Future Drive Accelerator
free memory
as a cache
, the program reactsCopyright © 1998-1999 Martin Tauchmann
This documentation may be copied and spread as long as the copyright note and this copy permission remains unaltered in all copies.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 1998-1999 Martin Tauchmann
Future Drive Accelerator
is shareware. In this case, that means that you need
a personalized version of the program to use the full functionality of
Future Drive Accelerator
.
Users get a personalized version when they have registered with me. This personalized version may not be given to anyone else. To give away the personalized version or to use versions of the program which you did not get directly from me for your personal use, is considered sofware-piracy.
The personalized version may not be transfered, sold or exchanged to another person or organization. It is solely for the use of the registered person.
You may not use any “patches“ for Future Drive Accelerator
or publish
them (regardless whether they are in text, binary or any other form), except with explicit
permission by me for the purpose of updating. Using patched or modified versions of
this program is considered software-piracy.
NO WARRANTY
There is absolutely no warranty for this software. Although the author has paid attention on security of data, compatibility and speed while developing this software, he can give no warranty that this program is 100% bug-free. You are using this software solely on your own risk. The author cannot be held responsible for any damages or loss of data that may be caused by this program.
DISTRIBUTION
The demo-version package is “freely distributable“. It may be copied on any media that is used to distribute free software, for example: FD-disks, CD-ROMs, FTP-server and BBS systems.
The full version is not to be distributed.
No program, document or file of this software package may, partially or complete, be distributed with another software package without the written permission of the author.
The demo-version may only be distributed complete and unchanged.
To make sure that the archive is in its original state, distributors should only use the original archives:
Programs and documentation may not be modified
The only exception is the use of archiving software like
LHA, LZX, ZIP or TAR-GZIP/BZIP2
, as long as the files can be restored
unaltered.
There is no upper limit for distribution costs (cost for disks, tapes or CD-ROMs, or for duplicating them). Such limits have proven harmful for the idea of free software. In some cases, software has been removed instead of lowering the price of a disk below the limit.
Although the author has not set such a limit, he wants to make clear his opinion on the topic:
RESTRICTIONS OF USE
Future Drive Accelerator
may only be used in the way intended by
the author, this means it may only be executed on Amiga-computers running
AmigaOS. Reassembling, reverse engineering or translation of source code
is forbidden.
The documentation and the program texts of Future Drive Accelerator
are protected by the same copyrights as the program itself. This means
the documentation or program texts may not be altered or translated.
To avoid any misunderstandings: You MAY NOT translate the texts or documentation
for Future Drive Accelerator
and distribute them. You must be authorized
by me as an official translator. Unauthorized translations of texts and documentation
are illegal, harm the copyright and will be removed from public software archives.
No program, document or file from this software package may, partly or completely, be used on machines which are
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Future Drive Accelerator
Future Drive Accelerator
is a disk-cache program.
A cache buffers all data which is written or read from the drive (hard disks, floppy disks, Compact-Disk, removable disk, ZIP…).
If requested data is already in the cache, it doesn’t need to be loaded from the slow disk.
So far nothing new!
Memory is, as we all know, always short. So you better think twice before you give it to programs. No matter how you set it up, you can never make it suitable for all programs. One program runs (thanks to the cache) faster than ever before, another one stops working (due to the lack of RAM).
With all other cache programs, you had to adjust the memory usage.
Of course, the more memory a cache can use, the faster it will work.
So with old cache programs the memory usage had been set quite high,
but because other programs stopped working this was stopped rather quickly.
Now the cache is commonly set to an average size, so that all “memory-eating“
programs run.
Or you always had to change the cache-size manually to fit the current situation.
But this is not a very satisfactory solution. And this is where
Future Drive Accelerator
comes in.
The whole free memory
, whose size is changing all
the time, is used as cache.
With this technique, an Amiga
with a 68030 50Mhz processor and 16
MByte FastMemory (Blizzard IV) averages a factor 4 speed up. See section What speed improvements can be achieved with Future Drive Accelerator
?.
Write accesses are buffered, and later, while writing back to the drive, the head is moved from the highest to the lowest address.
Another improvement is built-in for people who use exchangable media like disks, CDs, MagnetOptical-disks and ZIPs. When inserting the media again, the still filled cache is used. The media doesn’t need to be accessed again.
Who used a lot of dos-buffers?
(1)
for the file system, you can now even save
this memory.
Not to mention that you help protecting the environment
.
The motor and the electronics of the drive is used less and thus,
energy is saved.
⇒ the nuclear power plants can be shutted down earlier.
You should also keep in mind that the hardware wears out less.
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Future Drive Accelerator
?Future Drive Accelerator
needs at least:
or better.
Additionally, the following software is supported:
After a reset or system crash, the cache will be written back before restarting the system.
Example installation for ‘s:Startup-Sequence’:
DiskSafe DF1: DF0: HD0: Store: Font: HD2: HD3: HD4: … REBOOT QUICKKEY WAITVERIFY VERIFYREQ LOGFILE=Store:T/DiskSafe.log IGNORE
If this shouldn’t work, try adding RESETKEY
.
