically by the OS. Tuning options like Z2 options, fastchip and
cacheing of areas that should not be cached under normal conditions have
been removed for stability reasons. All access speeds have been optimized
for the highest possible safe speeds. Note that the ACA1232 is available
at different speeds and with or without MMU. All these cards will be
recognized as ACA1232 without further distinction.

6.7 ACA620

This card starts up with 5MByte of autoconfig memory under any Kickstart
version. ACAtune will not add any memory unless you tell it to add memory
with the maxmem option. This will also let you use all kinds of PCMCIA
cards - even those that make no sense, such as PCMCIA SRam cards (they
provide slow memory and therefore cannot provide the same speed as the
local memory of your ACA620). Since the ACA620 has a special circuit to
catch Level-7 interrupts (NMIs), certain memory areas of the card should be
initialized prior to pressing the NMI button. Don´t worry, there is no
risk of damage, but without initialization, the NMI button will make the
card crash in a way that even a reset cannot recover proper function.
After a power- cycle, your computer will work normally again.

6.8 ACA1020

This card starts up with 1MByte of autoconfig memory under any Kickstart
version. ACAtune will add 10.3 MBytes of memory with the maxmem option.
Since the ACA1020 has a special circuit to catch Level-7 interrupts (NMIs),
certain memory areas of the card should be initialized prior to pressing
the NMI button. Don´t worry, there is no risk of damage, but without
initialization, the NMI button will make the card crash in a way that even
a reset cannot recover proper function. After a power cycle, your computer
will work normally again.

Ultima modifica avvenuta il 02/03/2014 alle ore 16:10:46