CompuServe Messages

The Continuing Adventure… When last we left our adventure I was wondering whether my A3000's SuperBuster was busted or not. I had recently purchased a GVP Spectrum EGS Graphics Board, and although it showed no overt signs of severe DMA related problems, the speed of WB cloned 256 color screens made me think that a Buster transplant was needed. After exchanges here, I ordered a rev. 11 SuperBuster (along with another 4 MB of Zip memory inorder to get my A3000 up to its 18MB max). After some time, I reduced my A3000 down to its individual parts. I flipped over the A3000 mother board inorder to find the hole below the Buster, which was there for easy removal of the chip and… Surprise, Surprise… NO HOLE! The motherboard had no holes, the only way the Buster can be removed is with some rather specialized extraction tool, which I didn't own! Oh well, after inserting the new Zips into my A3000 I hurriedly put the whole darn thing together, made a few random incantations to ward off any fatal connections I could have erroneously made, and turned on the machine. Since my A3000 is my only fully functional machine, obviously the procedure went well, and the "patient" survived the operation. During the procedure I chose to set the Spectrum's jumper to attempt a Zorro III type connection. I have yet to see any problems in the hours since the procedure, but I haven't seen any appreciable speedup when attempting to run a 256 colot WB clone screen. I still can not definately state that my olde Buster is really busted! In the next few days I will be testing my system, to ascertain whether there are any performance problems, now that I've switched the board's jumper from Zorro II to III. Does anyone have the name of the chip puller I'll need to do the Buster switch as well as a "cost effective" source? I truly dread the idea of disassembling my Amiga again, so it will depend on performance and cost of the extractor. And for the record, I don't know about all A3000 mother boards, but some (especially… MINE) don't have any holes below the chip sockets, inorder to make extraction possible without the right tools!!!!! Gee… no one said the care and feeding of computers was easy, but this is getting ridiculous <g>! // ** Commodore ** \X/ -<Comment left to the reader's imagination>- -RSL-