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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

Complete Noob Seeking Help

Steven Lyon

Posts 29
20 Mar 2018 11:15


Hi Guys,

Sorry this ended up a long post...

Recently bought a Vampire V500 V2+ (still in transit) from Apollo Accelerators and have to confess I'm kind of fumbling around in the dark (that's what it feels like anyway) trying to get info about how to set it all up. There doesn't seem to be a guide for complete noobs out there (unless I've missed it) - only stumbled across this site/forum because I was looking for advice on the best Workbench setup. Had no idea there was a special Apollo OS for instance! The forum on the site I bought the card from is pretty quiet... and the instructions pretty brief.

So I've only recently got back into the Amiga scene after a 20 year absence and could really use some foolproof guidance on what I need to get / do to get it all working. If there is a post/guide/website somewhere that you can recommend please let me know.

So far I've ordered a CF adaptor and short DIGITAL-VIDEO cable to take the DIGITAL-VIDEO to the back of the case. Also thinking of getting a buffered 4-way IDE adaptor (and an IDE extension lead which should let me still put the lid on my A500 when fitted) which I've been told will let me use a CD-ROM drive somewhere down the line when I'm ready?

I've not ordered a CF card yet - confused about what I need. Do I need a 32gb or 64gb card (read comments about the image being a little too big for a 32gb card). Assuming I manage to find/download the Apollo OS image - how do I get it on the card using Windows 10? (I don't have/use Mac/Linux). As I mentioned earlier - I've been away for so long that I'm pretty much a noob now and feel a little overwhelmed by it all and the lack of structured info to follow.

Thanks in advance and also for reading this far!


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
20 Mar 2018 11:47


Steven Lyon wrote:

Also thinking of getting a buffered 4-way IDE adaptor (and an IDE extension lead which should let me still put the lid on my A500 when fitted)

I would not do this.
The VAMP gives you the fastest IDE controller that you can get for AMIGA - even faster than other controllers that are sold for over $100 alone.
Adding this 4-way adapter will disable all the performance boost.

I use a CF of 32 GB as main disk.
And a extra SDCard to hold my favorite music/videos/ private files. 



Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
20 Mar 2018 12:00


Steven Lyon wrote:

I've not ordered a CF card yet - confused about what I need. Do I need a 32gb or 64gb card (read comments about the image being a little too big for a 32gb card). Assuming I manage to find/download the Apollo OS image

I have not tested r49 yet but I tested r48 of this Image.
I find it really great. I'm very thankful that some people took the time to put such a great polished AMIGA OS together.

I use a SANDISK 32GB ULTRA. This works fine for me.


Steven Lyon

Posts 29
20 Mar 2018 12:41


Thanks for the quick reply Gunnar and the warning about the IDE controller. Obviously - I don't want to turn my system into a snail but I really would like to be able to access CD-ROM's such as the Amiga Future coverdiscs etc. I suppose I could copy the contents to an SD card but I'd have to take the case off my Amiga every time I needed to access the card... any other solutions?

Would this CF card work OK?

EXTERNAL LINK 
Also how much free space is left on the card once the image is on it (or rather space on the amiga drives within the image) - would there still be room on it to install games and apps or do I need to use the SD card for that? Thanks


David Wright

Posts 373
20 Mar 2018 13:15


I did have a sd extender cable so I could run it out the back of the Amiga instead of lifting case lid all the time. Stopped working, maybe  just the junk I bought.

It seems with Apollo Os image there is about 3.5 gb left if I remember correctly.


Steven Lyon

Posts 29
20 Mar 2018 13:30


OK I'm finding my way around a little better now - I've discovered the Coffin site and am downloading r49 (slowly). The readme says I need Gold Core 2.7 but I see 2.8 is just out...

BUT - I'm not sure what version my card shipped with but if it is less than 2.7 how am I going to get this working? I assume it won't boot work with an older version and so I also won't be able to run the updater because I don't own a USB Blaster. Bit of a catch 22?


Steven Lyon

Posts 29
20 Mar 2018 13:37


Thanks David - good call on the SD extender cable. Never seen one before but there's loads on eBay and they seem very inexpensive so I'll pick one up and run it to the outside of the case when I do the DIGITAL-VIDEO cable.

3.5GB should be plenty of space given that I originally had a drive measured in megabytes on my original A1200 back in the day!


John Mautz

Posts 35
20 Mar 2018 13:51


Steven Lyon wrote:

  Would this CF card work OK?
 
  EXTERNAL LINK 

Yes, I have 5 of them.  Probably need to pick up one more.  I have one for my Vamp 600v2 setup and one for my Vamp 500v2+ setup.  I use Win32DiskImager to write the image to the CF card. 
 
