firmware. If you short these pins with the provided jumper, the card will only enable the resources necessary to
restore the firmware from a previously made Recovery Disk (see below). In other words, should the card stop
working completely due to a flash failure, you can restore normal function with a backed up version of the
firmware in this way.
Memory
The ACA500 comes with 2MBytes of fast memory auto-configured. This memory is normally located at
$c0.0000, which will increase compatibility with older software. It will also automatically configure any trapdoor
memory in your Amiga. There are several settings in the Expert Menu to control this memory configuration.
Firmware and menus
When the card is inserted and you power the system on for the first time, the ACA500 Configuration Menu will
appear. Press
F9
to cycle through the available languages.
This is a quick-start menu that allows you to boot your machine in several modes. F1 is the normal mode for
general usage with a Workbench installation on a CF card, and F5 can be used to play games and demos with
high compatibility on an A500 with trapdoor memory.
It's recommended that the first time you use this menu, you insert a blank disk
and press R to create a Recovery Disk!
Follow the on-screen instructions, then store the disk in a safe place. This is your warranty against having to
send the card back due to so-called “bricking”. Bricking is an exceptionally rare circumstance (for example,
power outage while writing to the Flash ROM), but you can rest assured that no matter what happens, you can
restore the firmware at any time if you have your recovery disk.
The Expert Menu allows you save a customized default or primary configuration, as well as a secondary
configuration. These can be explicitly booted with option F6 and F7, respectively.
F10 opens the Expert Menu, which offers many settings and functions described on the Wiki:
http://wiki.icomp.de/ACA500_first_steps
Please refer to this on-line document for detailed information about the menus.
Booting from a CF card
You prepare a CF card as you would a harddisk for the Amiga: you may insert the CF card in the slot marked
'
Boot Card
', put the Workbench installation disk in the floppy drive, power on your Amiga, and use HDToolbox
from the “install” disk of your OS disk set to format the card and install Workbench on it.
With the ACA500, you have the option to use Kickstart V3.1, V1.3, and the ROM that's physically installed in
your Amiga. Whatever you choose, make sure that the Workbench disks you use match the Kickstart version
you would like to use with the CF cards! A common recommendation for very high functionality and
compatibility is to use Kickstart and Workbench V3.1. This also allows you to run
WHDLoad games
, a great
feature supported by the ACA500! We recommend the use of WHDload V17.2 or higher, because starting
from this version, the ACA500's feature of making the quit-key work anytime is supported by WHDload. We
also recommend to register your copy of this great piece of software.
You can also boot from a PC-formatted card, in which case the card must be inserted in the slot marked '
Aux
'.
This slot must first be enabled in the Expert Menu (note: this will consume some memory). Support for FAT
type file systems is built into the ACA500 – so there is no need to install any drivers.
You may also prepare your card on a Windows, Linux, or Mac PC, using an Amiga emulator and a CF card
reader. Whatever file system you use, the CF cards can be alternately inserted into the PC and the Amiga to
transfer files.
A two-card setup is also useful: An Amiga-formatted, “normal system disk” CF card is used in the Boot Card
slot, and the Aux slot is used with a PC-formatted CF card when you want to transfer files easily and without
having to use an Amiga emulator. We recommend to power off your Amiga before inserting or removing a CF
card. Hot-swapping is not fully supported (see further down).
CF card compatibility