See section How to speed up Future Drive Accelerator
even more.
See section Compatibility, Features of Future Drive Accelerator
.
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Future Drive Accelerator
?DiskSpeed
)
(2)
read 6.8 times faster. write 8.1 times faster.
DiskSpeed
)
read 488.0 times faster. write 997.6 times faster.
44 Dirs, 561 Files = 2.3MB Size c:Copy MUI: ASWAP:MUI ALL CLONE QUIET Dos 457 Dos-Buffers 46 secs 253999 micros FDA 7 Dos-Buffers 11 secs 196642 micros (4.13 times faster)
DiskSpeed
)
read 19.5 times faster. write 20.4 times faster.
DiskSpeed
)
read 3.8 times faster. write 3.5 times faster.
More (graphical) statistics, which have been created using DiskSpeed
can be found in the guide-file ‘FDA-Benchmarks’.
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Hardware List
A4000/40/40Mhz PPC 200Mhz + 64 Fast
CVPPC + 8Mb
Zip Drive
Oktagon Controller
1.3Gb SCSI II Hard Drive (1 partition)
4.3GB SCSI III Hard Drive (3 partitions)
Toshiba 12xCD
IOBlix Super Fast Serial Card
Epson GT-6000 Flatbed Scanner
Pace 56 Voice (V90)(ISP=Wirenet)
Micronik A4000 Tower case
Epson Stylus Color 800
External floppy Drive
Minolta 7000 Camera
External Speakers
MicroVitec GPM 1701 Monitor
Tabby (Drawing Pad)
Sound Sampler
Prelude Sound Card
Software Most Often Used
AHI (music to your ears - registered)
All Experimental PPC Software
PFS2 (So so fast)
CybergraphX V4 (Good with CVPPC)
PPaint 7.1 (It`s all in the eye of the beholder)
ImageFX Ver 3.2 (Very stable at this upgrade)
Netconnect (Kiss - Keep It Simple Stupid)
Miami (Works great with my IOBlix)
Turboprint 6.02 (Faster now as it`s using the PPC Module)
PageStream 3.3a (I love it)
Organiser (Who am I)
Opus Magellan II (My god, it's full of stars)
CandyFactoryPro (Good PPC Program)
Zip Drivers (Backup my Backups)
HappyDT (Sometimes crashes Netconnect and other programs)
Elastic Dreams (Game for a laugh)
Cyberview (Registered)
Cybershow (Registered)
AK-Datatypes (Registered)
Quicksampler (Good PD)
MultiCX (Registered)
OxyPatcher (Make Those Programs Burn)
MUI (3.8) (Workbench 4 perhaps?)
Kingcon (No two shells are the same)
Relaxing Software Used
Genetic Species
Foundation
Alternate Reality (RPG)
Bane of the Cosmic Forge (RPG)
Bards Tale (RPG)
Quake
UFO
Dungeon Master 1 & 2 (RPG)
Ultima VI (RPG)
Birds of Prey
Theme Park
Civilisation
Syndicate
Doom
Stratego (PD)
Myst
Colonization
Frontier Elite II
Deluxe Galaga
Shadow Of The First Moon
VChess
JetPilot
Tiny Troops
Blade (Good Iso RPG)
EaglePlayer (Registered)
MrJQuote
Amiga 1200:
+ 2 880KB Floppys
+ 2 MegaByte 32 Bit Fast-Memory
+ Turbo Jet A1230-BOARD ® Harms Computertechnik
MC 68030+MMU 14.2 MHz Cache Burst VBR=$0
FPU68881 15.4 MHz
+ WesternDigital Caviar 2850 (850MB)
- since I have this HD, I had to slow down my MC68030 from 28MHz to
14.2 MHz. If anybody knows a solution, I would really like to know.
See section Autor.
CPU :MC 680030 50MHz
Computer :Amiga 1200
OS :V 3.0
Controller :IDE (Buddha)
Memory :16MB FastMem
2MB Chip
FileSystem :FastFileSystem 44.5
Hard Disk :1x Quantum Fireball 3.68 GB
ZORRO-II-Karten :1x MultifaceIII, 1x Buddha IDE
other cards :Blizzard 1230 (CPU-PORT)
others :Micronik Tower mit Zorro II Datherborad
running programs :Prometheus V2.6, FKey, MouseBlanker, MultiCX V2.78,
NewIcons V40.2, PowerIcons V1.0, SleepingPointers
V1.0a, Multifax Spooler V3.1, Killclick2
CS PPC 233MHz, 060 50MHz
A4000 MC68040 25MHz 16FastMem
A3000 CSPPS 604/200 060/50
PicassoII running cybergraphics (will soon be CVPPC)
4 different SCSI harddisks of which 3 are SCSI-2 and one UWSCSI
CSPPC-interface.
DAT-tapestreamer, CD-ROM, 70MB RAM and many things I can't remember.
Amiga 4000 with 68040/40Mhz, about 80MB Fastram, most of it
on the turboboard, and 3,5MB Fast on the motherboard.
2nd.scsi.device / scsi.device / ffs/afs/sfs..