I start by write the base to 2 cards.  Make one a primary and one a backup.  Then start tinkering.  Get Ethernet working, use Win32DiskImager to read the CF and make a new image and then write that the the 2 CF card.  Then tackle the next task and repeat.  This way if I blow my config up, i don't have to start from scratch.  Just use my other CF card and retry and put the last good image back on the CF card that got messed up.

Might sound a little tedious but it works for me and I think in the long run it saves time.



Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
20 Mar 2018 13:56


Steven Lyon wrote:

  BUT - I'm not sure what version my card shipped with but if it is less than 2.7 how am I going to get this working? I assume it won't boot work with an older version and so I also won't be able to run the updater because I don't own a USB Blaster. Bit of a catch 22?
 

 
  You can try older release - e.g. r43 (Magnet link
  magnet:?xt=urn:btih:9f15ea9cd5e1e01f62b59a287ded1de67c803b40&dn=ApolloOS_CF32GB_r43P_defragged_roadshowdemo_removed.img )
 
  Or you can boot OS 3.1,OS 3.5 or OS 3.9 and run the executable reflasher (provided you have a way to transfer it to Amiga too, but file isnt large). You can set up your own custom OS 3.1/3.9 OS after you install SAGA drivers and core, but Coffin is full package that would take months to reach.
 
  Getting an USB blaster should be mandatory since experimental/safe cores firstly appear as blaster files or appear as blaster files only. Also there is a small risk core update can brick the card, where Blaster is a necessity to make it alive again, as well as you can safely try experimental cores and if they turn to be unstable, you can go back with simple reflash.


Steven Lyon

Posts 29
20 Mar 2018 14:18


OK thanks for confirming that the CF card was OK. Will pickup 2 like you suggested as that sounds like a wise move given I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing at the moment!

Thought a USB Blaster was going to be an expensive piece of kit - but I was wrong! Might as well pick one up now then. Seem to be several different ones around so just to be sure could someone please confirm that this one will do the job please?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Altera-Programmer-FPGA-CPLD-JTAG-Quartus-USB-Blaster-Compatible-Flux-Workshop/111612485555?hash=item19fc9f5fb3:g:2WIAAOSwBLlU9cqd

Thanks


Martin Soerensen

Posts 232
20 Mar 2018 14:24


My guess is that you will get your card with GOLD2.5 since 2.7 is quite new.
 
Even R49 will boot using G2.5, however it will probably fail at some point during booting, but like on any Amiga you can hold down both mouse buttons when you turn it on to get to the pre-boot menu. Then you can choose to boot without running startup-sequence which will get you to a shell prompt.
 
You can also use a regular Workbench floppy disk to boot into WB and from there do whatever you need to do. From there, you should be able to access all the files in the coffin installation.

R43 does not fit all 32GB cards (I had to use a 64GB card for it), however this was fixed in R48 since this image is a bit smaller so it will fit all 32GB cards.


Steven Lyon

Posts 29
20 Mar 2018 15:49


Thanks Martin - that must have been the issue I picked up on about the 32GB cards being too small. Is it going to be the case that going forward they will keep the images small enough to fit the 32GB cards or would I really be better of just getting a 64GB card now? Don't want to be left with a dud if in 2 months time the size creeps up?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
20 Mar 2018 18:55


Steven Lyon wrote:

Is it going to be the case that going forward they will keep the images small enough to fit the 32GB cards

I would use a 32 GB CF as "OS disk" and an SDCard of whatever size you want to have your private collection of Music / Videos.
As SDCard I would recommend to buy a Brand product of Class(10).

E.g. 32GB  Sandisk for $14


Steven Lyon

Posts 29
23 Mar 2018 18:14


Got my CF cards, USB blaster and my vampire now :-)

Could someone please direct me to a noobs guide to updating the core with a USB blaster? Gone to Quartus site but don't know what to download. Terrified of bricking it by doing something wrong.

Also which update file do I use - are these the correct files to use with a blaster and whats the difference between the 2 below please?

V500_GOLD2-8_x10.jic
V500_GOLD2-8_x11.jic


Roy Gillotti

Posts 517
23 Mar 2018 18:35


Steven Lyon wrote:

  Also which update file do I use - are these the correct files to use with a blaster and whats the difference between the 2 below please?
 
  V500_GOLD2-8_x10.jic
  V500_GOLD2-8_x11.jic
 

 
  It's the clockspeed multiplier. example ~7MHz X10 = ~70MHz . the x11 is faster. Typical default is x11, but some have stability issues on some card.
 


Steven Lyon

Posts 29
25 Mar 2018 22:32


Hi,

Just wanted to thank everyone who has assisted me over the past few days - it's much appreciated!

I am now writing this reply in IBrowse (yes my Amiga 500 is now on the Internet in 2018!) whilst SimpleMail is downloading my FastMail emails (slowly LOL) and listening to some mp3s in AmigaAMP. It just doesn`t get much better than this! :)

This Vampire (and Apollo OS) rocks!

posts 16