Buddha flashing

Overview

When the first Buddha controllers were released in 1997, they were designed for EPROMs to hold the drivers. Soon after that in 1998, the "Buddha flash" controller was released, implementing more recent technology that allows updating the drivers without the need for an Eprom programmer. While the 1997 controllers can also be updated with the latest binary files that were released - even for the 20-year anniversary edition - we won't describe the update process for these old controllers here.

latest binary file

This archive contains the ROM binary file only. It can be programmed into a 32k-Eprom for the 1997 version of the controller, or it can be flashed into the flash chips of newer controllers as shown below.

Download: File:Buddha 52-101.lha

MACH-based Buddha Flash controllers

Between 1998 and 2007, all Buddha controllers use the same flash tool, which you can find in this archive: File:Bflash.lha

For the "Phoenix edition" controllers, please close the write-protect jumper near the square MACH chip, otherwise flashing is prohibited by this jumper. The earlier (black) Buddha flash controllers do not have a write protect jumper, so no preparations are required to launch the flash process.

Open a shell and navigate to the directory where the flash tool and binary files are located. Enter this line:

flashBUDDHA Buddha_ROM_52-101.bin

..and then just follow the instructions given on screen.

20-year anniversary edition

The 20-year anniversary edition has a software-triggered write protection for the flash ROM. Once this write protection has been triggered, it can only be lifted with a power-cycle. To keep the current ROM from setting the write protection, press and hold the right mouse button, then switch the computer on. Hold the mouse button until you see a black/green screen flickering or the computer starts to boot. The software will ignore all saved configuration settings including write protection and the wait time for harddrives to spin up and boot normally.

For flashing the binary file into a 20-year-anniversary controller, you need the BuddhaFlashTool for this specific controller: File:BFlashTool.lha. Use this tool to write the binary file into the flash of the 20-year anniversary controller with this command line:

Buddhaflashtool Buddha_ROM_52-101.bin

The tool will ask for confirmation, which is required to be a capital letter "Y" - the flash process will start then. After a few seconds, the flash process should be completed.

Buddha Plus One

This controller was developed with a much higher depth-of-test, and the duration between it's release and the first flash update (almost three years!) shows that we've been quite successful in finding all the quirks during development. In fact, the first update (of February 2026, released July 2026) doesn't even fix bugs, but only adds two new features. Back when we finished testing, we were confident enough to not add a menu item "update flash rom" to the GUI tool. The flash function was instead hidden in the GUI tool: If it's called with one of the undocumented arguments, it can be used as a commandline tool for flashing the 64k EEPROM chip. The hidden arguments are:

READ/K - read flash to file

WRITE/K - write file to flash

INITIAL/S - assume $ef0000 initially

FORCE/S - do not ask

CAUTION: DO NOT USE Buddha_ROM_52-101.bin for this version of the controller! Only use the 64k file called "buddhap1.bin" from the update archive BP1_update_2026.lha. Assuming that you are in the directory where both the new b1tool and buddhap1.bin are located, the full command line for flashing your controller would be:

b1tool write buddhap1.bin force

Note that this will only work if the flash of this controller is not protected. Should it be protected, the only way to lift that protection is to launch the GUI of b1tool, switch off protection, save, then power-cycle the computer. You really need to power-cycle, as there's no other way to lift write protection once it has been activated. If you find entering a command line too complicated, we've prepared a bootable disk that you can either write to a floppy, or use in a floppy emulator: BP1update2026.adf.zip. Just boot from this disk and watch the update happening automatically. This won't lift any write protection either, but it doesn't require you to operate a shell if you're not comfortable with it.

after the update

The Amiga operating system does not have any means to exchange an already-running driver while the system is running. You therefore need to restart the computer before the new driver is read from the flash ROM. This can be a power cycle or a simple keyboard reset.