This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (593 messages)
Somewhere (I believe in the mountlist file itself) I read a comment that GVP had stored a copy of the mountlist in an area called the Rigid blocks for the use of the Autoboot ROMs. Well… I may as well switch over to a single 40Meg partition, then… –>Steve Bennett
GVP creates their own reserved cylinders, similar to the 2090A. With their autoboot ROMs, the all user partitions can be FFS. I have a 20 meg disk with one partition that is all FFS. I suspect, though, that you will have to completely re-initialize your disk when you do install…
Well, right now I don't have the autoboot, so that isn't the problem. I had originally created three partitions on my hard disk (1 small one for whenever I decided to add autobooting, so that most of my stuff would still be on a FFS partition… Hmmn… Does the GVP…
Michael, Cltd will shortly have available and autobooting, fast SCSI Host/Controller for the A1000. It should cost around $300.00 or so retail. Keep an eye on Abel Supply's price list where it will probably become available for about $200.00 or so (based on old pricing of the current model). I…
Gosh …. Well, first I went with a name I knew. I already owned a Microbotics 8-UP board, and it performed well. The engineering and layout of the board as well as the concept impressed me. As for the HardFrame, with a transfer speed of 5 megabytes per second, it…
Mike, The verdict on interlaced, overscan screens impacting the 2090 is definitely not in yet. It would seem that it is dependent upon the program that is being used. For example, if UShow is showing a hires, interlaced picture, you can fire up another USahow and load a similar picture…
Khalid, As far as I know, the Toaster is still not out. -larry
##29275 bnd crash
Message #29444
Don, This is the assign list from the HD startup-sequence: (Without a disk in df0: or df2:) Volumes: PCvd0 [Mounted]
David, no, GVP is using a *pseudo DMA* thing? MicroBotics, Supra and CBM are the only ones (of that I do know) that they use DMA. -Mike
or whatever's out there) and CPU's that does not support DMA (like Ronin, CMI, CSA and so on). I hope I got the message right to you and that you could understand everything I meant…. I'm not too good in english .. -Mike
John, this is a very complex question but I'll try to answer it: Lets say you have an Amiga 200 and want the fastest system using 2 MB RAM, a fast processor and a super harddrive. Lets say you want to make a VIDEO application. As the blitter and the…
Larry, What's the story with the Video Toaster? Still not out? Khalid.
Michael, According to the docs supplied with it and all the literature I've seen, the GVP is a DMA interface. David
The bad thing about GVP's way of allocating resources is that even when you boot from a floppy the autoboot roms mount the partitions. I originally had 5 20 Meg partitions that ate nearly 350K. From what I've seen the Hardframe does the same thing, so that's probably a problem…
Ethan, If you haven't done so already, I'd strongly suggest you check with GVP and make sure it'll both fit and work in a SubSystem 500 before you place your order. I don't think you'd be real happy if you got the SubSystem and the GVP drive and found they…
Steve, Partitions eat memory. I am thoroughly convinced that partitions are pretty much useless appendages, left over from some primitive OS or another. -larry
Art, Well, you will notice a considerable speedup with the Microforge over what the floppies provide. Unfortunately, I don't think the Microforge software will ever be updated. If you are getting a particularly good deal on it, you might consider eventually throwing the controller out and getting one that handles…
I decided to get the GVP 42mb, 11ms hardcard. Price is important to me as well as speed. the cost was $799 + $22 for autobooting eproms. I think this was a good choice, in part because GVP has a good customer service reputation. I just hope it will fit…
Ron, Assuming that you had a 'hard card' that did not have a CPU, that had no part of it outside the main box, it would leave the final requirement that it not 'change the radiation characteristics of the device in a significant manner'. Think about this one a minute.…
hear hear! The last thing we needed was yet another product that caused screaming about how poorly CBM designed things. -larry
You keep bringing that up. My answer is "So what?". If company X decides to file for Chapter 11, does that mean that CBM should too? -larry
Dean, Well…considering the screaming we heard about the A2090 not being autoboot…you bet we'd have heard lots of screaming if CBM released the A2620 with no RAM. Don
Clint, Advertised in the back of computer magazines. Don
Dave, Yes…the drives should be the same…but remember that SCSI is like RS232…there are manufacturer options. Many drives require that line 40 be disabled, and they work fine with the A2090, no idea on the HardFrame. Don
#RAM pricing
Message #29372
Ron, Newtek and CBM do not make the same sort of products. Newtek could not release their Video Toaster, because leaving it unpopulated would have meant that it was only part of a Video Toaster. ie. It will not work without its ram, period. CBM could have released the 2620…
Ron, I will give you the same answer I gave then, I don't know. In an embedded SCSI drive, the encoding method is internal, and therefore unknown, unless you want to take the trouble to hang an oscilloscope on it and see what it is. -larry
#29353-
FCC certification
Message #29369
Ron, You're learning! Yes, just about every board for the Amiga needs to be certified. Don
Ron, I don't know. Don
Where can one get 1 meg chips for $30? That's the best price I've seen.
