This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (1,000 messages)
Actually, I think the power companies hold the power line frequency pretty closely. That's what lets them buy power from each other… And a drifting power supply frequency would cause havoc with clocks and other syncronous motors. Back when I was a field engineer with Burroughs, a drunk took out…
They're set for power line. There was a CBM tech bulletin warning that some 2000's were set wrong at the factory. They said that this would cause problems with 3rd party genlocks… but that's all they said. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
That I don't know. I do know it's a jumper option in the 2000, whether to use the power supply tick line or vsync (what the 500 uses). But I never heard a good explantion as to why you'd want one over the other. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
The gvpscsi.device would be in the ROM on the gvp card. Otherwise, you'd be in a catch-22 situation. You need the file to run the hard drive, but the file is *on* the hard drive… so you can't get at it. Part of the Autoconfig process is to initialize ROM…
Steve, Yeah, I suppose they could save enough on the cable to make up for the added complexity in the mouse.:) It's more due to the fact that there are more clones with spare serial ports than bus ports. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
The 2000's power supply supplies a line frequency 'tick' signal…. but the 500 and 1200's do not. . -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
That's as bad as the caller asking where the "any" key was when the software said "Push Any Key to Continue". 🙂 MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
#'Budgie' chip
Message #215311
The clocks are generated by the 'Budgie' chip, from a main oscillator. That osc is 28.63696 mHz for NTSC and 28.37516 for PAL. The NTSC color burst is generated from it, so I'd say that you'd have to have the right crystal to generate NTSC *composite* video. The power supply…
After looking over the manual, I see a few more differences. . The main clock crystal is different. . The RF modulator is different. (different part #'s for ntsc vs pal- but the encoder is the same) . There is extra circuitry for the pal machines. (It appears to me…
I think I have that archive, or similar one as well. I think the fellow asking about it couldn't find an Amiga mouse in his area. Admittedly, there are lot's of clone mice available locally and they are tempting. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Rob, I'm assuming the 'external floppy frame' is essentially the guts from an external Amiga floppy drive. You can't just connect a bare drive to the external drive port without a couple chip's worth of glue logic. If you are in fact using an old Amiga external drive, the other…
Glenn, You can use a bus mouse with minor rewiring. There's also an commercial adaptor- although whether it's still available is a good question. The more common pc serial mouse is another story. You're talking major surgery to convert one of those. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Compute! books used to sell a volume called "Learning C Programming graphics on the Amiga & Atari ST". I don't know if you could still find it though, they're long gone, I believe. You might try some of the mail order places with dusty back rooms… The ISBN # is…
PAWS Press Release 8/95
Message #208280
Shawn, The 1000's RGB port is the same 23 pin port as the rest of the line. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Byte articles on 3D
Message #47447
Guess now that Alpha is first…. among Renderers at least. 🙂 Alpha and Omega..
#47364-
Byte articles on 3D
Message #47370
"Omega" – The Last Word in computing. 🙂
Dave, In addition to Don's comments, check the solder joints on the flyback itself. They tend break after time. I've seen that glitch more times than any other failure. (BTW, there are dangerous voltages inside monitors… be careful. I'm sure you know that, but better safe than well,,,, ya know.:)…
Gary, Thanks for the tip. BTW, how does the upgrade board install? The processor on my 386BB is surface mounted. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
The first 3000's "kickstarted" from a file on the hard disk. To set that up, you needed the "Super Kickstart" disk that came with the 3000. The install utility on the matching WB disk put the Kickstart image out onto the hard drive where the ROMS in the machine would…
Steve… Try doing a 'setclock reset' command from the CLI. Then set your time, and do a 'setclock save'. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
That's a rev 3 machine. I don't believe it was ever sold in the US, officially at least. Some of the mail order outfits were selling the bare boards before CBM died. I got one for spare parts at a HAM radio swap meet. The revision level is on the…
Well, that ought to be the same situation. So long as you don't disable the flicker fixer by switch or software, a VGA monitor will work. Going back to a 1080 must be painful. I'm still using my 1080, but it's dying. I need to open 'er up and fix…
Sometimes knowing the manufacturer isn't much help… but you might get lucky. Philips (half of the 108x monitors) was very helpful, but Daewoo (the other half) wasn't. On the otherhand a repair shop ought to have enough parts catalogs to search through. Since you have a 3000, you can use…
Probably nobody knows if it's possible to run a c64 drive from an Amiga. I don't…. although there is or was a 64 emulator for the Amiga. I seem to recall that you could order some kind of disk interface from the Author. I don't know if the interface would…