Amiga 1200 040/40 2/32MB 2GB TowerhawkII X2 Multiscan
CPU : MC 68040 40MHz
OS : V 3.1
Controller : IDE
Memory : 32MB Fast, 2MB Chip
FileSystem : FastFileSystem 43.19
Hard disk : 1 2GB-Platte with 2 Partitionen (50MB and the rest)
CD : 1 4fach-CD-Rom (RandyCD-Rom)
DirOpus5 Magellan is used as Workbench replacement.
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If you like this demo-version you might want to use the full version which features:
Ordering the full version is easy, convenient and comfortable - 24h a day worldwide!
Prices
19,99 DM ($12.99) (11,99 EUR)
.
a student, umemployed or
a pensioner
;-). Please add some proof. See section Author.
Ordering
ShareIt! Inc. PO Box 844 Greensburg, PA 15601-0844 USA
Badische Beamtenbank eG (Germany) 76119 Karlsruhe Bank Location Number: 660 908 00 Martin Tauchmann Account Nr.: 2473135 Usage: FDA MC68020 <Your E-mail address>
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http://mail.yahoo.com
http://mail.angelfire.com
http://www.gmx.de
http://www.dejanews.com (No problems with a “FireWall“)
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http://www-usa.tpc.int/sendfax.html?destnumber=49 221 2407278
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Future Drive Accelerator
Please use the included installer script to install Future Drive Accelerator
.
The AmigaOS Installer V43.3 is required. This version can be found in
Aminet.
Future Drive Accelerator
can be started in different ways:
QUIET
. (Workbench-Menu ->Pictogram ->Information
RUN <>NIL: SYS:System/FDA QUIET in the file ‘S:Startup-Sequence’ after
Future Drive Accelerator
uses the following Workbench Tool Types and Shell parameters:
FROM
(Only from Shell)Specifies the name of the configuration file.
QUIET
Initialising messages are not printed.
This is useful for an installation in the ‘SYS:WbStartup’ directory,
or the ‘S:Startup-Sequence’.
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Future Drive Accelerator
Future Drive Accelerator
can be configured using the Future Drive Accelerator
Preference Editor
:
7.1 The Mainwindow | ||
Windows for configuring drives: | ||
---|---|---|
7.2 The Device Window | ||
Other windows: | ||
7.3 Informations about the drive | ||
The Preference Editor uses the following Workbench Tool Types and Shell parameters:
FROM
(Only from Shell)Specifies the name of a configuration file to load.
EDIT
(default option)The configuration can be changed.
USE
The new configuration will be saved temporary.
SAVE
The new configuration will be saved permanently.
MAINPROGPATH
Directory of Future Drive Accelerator
, e.g. ‘Sys:System/’. The configuration
(‘FDA.prefs’) will be saved to the directory. If Future
Drive Accelerator loaded before ‘ENV:’ is initialized, which is the case
when booting from floppy disk, the config will be found anyway.
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The MainWindow contains a listing of drives. When you select a window, a new window (see section Device Window) will be opened.
<center><img src="FDA-MainWindow.png" width=613 height=350 alt="Main window" border=0></center>
Not used FastMemory
For calibration.
How much of your fast memory shall not be used as cache?
60 kiloBytes is a good value here, because a minimal amount of memory is necessary
to send messages. This way, memory can be made available faster.
Not used ChipMemory
For calibration.
How much of your chip memory shall not be used as cache?
100%=No chip memory will be used ⇒ which is the fastest setting.
FastMemory first
Off
: The cache uses ChipMemory first, then FastMemory.
On
: The cache uses FastMemory first, then maybe ChipMemory.
View color flash if track moved or deleted
Off
: No color flash is created.
On
: There will be a green flash, when a part of the cache is moved in the RAM.Rem.:This option is useful to calibrate Not used Fast- ChipMemory
.
Protect tracks in memory with checksummes
Off
: The cache is not protected.
On
: The cache will be protected from external programs.
Rem.:This is recommended for Intros, games and badly programmed software which change
foreign memory blocks. See section Enforcer-write-hits.
Or if you have bad memory. See section Defekten Speicher.
Future Drive Accelerator
, but it is
not so likely that a program wrote into the dos-buffers accidently.
Dos-buffers just are a “smaller target“.
The buttons at the bottom of the window are used to set the path where the config-file will be saved. The name of the file is ‘FDA.prefs’.
Save
The configuration is saved to the ‘ENVARC:’ directory.
The new config will be used automatically by Future Drive Accelerator
and will survive a reboot. The preferences editor will quit after saving.
Use
The configuration is saved to the ‘ENV:’ directory.
The new config will be used automatically by Future Drive Accelerator
but will not survive a reboot. The preferences editor will quit after saving.
Cancel
To quit the preferences editor. All changes will be lost.
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The following can be set in the Device Window:
When data is written back to the drive, if the data should be verified, how much data should be pre-read and how much of the cache can be used by this drive.
<center><img src="FDA-DeviceWindow.png" width=472 height=333 alt="Device window" border=0></center>
Removeable Disk?
Does this drive contain a removable disk?
e.g.: floppy-, CompactDisc-, ZIP, MagnetOptical or SyQuest-drive.
