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               CT60 - The Neverending Story - My Personal Experiences
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Day 1:

I finally  felt like chistmas, although it was still summer, when I finally held
the  package with  my CT60 in hands. I  ordered and  payed t wo years before, so
there was no time left to waste, I had to get this thing running.
My  Falcon  did  already  have a Phantom SE  accelerator, so  I thought  I could
combine  those  things, also  SD-RAM (256 megs) was  bought  after  the  list on
Rodolphe's homepage long time before.
I opened the  package VERY carefully, cause  Rodolphe wrapped my baby completely
in bubblepaper  and gluestripes. It looked beautiful... but would it work? I had
to try! I fit the SD-RAM in the slot, removed the jumper on my Falcon's epansion
port and carefully put the CT60 in it, or on if you like.
Would  all  my  hopes of  fast internet  browsing (without my Mac ;-)), watching
realtime movies  and working with big graphic files really just be one switch-on
away? I thought while pressing the formally reset-switch on my Falcon's tower...
Noooooo... just black  screen . damn I thought... switched  back  to  normal 030
mode and everything was okay, but very slow, like before ;-)
It MUST be the SD-RAM I thought by myself and looked up Rodolphe's website again
... indeed, the SD-RAM I bought, which was formally supported, wasn't anymore on
the "goodlist".

Day 2:

So I went  to a local  PC-dealer, who  laughed  at me, as I told him that I need
SD-RAM, he called  me old-fashioned, but still had one 128 meg SD-RAM card left.
I didn't want to buy another one in vane, so I brought my  Falcon with me and we
tried out... the same black screen as before...

Day 3:

I was  getting a  little bit  afraid  if my CT60 might be  damaged, or was it my
Falcon? Luckily I  had another Falcon  at home, with  an AT-speed PC emulator on
the expansion  port...I had to try if the CT60 works with it... so I changed the
CT60 in the other Falcon and switched it on.
I saw the CT60 boot  screen and  was very  happy, until I got an SD-RAM error at
boot up...

Day 4:

...so it also had to do with SD-RAM I thought and went again to another computer
dealer and tried there the SD-RAM, still no good result...
I wasn't very happy anymore when I was at home again and cheked again Rodolphe's
homepage... the  SD-RAM  support  has  been  changed  again... so  I  called  my
girlfriend  who went home from  work and told her to bring me such a SD-RAM card
which was supported.
She really did  manage that  and proofed  a lucky  hand: as I put in her 128 meg
SD-RAM, I could start my Falcon with the CT60 for the first time.
I wanted to try DOOM first, as this was  already good  playable on my Phantom...
how would it be on CT60? I started  the game and it was insanely fast... I could
play for about 2 minutes when I got an error called "spurious interrupt"...
I tried again, with the same result... maybe it was the game?
So I tried ScummVM and  played Sam & Max... also  the same error, but incredible
fast ;-)

Day 5:

I contacted Rodolphe  via email, he asked me for my HDdriver version and told me
that in mine there should be a bug...
Uwe Seimet mailed me the latest version, but told me that the error shouldn't be
a HDdriver problem...I installed the newer HDdriver and tried out...
This wouldn't  be a  neverending  story  if it'd work now, so it didn't... still
this nerving error message... I already found out that this message also appears
while working with MagiC and Mint - but not so often.

Day 6:

I posted  my CT60 problem  on the  forum at www.dhs.nu . Finally  Didier told me
that my problem  should be caused by  the ABE-SDR and  that I have to flash this
chip with a jtag cable.
I contacted Rodolphe again and he mailed me a  patched firmware version for this
chip. So I had to build a jtag-cable to get my CT60 running correctly.

Day 7:

I went to a electronics dealer and bought everything I needed for the cable, the
price was about 17 EUR. I reanimated my  soldering iron after a long time of not
being used (last project was building  a combined parallel/serial  interface for
my Portfolio)...
After 2 hours of burning my fingers and soldering wires and resistors, I had the
jtag-cable ready... I thought...But trying it out just told me: CT60 not found..

Day 8:

After a long  search I found  the error with  the jtag-cable... the power supply
didn't have a good ground, so I  had to resolder  it again. Now  it worked and I
flashed my CT60.
(If someone  is interested, I  could make  a cable  for  him, too. Feel  free to
contact me!)
I was spending  the whole left day to complete some optical things (LED in tower
for 66 mhz) and  added some  technical details (CT60 on/off switch, better power
switch, a new reset switch, etc).

The next days until now my CT60 did run without any big problems...
Some programs  do not like  the accelerated  Falcon, but  in most  cases you can
solve this by changing  program-settings to Fast-RAM off. The biggest problem, I
still haven't  solved yet is  finding a  suitable boot-selector, as Airbag won't
work with the CT60. Stoop should work and is freeware, but the registration code
does not  work for me, I don't  know why... and the unregistered version doesn't
have enough features for me, as I work with 3 operating systems (MagiC, Mint and
TOS).
Another problem is that my  internal clock now  doesn't work correctly, as I use
another Falcon  than before (you  remember, the one  with  the AT-speed) I don't
know if this  problem is caused by the CT60... in fact, the clock is running way
too slow and  my external radio-controlled clock for my Falcon doesn't work with
the ct60...
I also tried different ST-RAM modules and found out that for me the FalconWings,
although  it is  maybe one  of the  slowest RAM cards for the Falcon, works best
with CT60 (of course with the non-soldered version), but I will have to exchange
it, when I finally  let my CT60 be  soldered  by a former  atari dealer and good
friend of mine.

You see, it's still a neverending story!

Note: Until  now, I  wasn't  able  to  get  the  CT60  running  with my Phantom-
accelerated Falcon, it  should be a problem with the clock patch included in the
Phantom package, but  I am worried  that the  Phantom won't  work anymore when I
remove this patch, so you should have a non-accelerated Falcon before installing
the CT60. Either buy one from Ebay or remove your acclerator completely...

Conclusion: Buy it or not? Athough I waited almost 2 years for this hardware and
            it took me one week to get it finally running, I would really buy it
            again! The speed is amazing, I never did see such a fast Atari! DOOM
            runs very smooth, the  Lukasfilm adventures  played with ScummVM are
            great and I  finally can do online-banking with my Atari under  mint
            and Cabssl.ovl, although this is not  optimised for 060 and so still
            is slow...But browsing  the web with CAB  is really  fast, so that I
            will soon use my Falcon with DSL via my Ethernec and my Mac.
            Now with  the CT60 I  can listen  to MP3  files  while  working with
            papyrus, chatting  with aICQ and downloading  some  files  with CAB,
            without hanging of the music.
            You see, it's a  must-have for every neverending Atari user, but you
            should have some patience and not too big expections for the first 8
            days ;-)

                                                             Mac-falcon  (chris)
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