This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (609 messages)
I've done it successfully in the past with a 2090 controller loaded from floppy and later again to mount a bridgeboard. Depends on the type of drivers, i would think. In my case I had two expansion drawers as the icons are read and then matched up with boards with…
The wonderful 'switch' bug shows up again under 2.04 with an 040. -Greg – via Whap!
One of the problems is that the A3000 generates a Bus Error exception via hardware when bad software accesses non-existant RAM (read or write). The handler code for this is 030 specific and causes an Illegal Address Exception (Usually). My next version of Fastrom040 installs its own handler if an…
The ECS Denise requires two more signals than does the OLD denise. I'm pretty sure My 4.1 worked OK, so those lines were run. It should be used with a 1 Meg Agnus, because the 1/2Meg Agnus has programmable syncs, and the 512K 8370 Agnus doesn't. -Greg – via Whap!
It ran just great on my 4.1 machine. I've upgraded Agnus and Denise and probably Paula along the way, but 2.04 works OK for me. -Greg – via Whap!
If the software uses the FPU, it will see a performance increase. If not it won't. I would think you might get as fast as 75% of the 030/68882 in some situations, but if you get where the 68882 is always waiting on the 020 to complete its work, then…
Actually, 2.04 fixes a bug in the task switching area that has been around since day 1. You don't want the OS to be held back from proper development, just because a few games act a little slow, do you? -Greg
Change All other FPU instructions (of the 040) have to be emulated, not implemented, or implemented in software. 😉 -Greg
reply If the 020 is paired with a 68851 PMMU, as with the A2620, you incur a one wait state penalty for the address to translate through the 851. The 030 does not incur this delay. The 030 also has a data cache which when properly enabled, allows a typicaly…
OK. Well, it was a 2.04 compatible version, no? -Greg – via Whap!
I do think thre was a new HDDisk in the expansion drawer of my A3000 install disk. -Greg
the Rigid Disk Block and SCSIDirect are functions of software drivers for a particular CONTROLLER card, not the individual hard drive. No SCSI hard drive has the slighest idea what a RDB is or cares. -Greg
You can get 150nsec EPROMS, which close in on the difference in speed.Remember the MB ram may be 80 nsec, but that is the access time. Cycle time is probably in the 150 nsec range. Support of Static Column ram burst mode would make it faster. In the PP&S 040…
No, John. The 3.5" HD floppies do use a different oxide and change write head currents depending on whether or not there is a HD hole detected. It is possible to cover the hole and use as an 880K disk, but it has been reported that some 'bleed-through' of data…
Andy or someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the A3000 is fairly close to SCSI 2 under 2.04, and the drive might not be quite up to snuff. The 2091 and other A2000 controllers are not generally as picky in my experience. -Greg
Close: 1) Correct. 2) The IBM floppies have a sector which tells the computer how it was formatted. Remember that DOS reads this every time it does a transfer to verify what type of drive and to determine if the user had changed disks (volume name, I guess). 3)The IBM…
The problems are solvable and actually, I have written several programs to get around the problem, including a replacement handler. But these are part of stuff that I am not really at liberty to discuss or release right now. The truth is that software which causes a bus error exception…
On an A2000, with no bus error logic, it runs much better than on the A3000. I have the PP&S 040 for the A3K. I was terribly frustrated with the level of compatibility until I found out what was the cause (Bus Errors). -Greg
Yes, Resource030 dies at program exit if I forget to turn copyback cache off. CDROM-FS also has some bugs that cause problems for me. Aquarium runs fine off the hard disk, but dies if run off the CD-ROM (Aquarium dies when quitting the program, a common problem). ExpressCopy off the…
Try any version of SYSINFO from 2.22 on up. On an A3000 with 040 you get a 8000004 Illegal address exception. Strangely enough, this is caused by a Bus error which occurs whenever a program writes to an area that does not physically exist on the A3000. In 030 mode,…
how old is your machine? I got mine in Oct with Rev 9.3 MB and I don't believe it has the new floppy. -Greg
The only drawback is that with an 040 accelerator card, you may have to lose the capability to boot back in 030 mode. Given the state of Amiga software compatibility with the 040, having the 030 as a backup is a must. The reason is that most 040 cards for…
Since you need 32 bits worth of ram, You need 8! Simple math!
The fact is the A2000 ram runs a four clock (minimum) memory cycle at 7.16Mhz, versus the A3000's speed (whatever it is, but considerably faster) of some n number of clock at 25 Mhz.