If Removeable Disk
is set to Off, then Future Drive Accelerator
does not need to know which FileSystem is used, to recognize a disk after re-inserting.
⇒ The initializing of the cache is faster.
Verify write
The data will be checked if it has been properly written.
⇒ Useful for floppy-disk and old hard-disks.
Write
Through
Sync
Through
with the difference that the data is written to the drive
(3)
after the writing of the file was completed
(4)
.Async
Sync
, but the program doesn’t wait for the end of the write-access
(ASyncron). What means data is written in an instant.The cache is written in the background.
⇒ You can write data to the cache, while the cache
is writing to the drive.
See section Datasafety.
Late as possible
Async
but the data is written as late as possible. This is recommended
for Cache-directories of World-Wide-Web browsers or Internetcomputer, where there
is (more or less) always data written.
Data is written when memory is needed or Future Drive Accelerator
exits,
and, if DiskSafe is installed, before a Reset/System-crash.
See section What is required to use Future Drive Accelerator
?.
For temporary
Late as possible
but data is NOT written before a Reset/System-crash.Async delay
For how many seconds shall the write-back be delayed with Async
?
Size of Track
Number of bytes a track
(5)
requires in the cache.
⇒ How many bytes shall be read ahead?
Reommended values are for harddisks and CDs about 40KB and for floppy disks
(2 tracks = 1 cylinder).
If the harddisk is not fragmented, you could achieve a dramatic speed improvement
when you set a high value.
If you use two or more harddisks you should use the same value for all
unit to avoid the fragmenting of memory.
This will be improved in future versions.
Cache usage priority
What priority has this drive compared to other drives for caching?
The buttons in the bottom row of the window can be used to activate or deactivate the cache, and to get informations about the drive
Enable
Cache active.
Info
Shows informations about the drive.
Disable
Cache inactive.
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This window shows informations about the selected drive.
Size of Block
can be modified using the HDToolBox©AmigaInc.
or in the mountfile
in the directory ‘Devs:DosDrivers’ (SectorSize * SectorsPerBlock).
But this is not recommend, because most programs depend on a value of
512 here.
No of Tracks
Number of tracks. Is also the capacity of the partition, floppy … multiplied with Size of Track
.
First Track Number
Start postions of the partition on the harddisk.
Root Track
Depends on the FileSystem.
Is used by Future Drive Accelerator
to recognize
a floppy/removable disk only.
Name and Dates Position
The position where the partition-name, the date of creation and the date
of the last modification can be found.
Is used by Future Drive Accelerator
to recognize
a floppy/removable disk only.
Unit Number
Hardware Unit Number.
Device Name.
Name of the Software-Device
.
Buffer Memory Type
Either Chip- or Fastmemory.
If “Need! ChipMemory (slow)“ appears here, you should get more recent
Device-Software
, or try to set BufMemType
=1 in ‘Devs:DosDrivers’,
because the drive is slower than it needs to be.
4-GByte ``boundary``
If anything else than “No problems“ appears here, then this partition is beyond the “4 GB boundary“; you should make sure that you use a FileSystem and Software Device that can handle harddisks bigger than 4 GigaByte. See section How to use harddisks bigger than 4 GigaBytes..
New Style Device
Supports the Device-Software
the new device standard
©AmigaInc.
?
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Future Drive Accelerator
Future Drive Accelerator
can monitored and exited using
Future Drive Accelerator View
:
The monitor accepts Workbench Tool Types and shell parameters:
KILL-FDA
Writes the cache to the drive (if necessary) and quits Future Drive Accelerator
.
FLUSH
Flushes the cache, except for data that has to be written to disk.
UPDATE
Writes the cache to the drive (if necessary).
Future Drive Accelerator View
is a by-product, which has helped
the author while developing Future Drive Accelerator
to find the optimal
algorithm
(6)
for using the cache. The author didn’t plan to release this program, but does
it now anyway for the curious ones.
Normally, Future Drive Accelerator View
is only required to quit
Future Drive Accelerator
.
The right part of the window shows the current cache structure (sorted).
Above this is a summary of the list, how many tracks are in memory and
how many of them are waiting to be written to the drive.
On the left side you can control how the list should appear.
Finally, at the top, you can see how much of the free memory
is used as currently as cache (Avail Memory
).
A simplier statistic would be of no use, because the cache is always used at 100%.
Sorted by
Location
Lists the memory areas where the
cache-parts reside (7).
The whole cache is listed.
Location
Start position of the track in memory.
Type
Memory Type
Size
Number of Bytes a tracks uses in the cache.
Track
Number of Track. No. 0 is the first.
Used
Number of accesses to the track.
Old
Time (in seconds) since the last access.
Parti
Logical partition- or drive-name.
DiskName
Virtual partition-, medium- or disk-name.
Above this is written how many tracks are in the cache alltogether (all free memory)
and how many of that must still be written to the disk.
Track
Lists the cache-parts of a partition, medium or disk.
Track
Number of track. No. 0 is the first.
Location
Start position of the track in memory.
Type
Memory typet.
Used
Number of accesses to the track.
Old
Time (in seconds) since the last access.
