Hard Truth: The ZZ9000 is Not for All NTSC Users

[intric8]

I checked over at their forums and there was a bug report, but the guy seemed to have resolved his issue somehow.

But yeah, that didn't include a card with a A500/Denise Adapter from what I can tell.

With my experience with the zz9000 the only way I could really get folks to continue to send me ideas for troubleshooting was to use the chat service he prefers. But I don't see that anymore. Maybe it's all just about the forum now.

It does seem like you have to stand in front of his car's headlights, waving your arms frantically, to get him to swerve and notice you. (I think he's just a really busy guy spinning too many plates at the same time.) But, yeah...

[Kevin Brice]

Another bug: if you're using internal tick on your A2000, the video slot adapter doesn't work. You can see flashes of image, but it's completely unable to sync. Verified across two A2000s. Switch to external tick and everything's fine.

[stevelord]

I think he's just a really busy guy spinning too many plates at the same time.

This, pretty much. Also those plates are enormous. If you look at everything the ZZ9000's supposed to do, it's an all-in-one graphics, ethernet, USB and media accelerator in one. That's a heck of a project for one person to take on, let alone to take on designing their own ARM laptop from the ground up mid-way through as a separate project.

So much specialist knowledge is needed to start making a dent in addressing the limitations and issues that pop up, that it's OSHW is almost moot. I've spent two years on and off just trying to get the ARM binary examples working and gave up. I stick with 1.8 because it's a combo that works on my setup.

[Kevin Brice]

If you look at everything the ZZ9000's supposed to do, it's an all-in-one graphics, ethernet, USB and media accelerator in one. That's a heck of a project for one person to take on, let alone to take on designing their own ARM laptop from the ground up mid-way through as a separate project.

So much specialist knowledge is needed to start making a dent in addressing the limitations and issues that pop up, that it's OSHW is almost moot.

I get that. I really do. But I'm not talking about advanced functionality - I'm talking about the very base level stuff that's been working with RGB2HDMI and Indivisions for quite a while now. NTSC laced via the Denise adapter, as far as I can tell, has never worked on any firmware release. Ever. That's basic functionality. People reported that the video slot adapter doesn't work at all with an internal tick (required when using an ATX power supply) back in May on MNT's site, with no response. 720x480 RTG video mode is listed as available in P96, but it if you try switching to it, you immediately see it doesn't work properly. Meanwhile, Lukas spent a bunch of time writing an autoboot driver for USB drives instead. The entire problem is spending time getting the new shiny kinda working instead of correctly implementing the most basic functionality that was promised in the first place.

Continuing to pile on new functionality that's also not fully-baked isn't an excuse for never nailing the most basic of fundamentals in over two years. I bought this thing to be a video adapter, not so I could boot off USB thumb drives. When is it going to properly be the thing it was sold as two years ago? I'm not demanding some pet feature be added - I'm asking for the original, most basic advertised features from when I ordered the thing to work.

[DiscreetFX]

I hope all the issues get resolved. I almost bought one of those cards and still might if it get fixed for NTSC.

[A10001986]

It works well with NTSC in the normal way (my boxes all run NTSC), it seems only the Denise-adapter is causing issues.

But I share Kevin's opinion as regards their inventor mentality, as I have expressed already here or elsewhere in this forum. Finishing stuff isn't their thing apparently.

[Kevin Brice]

It works well with NTSC in the normal way (my boxes all run NTSC), it seems only the Denise-adapter is causing issues.

The scaler doesn't work in the video slot at all on the A2000 with internal Agnus tick, either. Also, "normal" implies this is an unsupported hack. It's not.

[A10001986]

The big boxes were originally all running on TICK. So for me that's normal.

[Kevin Brice]

The big boxes were originally all running on TICK. So for me that's normal.

Their PSUs originally weren't 30 years old and failing, either. I'm not using internal tick for kicks. Also, the A4000 has no external tick, so it puzzles me even more why it doesn't work using internal tick on the A2000.

[A10001986]

Look, I am not opposing your statements. It should work with VSYNC as well, and Lukas is suspiciously quiet about this.

But to say the card does not work with NTSC is just wrong.