17 Bit Software 6: Level 6/17 Bit - Level 6 (1998)(Epic Marketing)[!].iso/!applications!/softaga/softaga.doc

Text File | 1993-04-08 | 6KB | 94 lines

                              SoftAGA © PWS 1993

            "Bringing the power of the AGA chipset to all Amiga users"

The Super Amiga
    They  said it couldn't be done.  After six gruelling months in development,
over  350,000 lines of assembly code and 5325 cinnamon rats later, the power of
the  AGA chipset can finally be unleashed on your ECS Amiga.  What's more, PWS'
own  custom  HyperAcceleratron(TM)  system  has  been combined to bring you the
ultimate  software  upgrade for your computer:  SoftAGA.  Features include full
AGA  emulation  including  HAM8  on  any  ECS  machine,  and  fully transparent
operation.  Emulation of any 680x0 processor is also supported.

"It'll Never Ship"
    In late 1992, Team AGA moved away from the rest of PWS to a secret location
codenamed   "AlCapone".   Normal  office  hours,  regular  phone  calls,  usual
interuptions.   They  worked  35 hours a week.  They invented bizarre tricks to
drive  the 68000, and the old ECS chips to amazing levels of performance.  They
grew  their  own.  They didn't  pay  the phone or electricity bills.  They were
fired,  and  rehired.  They fought with management "The paper clips were always
kept  in  THIS  drawer."  In  the  dark, they evolved strange hardware hacks to
emulate expensive appliances (A3000 fan became an industrial air conditioner, 2
A500's  running  at  150Mhz  became  a toaster).  Writing SoftAGA became a more
ambitious project than the AGA Chipset itself!

"We have AGA"
    Late  one night, in February 1993, the engineers powered up our old beat up
A500  on  which  we'd been working for the past 6 months.  There was a problem.
Yet  another  motherboard and two power supplies later, the A500 was powered up
again,  this  time  sporting  a  256  colour Workbench.  The AGA A500 was born.
After  suitable  celebrations  the  race was on to bring the AGA chipset within
reach  of  the  3.5  million  other  Amiga users worldwide.  Before you are the
fruits of our labour.  We hope you enjoy SoftAGA.
    And by the way, the lights are still off at 'Capone.


Using SoftAGA

REQUIREMENTS:   At least 1.5Mb memory, ECS chipset,
                KickStart 2.04, WorkBench 2.1.

    To install SoftAGA, copy SoftAGA.prefs to your env:  drawer, and assign the
SoftAGA home volume.
    The  program  will patch your KickStart and WorkBench functions to be fully
AGA compatible.  The kick.patch file is used for this.
    Development of SoftAGA has been achieved using the latest techniques in PCR
(programmable  circuit  rerouting).   By  studying each chip in the regular ECS
chipset,  down  at  the  gate  level,  we  have manage to replicate the various
characteristics  that  make  the  AGA  chipset  superior.  As a result, certain
facilities  may  be  temporarily  disabled,  such as sound, since the emulation
requires the use of the Paula chip to take over some of the new Lisa functions.
The  CPU takes over most of the other facilities.  Normally this would slow the
system down considerably, however we have manage to incorperate an experimental
version  of our new HyperAcceleratron(TM) system (to be available seperately in
a  few  month's  time) to enable the system to reach a suprisingly fast overall
speed,  even on a stock A500.  Details of the HyperAcceleratron(TM) system will
not  be  divulged here, however part of the secret lies in the software control
of chip clock speeds.  A super-fast oscillation circuit is set up within one of
the  custom  chips,  which  is  then distributed along the buses using a custom
propagation system far more advanced than the standard digital pulse method.
    The  above  explains  the delicate nature of the AGA emulation that SoftAGA
employs.   While  our  competitors  have opted for an incomplete simulation (no
HAM8  or  high resolutions), we have been able to include all AGA facilities in
the one package, with only a small amount of effort required on the part of the
user in the initial boot parameters.
    Although most users expect the ECS chipset to behave in the same way on all
machines,  our  SoftAGA  routines operate on the edges of tolerance for most of
these  components,  and  so  to  compensate  of  varied quality control, it was
necessary  to  allow  the  user to change some critical parameters in order for
SoftAGA  to  work  on  all  machines.   If  your  settings  are  incorrect, the
simulation  will  not  proceed  and a system error may occur (or worse).  It is
therefore imperitive to ensure that these parameters are set correctly for your
setup.  This is explained below:

(A600 and A500+ treat as A500 for below)

Col_Pri_Ack:   (0-63) Must be set to 23 for any A2000 series computer, adding 2
for every external storage present, and 4 for any cards present (including SCSI
cards).   Must  be set to 41 for any A500 series, adding 3 for each motherboard
revision  above  4.   Any external devices plugged into the left side connector
must be treated as for the A2000.  Must be set to 5 for an A3000, adding as per
A2000. Subtract your CPU speed in megahertz.

Sys_Verify:   (1-10)  Must  be  set  to 1, adding 2 for each CPU revision above
68000.  Subtract 1 if you have a 68881 chip, or two if you have a 68882 chip.

Calib_TimeOut:   (0-15)  Set  to 7, subtract 5 if you have an MMU, add 2 for an
A500 and subtract the Intel CPU version of any IBM emulators attached.

Def_BitPlanes:   (1-8)  Don't  touch this unless specifically instructed by the
prgram.

All other controls are self explanitory. Good luck in the world of AGA!