Flags
NowBusy
Track is read or written.
MustWrite
Track must be written.
Above this is written how many tracks of the medium (8) are in the cache and how many of that must be written to drive.
The next lines contain
Unit
the medium/partition belongs to, the name
of the device
and the start postion (track-number) of the partition on the disk.
Page Up
One page up.
<Cursor left, Shift+Cursor up>.
Page Down
One page down.
<Cursor right, Shift+Cursor down>.
Top
Top of the list.
<Key T>.
End
End of the list.
<Key E>.
Before Medium
Jump to the previous medium.
Next Medium
Jump to the next medium.
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The author can be reached through the following addresses:
Martin Tauchmann Scheffelstr. 49 79102 Freiburg im Breisgau GERMANY
Sometime you can find me in IRC at “irc.uni-stuttgart.de“ in the “#amiga“-channel as NickName “Gaddis“.
There is also a Future Drive Accelerator
homepage
in the World Wide Web, with cyberlinks to “Super Find Engines“ and many
other usefull cyberlinks:
The Pretty Good Privacy
(PGP) “PublicKey“ is available with Finger
, or via WWW.
ICQ, aka UIN is on my HomePage.
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Future Drive Accelerator
free memory
</BLINK>
as
<BLINK>
cache
</BLINK>
, the program reacts automatically on changes in memory resources, so that you
will always get the maximum speed for your drives. Even “resources-hungry“
programs will get enough memory.
DiskSafe
is installed, the cache will be written before a reset or system-crash
restarts the computer. See section What is required to use Future Drive Accelerator
?.
DiskExpander
, Virtual-Memory-Manger (VMM)
, XFH
temporal files
and World-Wide-Web browsers
.
and compatible, furthermore all MultiUser-“clones“.
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Type VERSION HD0: into a shell, to find out if version 44.5 or 43.x of the FastFileSystems is installed.
The new FastFileSystem
version
(9)
must be installed into the RigidDiskBlock (RDB) using HDToolBox
.
Copying to the L: directoy is not enough.
(10)
If you have more than one harddisk on your Amiga, the FastFileSystem
is loaded only from the Boot-Unit-HardDisk-RDB
.
So you have to install the new FastFileSystem
into the
Boot-Unit
; but of course doesn’t it do any harm if all Unit-HardDisk-RDB
’s are updated.
Reformatting of the partitionen
is not required
, this means the files remain accessible with the
new FastFileSystem.
The new FastFileSystem
works of course with IDE-drives
, too.
How do you update the FastFileSystem
?
Start the program ‘SYS:Utilities/HDTools/HDToolsBox’:
<TABLE BORDER=3><TR><td align=left>
Select your |
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The datasafety of the FastFileSystem
is extended
with Write Async in the case of a power cut.
The ProfiFileSystem-2
and the SmartFileSystem
provide datasafety even in the case of a power cut, the
medium is always “validated“.
The medium is kept “validated“ by saving the structure-organizing data
to the disk immediatly.
⇒ You could image this as a tree, whose branches have always to be present,
the leaves (files) may grow or fall off without harming the tree itself.
New leaves are written to the “list of existing leaves“ when the completely
grown up. ⇒ Of course, files which were saved during the power cut are lost.
To maintain a valid structure on the medium, the FileSystem must not loose control
about the moment of writing, this means the structure must be written
“syncron“.
⇒ Write Async may not be activated, to ensure datasafety during a power cut.
Write Async can be activated, if there is enough free memory available
to cache the WHOLE write-process.
⇒ The medium is always “validated“.
In future versions, using a new FileSystem, datasafety will be maintained during a power cut, even with low memory, using Write Async. The important structure data (tree) is written “Syncron“ and the files (leaves) “Asyncron“.
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Future Drive Accelerator
?The oracle foretells:
Oberon-2
is almost identical to Amiga E
, ADE 95 (gnat)
, Modula/Pascal
and Cluster
.
malloc
, C++ new
as well as C string (cord)
which is used for fast string operations.
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Future Drive Accelerator
Size of Track
is now variable.Size of Track
.
Sync-writing-mode
.
Size of Track
> 131072.
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From the same author:
From other authors (in Aminet):
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The development would have been impossible without the feedback of some
Future Drive Accelerator
users. Many ideas and features came from
these sources…
So I’d like to thank the following persons:
Frédéric Laboureur, Michael Kilimann, Denis Zwornarz, Andrew Mowatt, Marc Michael, Herbert Pittermann Kisses for you sweet Kids, Harald Wünsche, Timo Murzo, Jörg Liebelt, Flemming Steffensen, Helge Böhme, Andreas, Carsten.
The Amiga Translators Organization (ATO)
Jens Neubauer jens.neubauer@gmx.de
Gregor Knechtges
Heiko Hayn Smeagel@gmx.net
For supporting the PPC Amiga.
Without your excessive commitment for the Amiga, I hardly would have gotten
those bits and bytes to feed my curiosity. Your new
GeekGadget
Project with the GNU ports is very praiseworthy.
The text you read at the moment has to be partly credited to Fred Fish
because it is written in Texinfo
.
for the Amiga-port of “makeinfo“.
