#Upgrade Grumbles
10 messages in this thread
Sysop:
I am inching my way toward being able to run windows on my 286
Bridgeboard. Thanks to the help you gave me a couple of days ago, I was able
to get the new 486 upgrade chipset to respond. As is the way with life, two
further obstacles have appeared to block my pathway to happiness:
1. I downloaded a very tempting program from this forum called Amiems,
which promises to let me use my 8 meg of Amiga ram as extended memory for my
Bridgeboard. I did not, however, have the archiving program needed to expand
it (LHA), so I downloaded several programs from lib 16 that seemed to do the
trick. They, however, are all archived and are _not_ self-extracting! Am I
missing something obvious, or having I gotten on a mobius strip here? How is
one supposed to de-archive the de-archivers?
2. I am having an infuriating problem with my stupid PC Prefs program.
In order to use the VGA board I bought for my PC side, I believe I am going to
have to turn both Mono and Color video switches off via PC Prefs. The program
causes my Amiga to freeze-up every time, however. I only have to boot it and
try to cancel it, let alone attempt to change something, and an ominous message
box appears, announcing that the Program Has Failed (Error #8000003). It goes
without saying that I have been unable to find this error message anywhere in
my Amiga operating software docs; the Bridgeboard docs, too, are tactfully
silent. Any light at the end of your tunnel? Your help is most sincerely
appreciated! LAL
Larry,
You need to download the self-extracting archiver LHA138.RUN
Typing its name in the shell CDed to the directory it resides in and
answering Yes to the two queries will dissolve it into LHA (the archiver),
LHA.man (docs) and some other extras.
Look in LIB 16 for the filename LHA138.run
Christopher
In Library 16 of AmigaUser, get LHA138.RUN. It is self-dissolving. Just
CD to the directory where you have it, and type the name of the program.
It will unpack itself into that directory.
—Betty
Dear Betty,
Thank you very much for your advice about the LHA program; Christopher
was also kind enough to pass it on. I did as you said, and it worked like a
charm. Unfortunately, the main program I was after (AMIEMS), which really seems
excellent locks up my system. The problem may lie, according to the author's
doc's, in the early version of the Janus software I am using. I'll keep after
it, though, for the idea of being able to upgrade my 286 board to a 486 capable
of running windows is beginning to assume the status of a Holy Grail in my life:
it's more fun than working! Thanks again,
LAL
Good luck with AMIEMS. I hope it will decide to work for you. And I'm
glad that the LHA instructions were helpful. Let us know whenever we can
help you.
—Betty
Larry: You can jumper the bridgeboard to turn off the PC windows but 1.)
you have to fire up a mono PC window in order to access the VGA screen
from the new card and 2.) some VGA cards are very persnickety and
autosense the monitor's presence. If you don't have that monitor active
and linked up (along with a PC monochrome window) you may have problems.
On the other hand, the error you're getting is on the Amiga side of the
system. It doesn't like something about PCPrefs. Try reinstalling just
that program.
Dear Ron,
Thank you very much for your response to my Upgrade Grumble. Your
response suggests that I may find many potholes in my path. One point is
unclear to me: do you mean to say that, when I try to access a VGA monitor
through a separate card, I must have another monitor displaying a mono PC
window _at the same time_? What a nuisance! As to the difficulty I am
encountering with PC Prefs, I tried running that program from my Bridgeboard
installation disk and got the same dumb response. That really has me stumped.
Thanks again for your generous help.
Best wishes,
LAL
Re your monitor question, no you don't HAVE to have two monitors. However,
you MUST launch PC Mono or PC Color as a Workbench window or a separate
screen. Then to access the BB using a VGA card, you must bring that window
or screen to the front of the system and make sure your pointer stays
there. Otherwise, when you switch over to your VGA card, you won't be able
to interact with the MS-DOS environment. That's what the "bridge" concept
is all about. I do all this on ONE mulitsync (but VGA would work, too)
monitor with a VGA card. I have an A/B 15-pin switchbox and when I want to
use the bridgeboard I Amiga-M to the PC Mono screen, hit Amiga-P to move
the Amiga mouse over to the PC side and away I go. Before adding a flicker
fixer with a 15-pin output, I used a 23 pin ==> 15 pin converter from Safe
Harbor to allow my regular Amiga video output to work with the switchbox.
I remember a time when PCPrefs would ALWAYS crash my system, too. I just
don't remember how I fixed it. Tinkering, mostly. Reseated the bridgeboard
(though I don't think that did anything) and reinstalled ALL the Janus
software. Unless your original Janus diskette is bad, your troubles
suggest your system startup isn't tuned right. If you have a complicated
setup PCPrefs can bomb or you can get a "can't find Janus.library" error.
Make sure you have a couple of "binddrivers" commands sprinkled through
the startup and make sure you don't try opening PCPrefs too early on. Does
the bomb happen whether you have a PC window/screen open? I believe I set
my jumpers to PC Color off and PC Mono on. The system will then tell it
has TWO graphics cards — MDA and VGA. That has worked fine for me.
Hang in there; it takes some tweaking but once it's operational it works
like a champ.
Ron,
Can't thank you enough for taking the time to share so much of your
hard-won knowledge with me. I'll have to crawl through your text with furrowed
brow, no doubt, for a few days before I can make use of all you have told me.
In any case, I'm sure you have saved me many hours of frustration. Best
wishes,
LAL
If you're going to be depending on your Bridgeboard, I strongly advise
subscribing to the Crossings newsletter, which CIS user Marion Deland here
offers. It's chockfull of little hints and tips that helped me get going.
You can get a sample copy from Marion to check out.