Steve, The memory is probably being eaten by drive buffers. No, no way to unmount a partition…just don't mount it in the first place unless you need it (if you can…I'm not familiar with GVP's software). tstGVPscsi sounds like 'test GVP scsi' so I presume it's some form of test…
John, Non-DMA controllers require the use of the CPU to transfer data from the drive into memory…thus slowing down anything else going on in your Amiga at the time. As a general rule…it's also slower than DMA. DMA (Direct Memory Access) controllers don't need the CPU to access memory…they can…
Don, This afternoon I found a flyer in my HardFrame/2000 box that pertains to using Mac-style SCSI drives with an Amiga. (I've only had the HardFrame for a few days, so I'll excuse myself for not going over the docs more thoroughly. 8^>) The flyer notes that "many SCSI drives…
Wasn't at least one of the two other boards available bare? Ron
Paul, I had similar experiences with my HD. With the jumpers set as I thought they should be, and the drive reponding to PREP, I'd go to format, get a message that it was formatting the first cylinder, then it quit – with no error message. Don gave me some…
Don, The 2620 uses 256K x 4 ZIP chips. From what I understand, one of the reasons for the 2620 being delayed was the DRAM shortage, and the 256K x 4 ZIP's have just recently become available in more than sample quantities. Since CBM buys RAM's in HUGH quantities, they…
#GVP questions
Message #29346
I've just gotten and installed a GVP Impact A2000 2/0 controller and Quantum 40Meg hard drive into my A2000. I don't have the A2000 Autoboot roms installed. It all works pretty nicely, but two things came to my attention to ask about, in case anyone here knows… 1) The boot…
Mike: What are the advantages/disadvantages of DMA vs. non-DMA hard drives? John
Ethan, I'm selling all kind of hardware for the Amiga in W-Germany and I do have experience with every controller available for the A2000. I had the chance to compare CBM 2090, GVP Interfaces, Supra Interfaces and last but not least MicroBotics HardFrame 2000. Depending on what you are doing…
I have tried the GVP HC 80 with the Subsystem and it does NOT fit! Pat.
#A1000, SCSI, DMA
Message #29324
I am looking at hard disks and controllers for my Amiga 1000. I'm looking in Amiga World and notice good prices for SCSI drives, but can't tell which of the many SCSI boards are available for the 1000. I'd like something like Great Valley Products' SCSI boards for the 500…
Art, Yes, there is a significant difference in speed between a floppy and a HD. So even without FFS, you'll be 'happy'…just don't go look at an Amiga running with a HD and FFS and you'll never know what you're missing. Don
I got that $45 price from Microprocessors Unlimited in Oklahoma, I had dealt with them in the past, and thought they had good prices. Sheesh. $45 for a little tiny chip. And people think Godiva chocolates are expensive. 🙂
Michael: I was responding to someone else's problem. The handlers, by convention, should be in the directory pointed to by the 'l' logical device. Of course the spelling, including case must also match. Normally and handler should not be in the libs logical device. 73, bill
Thanks for the information. The 2090 documentation is very confusing over this area. I will try changing my mountlist and re-prep.
Thanks for the information. I will try changing my mountlists.
#Microforge Drive
Message #29303
I'm considering buying a used Microforge 40meg drive. I've been told that's it's a great drive but won't work with the Fast File System. Can anybody tell me if this is a problem that can possibly be corrected OR since I;ve been using my 1000 for about two years with…
I ran diskperfa on my disk. I have an Amiga 1000 with a 68010 CPU, 1.5 MB of RAM. My disk is a Seagate ST-225N. I have two partitions: a big one with FFS (Fast File System) and little one with the old file system. I ran it with MicroBotics'…
#2090/hard drive problem
Message #29289
Bill, getting such messages like "cannot find handler" means: Check if all files are in L: and LIBS: Perhaps that helps.. -Mike
C-Ltd upgrade message
Message #29288
Bob, the same thing happens to one of my customers using the SUPRA SCSI (A2000). Supra seems to take the DMA from the serial port to get the DMA run faster.. -Mike
Ron, That's still comparing apples and oranges. Your 30 Meg RLL drive is simply the same mechanism used in a 20 Meg MFM drive that has been designed, tested and certified to run under RLL encoding. The controllers are obviously different thou. To get 30 Meg from a drive (MFM),…
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