Joerg Mayer, Martin Apel, Richard Hirst, Roman Hodek, Thomas Kruse,
Benjamin (Benni) Lorenz, Odd-Jarle Kristoffersen, Jes Sorensen, Ron Flory …
(MC 680xx LinUX)
I can’t find words.
You made it possible to program for every platform.
Thanks to your optimising, the cache has become even more faster. See section How to speed up Future Drive Accelerator
even more.
Without your DME (programable text-editor) maybe I had never started typing.
Without your damn-fast Oberon-compiler, it would have been only half as much fun.
Your enthusiasm dragged me on. Where do you get all these good ideas from?
Brought light into the darkness, finally one can read the programs.
Please stay with us. From ScreenX to DOpus, you evolved very much.
Very dry, interesting book, in which sect are you now?
Don’t dare to drop the Amiga like the Hippis the ‘68er. The Amiga is the Harley among the platforms.
He, I still don’t have a modem.
Really clever how you fooled the Telekom back then.
Great books, I still don’t understand one word.
Master of the dialogue, pity that your time is over.
PowerSnap is just great! RequesterTools anyway. PowerPacker was a must in times when buying a harddisk costed a fortune.
Fixed the old bugs in the decrunchers.
Your FloppyAccelerator inspired me.
Your D-Copy finally brought X-Copy to an end.
Your PasTeX made the Amiga able to print.
The author is unknown, so I just thank
Tracer and DOCTOR MABUSE and UNKNOWN of D.O.C and MnemoTroN / Silicon League,
TIP of THE NEW MASTERS.
Great intros, just very old.
Another remnant of AMOK. Abitur (school leaving examination) is impossible without your program.
Without your cruncher, one would have to buy RAM all the time.
Good work, finally the classic games work with AGA, too, and can be loaded quickly from the harddisk.
It is real fun to play god.
What did I have to suffer from print-programs until I found yours! Well, the handling could be easier.
I believe it was you who killed these poor viruses; and if not you, then it was OS2.0.
I find it impossible to print programs on dozens of pages, which you had to type into your computer to play something.
Was fun, especially because you could press some keys and break and disassemble and debug any given program.
Thanks for telling the people about the governmental fooling.
Without DiskSpeed, no one had told me it was getting better.
The Enforcer is absolutly necessary for debugging.
Your Resident Module Launcher, and SKick are really good, now you don’t have to buy several ROMs each time.
Great feeling.
Your ParM is my ToolManager.
I used the structure of your documentation.
See section Known bugs.
DiskSafe is a nice little tool.
Your SaferPatches solved the problem!
Your HackDisk assembler-sourcecode answered my questions.
Your XPK-system is without competition.
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Future Drive Accelerator
even moreSo you can make Amiga
faster.
Install a CopyMem(Quick)
(11)
Replacement for your processor type:
68000
68020
68040+
The MCP replacement shouldn’t be used, because it is slower than these versions.
Set the SCSIsynchron-Flag in the RigidDiskBlock of your boot-harddisk with
RDBFlags
.
Don’t use ChipMemory as cache, and set
not used ChipMem
in the preferences, to 100%. See section Das Hauptfenster.
If you use the program PoolMem
, start it with the argument NoRamReverse.
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You don’t have AmigaOS 3.1 and want to install the newest update of the
(12)
scsi.device
to get a better performance?
(especially together with ATA[PI] drives)
Attention! There is no guarantee for this hack. (13) The modified file may not be distibuted.
The hack works on an 1200 with OS 3.0.
After the second reboot, the new scsi.device
is loaded.
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You have a turbo board, e.g. a Blizzard-IV with Extra Fast Memory?
Is the exec.library
“function-jump-table“ (AVL)
in the Chip Memory? (Can be found out using XOper
or FastExec
.)
Get FastExec.
Start it with:
FastExec SysInfo
Is the output for SysStkUpper
$xxxxxxxx a value greater than
$00200000 if you have 2MB ChipMemory, or
$00100000 if you have 1MB ChipMemory?
If not, then the ``supervisor stack``
is in Chip Memory. This slows down the “task-switching“.
Insert this line in your ‘s:Startup-Sequence’, after AddModule
(if present):
FastExec REBOOT FASTSSP FASTMEM
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Do your programs crash randomly?
Then your RAM-modules may be faulty. Especially PS-2 (SIMM) modules are very vulnerable
to “static electricity“.
Or you have some unused RAM-modules laying around?
No need to worry, like on a harddisk, you can mark bad memory and exclude it from usage.
But first we have to know where exactly the memory is faulty. For this purpose there is an excellent program called MemTest, which should be started without booting (as much free memory as possible). Beforehand, the “DataCache“ of the CPU should be disabled with
CPU NODATACACHE NODATABURST NOEXTERNALCACHE
. Now start the “Rotate 32
“ test and save the result.
Now get Allocate.
Insert at the beginning of your ‘S:Startup-Sequence’:
resident c:Allocate pure Allocate <>NIL: 68900000 100000 Allocate <>NIL: 68B00000 100000 resident Allocate remove
The hexadecimal addresses should, of course, contain the bad memory areas. (Be generous, don’t be stingy with a few 100KB or MB (depending on the chip).)
