#2091 in 4000?
23 messages in this thread
Will a 2091 with V6.6 boot roms work in an Amiga 4000?
It should work. I just installed a Syquest on one in a customer's 4000. It
had 6.6 ROMS. Apparently, 7.0 ROMS are available from C= which are
supposed to work better – although I'm not sure in what way.
The 7.xx roms allow DMA operation. Currently, the 6.x roms are all PIO, so
they are slow as mud with an 040.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Thanks Ben. I heard about the improvement, but not the reason. Based on
what I read here, I put some 16 bit RAM on the 2091. Performance seemed
acceptable, but a Syquest isn't exactly a speed demon.
Jim
Yes – badly. You want 7.xx 2091 roms.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
>You want 7.xx 2091 roms.
Which I got. and…it works badly. My external SCSI drive is only
transferring at a rate of about 70K/second, and sucks the entire CPU doing
it.
I dug around in some old experiments and put some 256×4 RAM into it (1M),
but this did not help.
It occurs to me that either the max transfer or mask is wrong.
The max transfer defaulted to 7ffffffe and maxtransfer default to ffffff.
I tried changing max transfer to fffffff, with no effect, and ffffffff
with crashes (oops!). It occurs to me that perhaps even with the 7.00
roms, the thing is still DMA'ing into CHIP ram. I wonder if there's a way
to use the mask to force the DMA to do into the 1M of ram I put on the
2091 itself.
Its too damned slow like this…about twice the xfer of a floppy, and my
tape restores are taking hours.
An Italian have written a program for this problem. It is called A4091patch.
With this patch the drive go to 600/650kbytes/sec. Is not a Ferrari but is a
good spped.
>An Italian have written a program for this problem. It is called
>A4091patch
Thanks a lot. Do you know if it is available anywhere? Could you upload
it here?
After replyint ro you I upload the file.
Ciao
MB-)
The fix is on the Hardware problem area and is called A4092P.lha
Hmmm. Dunno what else to tell you at this point.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Actually what would be best is if CBM came out with that SCSI-II
controller (4091) they promised would be released in February. I guess we
need to ask which year 8^)
//
\X/ John – K7KB (Flying via AutoPilot)
"..need to ask which year…" <rueful grin>
I think they'll do better – should be soon.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
You're waiting for the SCSI-II interface? I can't imagine why when I think
about it. You may not mind, but I don't want to end up with the 2090 of
SCSI-II interfaces.
-Chris
Well I don't think the 4091 will be as bad as previous CBM controller's,
but then again I might be wrong 8^) Actually I would like to see a SCSI-II
controller with a few extra features like more 32-bit memory capability,
etc. But I haven't heard any rumblings or rumors about GVP, Microbotic's,
or anyone else doing a SCSI-II controller for the 4000 except the one from
CBM. I can't stand the slow speed of the 2091 makeshift controller I have
in there now, so I'm getting desperate 8^)
//
\X/ John – K7KB (Flying via AutoPilot)
John,
I don't think the SCSI-II feature is even the point of concern here..
It's Zorro-III. I would have much preferred if Commodore put the A3000
SCSI on a ZIII card and shipped it when the A4000 debuted. And it probably
wouldn't have even delayed the SCSI-II but a couple of weeks. Instead,
we're all waiting for some fancy-shmancy SCSI-II interface while our
systems crawl at a snail's pace and all of the vendors are playing 'wait
and see'.
-Chris
Yep, I agree Chris. I would have been happy if CBM would have included
SCSI-I on the motherboard instead of this #$%^ IDE interface. But I guess
if the SCSI-II controller & drive deliver's 10MB/sec transfer rates like
I've heard about, then I won't complain too much 8^)
//
\X/ John – K7KB (Flying via AutoPilot)
Here in Italy somebody says to have resolved the slow A2091 problem- Disabling
autoboot and putting the scsi.device in the expansion drawer together with his
icon. It seems to have resolved every proble. I haven't tried becouse i got a
GVP wich is workning flawlessy at 700/900 Kbytes/sec. Ciao MB-)
Thanks Massimo for the information. Disabling the autoboot is no problem
but I'm not sure what would happen putting the scsi.device in the
expansion drawer. CBM's hacked driver for the IDE drive is in rom and it's
called scsi.device. So the system renames the 2091 controller as
2nd.scsi.device and all your SCSI drives have to use this device name.
Hmmm…..maybe if you renamed CBM's scsi.device file to 2nd.scsi.device
and put it in the expansion drawer it might work. I'll do some thinking on
this, but again thanks!
//
\X/ John – K7KB (Flying via AutoPilot)
I don't know if it works, but is the only iformation I own. Ciao MB-)
Everytime I have talked to GVP after I got my 4000 (in January) they said:
"Sure it works in the 4000…. Just as sooooooon as we finish this new ROM
upgrade. So you'll have to wait or it won't work."
I am thoroughly disgusted by now.
-Chris
Now I have a GVP Impact II controller in My A 4000 and goes fast than in the
A2000 (about 800/900 Kbytes/sec). I am moderately satisfied. However here in
Italy GVP is the only factory that offer a good phone service. Ciao MB-)