RISC iX on Arculator 2.0

[iainfm]

Hi,

I've always wanted to try RISC iX since I saw it at a dealer event in London (the same one the A540 was launched at). I've trying to follow the guide at viewtopic.php?f=29&t=11154 but running into a bit of bother.

So far I've:

Used an A540 base image in Arculator with 16Mb memory, FPA10, ROS311)
Added the SCSI HD image (via an AKA31 virtual scsi podule)
Created a 64Mb ST506 drive (via AKD52 virtual podule)
Partitioned/Initialised the ST506 drive as per the instructions
Patched the RISCiXFS module

Things get a bit sticky at the "Boot RISC iX from the SCSI disc" stage. I've got the device defaults set to sd/0/0/0 (device/major/unit/partition) which seems to accept there's a kernel available to boot, but if I boot I just get a wide black screen and nothing more. If I boot to single user mode I get this:

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated, please. Maybe Arculator 2.0 isn't supported? The instructions do say "You may need to compile Arculator from the latest sources to be able to support RISC iX"...

[iainfm]

Ooh, all it needed (to get a bit further anyway) was *con. monitortype 4 and *con. wimpmode 31

[iainfm]

But now getting:

st[0-1]: internal ST506 controller failed test; code=1

hmmm...

Edit: Rejigged as an A440/1 and ST506 test now ok.

[IanS]

Ooh, all it needed (to get a bit further anyway) was *con. monitortype 4 and *con. wimpmode 31

viewtopic.php?p=261549#p261549
Was it set to Auto?

[IanJeffray]

Used an A540 base image in Arculator with 16Mb memory, FPA10, ROS311)

IX probably doesn't use FPA, but be aware the FPA emulation in Arculator is broken in fun ways.
(simple example - rotate an object in !Draw with FPA enabled... goes wrong)
I would never advise using the FPA option in Arculator in any situation until this issue is fixed.

[SarahWalker]

Works fine here. Did you remember to load FPE 4.xx?

Also if you think you've found a bug it's generally polite to report it rather than just moaning about it later.

[iainfm]

Thanks all, yes - it was set to auto

IX probably doesn't use FPA

It certainly detects it (or an ARM2 FPPA) as noted in the boot messages. Whether it uses it, I don't know, but I'd be surprised if it didn't.

[IanJeffray]

Works fine here. Did you remember to load FPE 4.xx?

I did not. Just tried with 4.03 and that seems ok. I completely forgot this manual load was required at all to be honest. I assume the same nonsense happens with a real FPA then?

Also if you think you've found a bug it's generally polite to report it rather than just moaning about it later.

I did think I'd mentioned it before, sorry. This wasn't a moan at all, just pointing out that there seemed to me to be an issue and since the OP was [unnecessarily, IMO] emabling FPA, and seeing issues, it seemed to be a reasonable thing to suggest disabling that, that's all.

Back on topic [ish], I'd still be surprised to hear if iX really does handle an FPA, particularly as IR260 launched before FPA and I'd understood the FPA-enabled CPU cards weren't made generally available. I used to run iX on a "modified A440" back in the day - IIRC it had to have a special backplane or something weird? It'd be interesting to see iX running again in Arculator - I still have my tar backups somewhere

[iainfm]

Back on topic [ish], I'd still be surprised to hear if iX really does handle an FPA, particularly as IR260 launched before FPA and I'd understood the FPA-enabled CPU cards weren't made generally available. I used to run iX on a "modified A440" back in the day - IIRC it had to have a special backplane or something weird? It'd be interesting to see iX running again in Arculator - I still have my tar backups somewhere

Am I mis-remembering, or did the original A300/400 series have an FPA socket? I'm fairly sure it did, as I remember fitting one, but I could be thinking of the MEMC1-A upgrade. Our A310 also got an ARM3 upgrade, CJE's possibly, so maybe the FPA went on a socket on the daughterboard?

Wish we still had it

Edit: Or maybe I'm thinking of my A5000 which does have an FPE fitted. And I still do have it

[IanS]

Am I mis-remembering, or did the original A300/400 series have an FPA socket? I'm fairly sure it did, as I remember fitting one, but I could be thinking of the MEMC1-A upgrade. Our A310 also got an ARM3 upgrade, CJE's possibly, so maybe the FPA went on a socket on the daughterboard?

The Acorn WE32206 Floating Point Co-Processor was introduced with the R140.
http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org ... CoPro.html