This works with LinUX
, too:
Create a ‘file’, where you insert all areas which work 100% okay. For example
2097152 0x68000000 9437184 0x68A00000 1048576 0x68C00000 3670016
and start AmiBoot
with -m FileName.
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Do your programs crash with a Guru 4 (Instruction error) or $1000005 (Memory corrupt) ab?
The reason could be a too small stack. Every System has a different stack usage, because different programs run in the background, and change system-routines.
If several programs change the same system-routines, this may result in an stack overflow
Even if only one program changes a system-routine and doesn’t use stack itself, there are at least 4 Bytes used.
Luckily there is StackAttack
,
Which gives almost every program a little more stack.
example installation in the ‘s:Startup-Sequence’:
StackAttack ADDSTACK=512
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If your think you found a bug in Future Drive Accelerator
,
please send a description see section description to the author see section Autor.
Here is a list of known bugs and problems:
Bugs:
Future Drive Accelerator
V1.4.AvailMemory(largest)
gives a value that is too small.not used FastMemory
“ can be set tof 1%.Avail
from the shell, then quit
FDA
, and again start Avail
.Size of Track
“ is different from disk to disk, the memory
will be fragmented.Not real bugs:
Not used ChipMemory
, see section The Mainwindow is set to 100%,
no track can be moved to make room.Future Drive Accelerator
.ViNCEd
V3.63 doesn’t use AllocEntry
or AllocPooled
from exec library, to maintain an own poolmemory, to bundle small memory
allocations. (It replaces AllocPooled
with an own routine.)KingCON
V1.3 makes no problems.vdisk.device
2.7 (C) 1994-1997 by Etienne Vogt (like ramdrive.device)vdisk
does not use OS-memory functions. Is
not that tragic, because it doesn’t support FastFileSystem V44.5, too.
Future Drive Accelerator
has been tested intensively with Enforcer/MungWall and PatchWork.
Patchwork has helped to figure out two very resistant bugs.
Future Drive Accelerator
even more.
Problems of other cache-programs
AllocAbs
and Allocate
to free the cache for other programs.
ArtStudioPro 3
and Imagine
.
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If there was another number, please start SegTracker from the Enforcer-package. Start Tnt or if possible
Enforcer or replacement programs like CyberGuard (MC68060).
Wait for the bug to show up again.
Write down the error message.
SegTracker is important because the author would like to know when the BUG occours. See section SegTracker, Enforcer und Co..
Guru #0005: Division durch 0 Dx 00007FFF 00000000 08C6FFFF 00000000 7FFFFFFF 00000000 081AAE54 00000000 Ax 081AADEC 08C5F9D6 08C5F9DA 08C5F88A 081AAE54 08C5FC34 08000AB0 08C5F820 segment FDAPref hunk 0 offset 0000365E sr 0000 pc 08C553E6 <RETURN>
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Please read on if you have a processor with MMU, or want to know whether you have.
Needed files
How to run Debugging-Tools?
How to show the output?
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For curious people, who want to know everything.
AllocMem
(AllocVec,
AllocPooled, CreatePool), Allocate
(AllocEntry), AvailMem
, AllocAbs
and in the
Device BeginIO
.
Oberon-2
and Assembler.
2^40 = 1,0995 TeraByte 1125,9 GigaByte 2^64 = 18446744,074 TeraByte 1,8889465931776e10 GigaByte
The calculation is carried out with a “fast“ 32-Bit division.
1226 GByte Festplatten will not be available until the 3rd millenium
(by todays standards).
Is used by FastFileSystem V43.x. ⇒ No problems with harddisks bigger than 4 GigaBytes anymore. See section How to use 4 GigaByte harddisks.
Informations about these commands can be found here:
NSDDocs
NSDPatch
SmartFileSystem_SCSIdirect, FastFileSystem V44.5 und ProfiFileSystem-2_SCSIdirect
use this command instead of the old trackdisk read/write commands.
⇒ No problems with harddisks bigger than 4 GigaBytes anymore.
See section How to use 4 GigaByte harddisks.
Not all scsiCMD are used, because I don’ have a documentation.
( SCSIProgrammer ) ( (include:scsi/commands.h SCSI-2 include files) ) ( Direct Access devices =da ) ( Write Once devices =wo ) ( CD-ROM devices =cd ) ( Scanner devices =sc ) ( Optical memory devices =om ) ( Sequential access devices =sa ) ( Printer devices =prt) ( Processor devices =cpu) scsiREAD6 =$08 ( da wo cd om )(not tested) scsiREAD10 =$28 ( da wo cd sc om ) scsiREAD12 =$A8 ( wo cd om )(not tested) scsiWRITE6 =$0A ( wo om )(not tested) scsiWRITE10 =$2A ( wo om ) scsiWRITE12 =$AA ( wo om )(not tested)
Has anyone a documentation for these commands?:
scsiREAD_BUFFER =$3C ( da wo cd sc om sa prt cpu ) scsiWRITE_BUFFER =$3B ( wo cd sc om sa prt cpu ) scsiUPDATE_BLOCK =$3D ( om )
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Read/Write
,
should be LongWordAlligned
(adr MOD 4=0), because the processor can access
them faster then. This also applies to data which is sent directly to a device.
