OT was: [MiNT] MiNT and Eclipse/fVDI

["Sven Karlsson" <sven@it.lth.se>]

Hi all!

Sorry for being slightly OT.

> I got my Eclipse today :-) Works great, as long as I don't boot
> MiNT... Does anybody here use an Eclipse/fVDI with MiNT? I've
> tried everything I can imagine, but everytime the AES starts,
> my Falcon reboots :-(

Johan and I tested some configurations last night. We ran a standard 030 16
MHz 4Mb system with only an IDE drive and booted with a mono monitor. We ran
these auto programs in order:

* pcibios.prg (the Eclipse pcibios)
* fvdi.prg (latest version, please get this from Johan's website. The
version Cortex sent is rather outdated. The new version has beizer-curves
and is several times faster than the old one!)
* mint.prg (MiNT 1.15.9b (IIRC), we tested both with and without memory
protection)

as accs:
* fvdi.acc (again get the latest from Johan)

The securitylevel was set to 0.

This setup worked without problems as long as we ran either MultiTOS or
N.AES (1.10). Both with and without memory protection. NB: if memory
protection is to be used you need to disable the pcibios. fVDI can run
without the pcibios but in that case you need to remove the 'pcibios' switch
and add the '4mb' switch to the rage.sys commandline in the fvdi.sys config
file. Please also note that if you run without the pcibios there might be
problems with certain programs if they want to access the screen directly
and bypass the VDI.

BTW With 1.15.9 we could not get MiNT to run with the ROM AES/desktop. Is
this behaivour known?

Johan is currently in Lund and so he hasn't been able to test this with his
afterburner. He also has difficulties reading mail as he cannot read mails
on his hotel. When I meet him I let him borrow my computers if possible but
don't count on getting replies from Johan until this weekend.

Both Johan and I are very eager to solve your problems Jo Even and we hope
and belive that your Eclipse will work with MiNT very soon. Until then here
is a few tips:

1. Use the latest fVDI (available from Johan ftp site)
2. Try with and without the pcibios
3. Try the same setup as outlined above. Don't forget the patched
afterburner driver if you are using that.

Good luck and keep in touch. We are going to solve this!

And to answer some of the the most frequently asked questions:

1. I'm not dead. I even answer mails sometimes.
2. Fenix is not dead. And I'm not talking about the never-to-be computer but
the OS that actually will be.
3. Tempest is not dead. Everything is done and I "only" need to raise money
so I can make a 0 series run.
4. I cannot unfortunately set a specific release date on neither Fenix nor
the Tempest ATM. However if everything goes as planned they will be out this
fall.

Regards
 Sven