You need a machine pin socket to extend the height or the connection will be very fragile, if it can be made at all. The drawback is that the machine pins will weaken tension on the motherboard socket and you will have to leave it in (i.e. just put the…
There is more than one C compiler for the Amiga, and Commodore doesn't own any of 'em. You talk with that vendor to get a bug fixed. Maybe they found out how slow their code runs and wanted the compiler vendor to fix their 'bug' by making their executables 10X…
This problem showed up under 1.3 if you had an accelerator. 1.3's MicroEmacs also had the same problem. WP has a bug where they don't waitblit() and I guess they busyloop or something. You should see how bad it gets with an 040. You lose the entire left 1/3 of…
paul, The rom switch devices work OK, but you have to be careful of how you set up your hard drive. if you really want to boot you hard disk from 1.3, you need to put the 2.0 filesystem onto your rigid disk block, so you can have access to…
I was aware that the A2000 version ran sysinfo, but wanted to point out instability in the A3000 with most new versions. BTW, I just uploaded 040ROM.lzh to Amigatech/system utilities library. It contains Fastrom040, MMU, and ROMSPLIT1 (including source) -Greg – via Whap!
On my A3000 with PP&S 040, All Sysinfos from 2.22 on break. Only 1.98 works 100%, and only if fastsys is not run (VBR must be 0 – known bug in that version). Two other persons who have identical setups to mine have different results. One works all the time,…
I'll try to get it uploaded today.
I have a working Fastrom program, but it doesn't speed the system up much. I am modifying the code to be intelligent about the type of I/O cards in a system and setting the MMU tables accordingly. After that, I'm adding a KickRom option, but I need to learn about…
No, I never tried that modification. -Greg
The 68040 MMU (Memory Management Unit) is radically different to the degree that I will be supprised if there ever is an enforcer program for it. Enforcer requires a MMU. You need to protect and detect accesses to certain memory areas and only a MMU makes that possible. To sum…
1) Wire comes off ROM for the Rejuvenator. 2) Pin 1 of the ROM faces the back of the machine, so you are correct – it is opposite to most other chips on the board. The silkscreen should be labeled with a 1 at pin 1. 3) What do you…
I will say that I've noted that there have been a number of mods for the 1300 over the years. Early 1300 didn't like anything except video from cameras which is rock steady. VCR output broke it up horribly. My 1300s seem to work just fine with all types of…
1300 Genlock works fine with extension cable on an A2000 with 1MAgnus/ECS Denise and A1000 Rejuvenator with 2MB Agnus and ECS Denise. I bought two 1300 Genlocks at DevCon and both work fine. -Greg
Are they MC or XC parts? -Greg
The A3000/030 gets 30% better results than the 040, and write through mode of the 040 is faster than copyback mode. I wasn't knocking diskspeed, I think it is a great program, just that I hadn't spent the time trying to see what is the culprit. BTW are you sure…
I'm talking relative. With the caches off, the fastrom program retains much of the speed of the machine because the roms are in 32 bit ram. Thus relatively, you see 25 to 30 percent increase over the speed of the machine with the caches off.The machine overall is still slower…
Actually, I have a working FASTROM program for the Progressive A3000 68040 accelerator . It is only marginally faster than stock with the 32 bit roms I have. Turn caches off and it is 30% faster. To anyone who has an 040: If you send me the type of machine,…
You can use CPU if it is a non-68040 MMU equipped machine. -Greg
Thanks for the plug Denny. The spirit board fits the 68000 socket and stands quite tall. Might be a case clearance problem if another 68000 device is plugged in. -Greg – via Whap!
While it is quite clear that any machine bought under the developer program may not be sold to the public, I'm not sure that applies to the ROM. I certainly don't recall any such disclaimer with the ROM order form. It leads me to wonder what if you put the…
Didn't the Chinon come out last in Benchmarks presented in the September Byte? -Greg – via Whap!
I consider the ultimate monitor for the Amiga to be the Sony GVM-1300. It is only 14 inches and is pricey ($1100), but there is no better. Specs 4 video inputs(composite, Y/C, 2 RBG (digital or analog)) with matching mono audio inputs. Fully adjustable width in 31Khz mode. Is multisync,…
Amiga Clearance! v2(sad)
Message #36283
Log on with a terminal program and do a 'mes;cha' and select ALL messages. If they haven't scrolled off, you can find them. When you log off you original high message pointer will be retained so you won't have to read all previous messages again.
Don't make the mistake that I care about credibility. Do you? I like your carefully crafted paragraph on that you never offered me work again, etc. For the publics reference, I had basically had told you after I had finished the final prototype that I would never work for you…
I feel sorry for all the abuse you've had to take. Ben has his crowld here and he is in charge of this section. I have a couple of similar stories to tell, and as a freelance thing, I designed the digital section of the original HAME. Needless to say…
Sometimes a person has no choice but to present his case to the public. If I wanted to, I could tell of my experiences with BBS and they'd be downright chilling if I told everything. My royalty check for the first half of the year for HAM-E was so small.…
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