The 1950 was made by AOC. Sounds like a flyback/horizontal output problem. I'd guess the whining sound is the switching power supply straining to drive a heavy load…. but then monitors are not my strong suit. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Yeah, the 21st century starts on January 1, 2001. December 31, 1999 at 2400 hours is when all the computer software in the world breaks. 🙂 -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Marion, The extension card I have is something I bought from a guy at one of those traveling computer trade shows. Cost me a whole 4 bucks. 🙂 It's marked with a "made in Taiwan" and "CTK-CS035AS" silkscreen, but that's all I know about it. It's only about 2 inches…
Well, it was just a thought. It seemed to me that it would be cheaper to just build the bus interconnect than the whole display card. Let the clone card maker do the hard work. I've heard of people running VGA cards in an Amiga using the Golden Gate board…
Uh…. it depends on your 2000 as to whether the AT extension socket's holes are filled. I have 2 2000's one is filled, one open. I've been planning to add the connectors to my spare machine (the filled one natch!). I've also got this little extension card that plugs into…
John, and Wayne.. I think someone should take advantage of the 'economies of scale' in the clone market and make a gizmo that would run an off-the-shelf VLbus or PCI bus video card from the A2000 accellerator. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Tell me this then, when you have sold all of your customers or at least saturated the market for your product, how the he!! can you keep the doors open and pay the people providing this support? MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Chris, One of the most common failure modes for all CBM monitors that I've seen is the solder joints on the flyback transformer. Seems that the mechanical vibration of the transformer stresses the joints until they crack, then the joints start becomming intermittant. That causes sparking which burns the joint…
Yikes, that is a loaded system. I thought mine was bad with a Toaster, GVP '030, 2091 & drive, and 2 4 meg zorro II memory cards. I moved my farm of piddly small HD's into an external PC minitower. -Jim
How about this one: . . Fe . / \ . Fe Fe . \ / . Fe Otherwise known as a Ferrous Wheel MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Steve, You didn't be any chance just move up to 2.x on an unaccellerated 2000? It had a lot of wierd 0000003 gurus when I first did moved to 2.0 on my 1000. Getting the latest SETPATCH helped, but didn't fix them all. I'm now on a '030 2000, and…
If the 500 was just knocked around, it would be worth opening it up & checking the keyboard cable. It may have been knocked loose. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Yes, I ran 2.04 on my 1000 for a long time. The trick is to use DKB's Kwikstart board. Then you just put in the same ROM that goes in the 2000 or 500. It takes a little work to install, but works well.
I'd swap 'em before buying new chips, although in these times, having a spare set makes sense. In any case, based on your description, I'd say that if you swapped them, the printer would stop working properly. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Christian, I had a real "Twilight Zone" failure on my 1000 with a bad 8520. The time of day clock kept repeating the same 1:27 over and over. It was actually useful for some games. They appeared to set their initial conditions based on the 8520's counter. The bad chip…
I agree, I've seen a toasted cia chip cause those same symptoms. Best thing to do is swap the two chips & see if the bugs change. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Andy, The chipset prototype was what I had in mind. When I saw pictures of it, it reminded me of my own Z-80 system. Except that there were about 10 times the chips in the Amiga. 🙂 -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Scott, Start with the front two sockets, then every 4th socket back from those. That's bank 0, the first 8 zips. The next 8 go right behind each of those. If you can read the silkscreen on the board, it's U850-857 for bank 0 and U858-865 for bank 1. The…
Someone had asked about using the Teac dual drive on the *Bridgeboard* not the Amiga. I was just saying that the two I installed were painless. Slick, but it doesn't make much sense unless you need the 5.25" drive and are pressed for space. With the 386 BB I'd rather…
#189019-
Final Issue Contents
Message #189148
Sorry, I don't know. It was just something I remember reading on the nets somewhere. Might not even be true. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
#188910-
Final Issue Contents
Message #189007
Somebody told me the wire-wrap prototypes were also sold. That was the machine I was refering to. And yes, I did mean the Deathbed Vigil tape Dale Larson's company is handling. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
I've got AmigaWorld's "History of the Amiga" video. It's worth a look. I was particularly interested in seeing the prototype Lorraine boards. After following the rumors of the machine at the time, I finally got to see the originals. 🙂 Now I've got to order Dale's tape to go with…
Bruce & Jim, Another problem with the Cessna-to-Amiga analogy is the spare parts situation. If your Cessna's engine throws a rod (hopefully on the ground!), you can find an A&P guy to fix it, even if he has to machine a new part from scratch. You can't exactly do that…
Howard Armstrong, a noted engineer, said of lawyers "They substitute words for reality, then argue about the words." RCA really shafted him.:( MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
I think it's back to Popular Electronics now. It was "Computers and Electronics" for a while, but that didn't go over very well. They're still a long way from being as good as they were in the old days. -Jim MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
Dege, Glad to help. I kinda miss doing that sort of stuff since the store where I worked died just before CBM. 🙁 Anyway, I figure the layout of the zipps was for the convenience of the board layout folk, mere mortals need not apply. After installing the 0'th bank,…
Page 1 of 20