AllocMem, Allocate… automatically return an address that is LongWordAlligned.
So you only have to pay attention if you divide a memory block manually.
SendIO
instead of DoIO
, the command is
executed Async. Not only reading and writing, but also
changeState, motor, protStatus, remove, changeNum
… commands.
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At the first start and after choosing <Edit/reset to Defaults> from the menu, these values will be used:
Create Icons = FALSE (OFF) Not used FastMemory = 60 KB Not used ChipMemory = 50 KB FastMemFirst = TRUE (ON) View color flash if track moved or deleted = FALSE (OFF) Protect tracks in memory with checksummes = FALSE (OFF) HD Async delay = 4 seconds Disk Async delay = 7 seconds Device| Pri | Settings --------------------------------------------------------------------- DF0 | 100 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write DF1 | 100 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write DF2 | 100 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write DF3 | 100 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write DS0 | 80 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write DS1 | 80 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write DS2 | 80 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write DS3 | 80 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write PC0 | 60 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write PC1 | 60 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write PC2 | 60 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write PC3 | 60 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write PS0 | 40 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write PS1 | 40 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write PS2 | 40 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write PS3 | 40 | Removeable Disk, Write Async, Verify write CD0 | 20 | Removeable Disk, WriteRetention HD0 | 0 | Write Async HD1 | 0 | Write Async HD2 | 0 | Write Async HD3 | 0 | Write Async DH0 | 0 | Write Async DH1 | 0 | Write Async DH2 | 0 | Write Async DH3 | 0 | Write Async
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The return values can be used within a shell-script.
Sys:Prefs/FDAPref ENVARC:FDA-AfterBoot.prefs USE IF WARN ;FDA is not running RUN Sys:System/FDA ENVARC:FDA-AfterBoot.prefs QUIET ENDIF
Sys:System/FDAView >NIL: Kill-FDA IF NOT WARN ;FDA is running before RUN Sys:System/FDA ENVARC:FDA-AfterBoot.prefs QUIET ENDIF
RUN Sys:System/FDA ENVARC:FDA-AfterBoot.prefs QUIET IF $RC GE 5 ;FDA is running before Sys:Prefs/FDAPref ENVARC:FDA-AfterBoot.prefs USE ENDIF
AlreadyRunning = warn (5) PreferenceCancel = error (10) PreferenceFDAnotRunning = warn (5) NoDeviceCached = fail+1 (20 +1) CanNotCreatePort = fail+2 ReadArgsError = fail+3 CanNotReadPrefs = fail+4 CanNotCreateTask = fail+5 AllocSignalError = fail+6 NoMem = fail+777-fail
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Jump to: | 4
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Z |
---|
Jump to: | 4
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Z |
---|
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A dos-buffer requires (per default) a half KiloByte.
DiskSpeed Reference: 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Syncron write-back, or the asyncron delay is started when:
- e.Update-command from FileSystem,
- e.Motor-off-command from FileSystem,
- If a program requests memory, and the cache (the whole RAM)
is filled with data that has to be written back.
- Disk removed : “You must replace Volume“
- If DiskSafe is installed : Before a Reset or a Guru.
- or if the cache is full with data to write (at least 7 free tracks)
The end of the write-access is signalled explicit by the FileSystem
to make sure that a device, software- or hardware-cache in the hardisk has
written the data completely.
Most harddisks have an internal cache of 64 KB.
If only a block
(part) of the track
is read, the hardware
copies the whole track
into a buffer and passes on only the requested
Block
.
Future Drive Accelerator
makes use of this behavior: It always reads
the whole track
into the cache. Reading of a Tracks
is a little
bit slower than reading a block
.
slow hardware-head, which would be necessary for reading another block
.
⇒ And the hardware isn’t stressed because the requested block
is
already in the cache.
The used algorithm is required to figure out which tracks is the
last in the queue. This is the oldest track, and if there are several tracks
of the same age, the tracks with the smallest access counter is killed.
If you know a more effective algorithm, don’t hesitate and let me know.
The cache is a summary of different tracks.
A medium can be a partition, an inserted diskette/ a removable harddisk / CD or a removed diskette…
or SmartFileSystem_SCSIdirect, ProfiFileSystem-2_SCSIdirect.
FastFileSystem V44.5 is not compatibele with vdisk.device, statram.device, diskspare.device and fms.device
CopyMem(Quick) is used to copy data between cache and system memory.
The hack als works with
FastFilesystem V43.20
The hack removes an alert which informs the user that no OS3.1 is installed.
If you have another Amiga, please read the ‘readme’ text in the update-archive, to find out which file is the best for you.
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Future Drive Accelerator
Future Drive Accelerator
?Future Drive Accelerator
?Future Drive Accelerator
Future Drive Accelerator
Future Drive Accelerator
Future Drive Accelerator
Future Drive Accelerator
?Future Drive Accelerator
Future Drive Accelerator
even more
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