$VER: pcmciacd.device 1.4 (03.12.2023)
About
-----
PCMCIACD.device is a device driver for the Sony PCGA-CD51 PCMCIA CD-ROM.
These drives do not require any additional power to operate and plug
directly into the PCMCIA port.
Reported working drives
- Sony PCGA-CD51
- Sony CRX75A (16bit switch enabled)
- Sony PCGA-DVD51 (reported by user, not personally tested)
The device driver supports hot plugging of the CD drive during operation.
Removal of the card will appear as a normal CD ejection.
The pcmciacd.device will work alongside other device drivers such as
compact flash and network cards.
Support
-------
This driver has been developed primarily for the A1200 and works with
AllegroCDFS, CDFileSystem, CacheCDFS, AmiCDFS and AsimCDFS.
Execution has been successful on WB 3.1, 3.14 and 3.2.
Some limited testing has also been run on a base A600 68000 using AmiCDFS
on WB 3.1.
Card reset patch is recommended for correct operation due to a bug in the
PCMCIA implementation. Without this utility the card could fail to detect
if the driver is properly expunged from memory and then reinitialised.
This is an edge case for general use so not essential.
A work around solution is to eject the card and reinsert to perform a hard
reset if the drive stops working without CardReset patch.
See Aminet: util/boot/CardReset.lha
WB 2.0 is untested, but may work as the code uses only V36 library calls.
I cannot support any issues with the underlying file system used, which
may have their own bugs or limitations. Please read the documentation that
came with the file system to determine supported features and configuration.
Unplugging an externally powered drive, such as the CRX75A will upset the
driver and associated filesystem. Pull out the PCMCIA card before turning
off to prevent hanging the OS.
PCGA-CD51 housing can contain different drives meaning you may get a
different experience with some drives quiet and others a bit noiser.
Support for Teac and Toshiba variants are supported from v1.3 of this
driver. If you have any issues then please provide the drive name
as shown in FindDevice application found in the IDEFix 97 package.
You may notice difficulties with some PCMCIA network cards. The CD driver
will hang on to the device whilst checking to see if it's an ATAPI device.
As of 1.4 it should release these sooner but will still take until a time
out has happend to do this. I can be improved further by explicitly
checking the card type and name. For now I've built this to have wider
compatibility with any ATAPI PCMCIA device.
Misc Notes
--------------
Streaming videos from AmiCDFS using AGABlaster 0.9.91 has issues with the
playback. Remove all Control options from the mount file with:
Control = ""
PlayCD distributed with 3.9 checks the supported standards flags when
querying the CD-Drive. Sony ATAPI drives do not report full standard
support, but the driver fakes SCSI-2 to allow the player to work.
From version 1.4, the driver fakes 48h SCSI command to play tracks. This
command is obsolete in newer drives such as the ones used by Sony.
The faking isn't totally 48h compatible and may play more or less of a
track due to missing the indexing capability.
Driver Install
--------------
Copy pcmciacd.device to DEVS:
A mount file will need to be setup in DEVS:DOSDrivers. You can use the
example mount file included in the archive that requires AmiCDFS or update
an existing mount file by updating the tooltips and change to:
DEVICE=pcmciacd.device
UNIT=0
Only unit 0 exists for this driver on the PCMCIA card bus.
See Aminet: disk/cdrom/amicdfs240.lha
A newer version than 40.11 of the CDFileSystem is needed to run on
WB3.1. If this isn't available then AmiCDFS works for 3.1 and potentially
older versions of Workbench
Versions
---------
1.4 - 03rd Dec 2023: Fix card config timeouts to release other card
types earlier. Fakes SCSI command 48h enough
for games/apps that assume this command exists.
1.3 - 16th Mar 2023: Fix for Teac drive variant of the PCGA-CD51 drive.
Changes made to increase wait on startup and
interrupt handling.
1.2 - 23rd Jan 2023: Improved detection of ATAPI devices, especially for
constant powered drives such as CRX75A.
1.1 - 18th Jan 2023: Fix for divide by zero issue on fast Amigas running
PiStorm.
Slight increase of read speed from version 1.0
1.0 - 30th Dec 2022: First release. Tested on 68000 A600, 030/060 A1200
IMPORTANT NOTE:
---------------
Testing has been conducted with various devices, but there
may be unforseen issues with other PCMCIA cards causing crashes or
even damage to some types of card or data associated. Whilst this
risk should be very low the driver needs to prod and poke devices
to determine their function and not all types of PCMCIA cards will
react to probing in the same way.
Legal Information
-----------------
pcmciacd.device is Copyright (c) 2023 Aidan Holmes
Redistribution and use of the binaries are permitted as long as the
file names are retained, binaries are unmodifed
and the above copyright notice is reproduced.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND
CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES,
INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY
AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.
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