#EMPLANT – YES !!!!
14 messages in this thread
>I say 'chuck the Emplant' because I'm so fed up with their promises which
>take forever to pan out.
Oh come on Erik, there is nothing wrong with the Emplant, I'm using it
with NO problems at all, it works exactly as advertised, what more do you
want ? A real Mac ? The only thing I don't like is not being able to read
800K Mac disks, which I believe the Amax can't do either.
Other than that there is nothing wrong with it.
>I've got a 4000/040, and I have as yet to get the empscsi.device to work
>correctly with my drives. (Last time I tried, it locked up during a disk
>ReOrg and corrupted an entire 88MB partition.) As such, the SCSI option
>ain't doin' me much good.
Right so your only gripe is with the problem with empscsi – what has this
got to do with the way the MAC side of the emulation works ?
you already have a built in IDE interface, you can easily add a SCSI II
card – which would be the better option anyway.
>ReadySoft has always put out a fairly stable product. (They actually seem
>to check for bugs _before_ releasing a version! Novel concept, eh? :^)
>For that reason, I was considering coughing up the $110 for the upgrade –
>otherwise, I'll probably just try to sell the AMAXII+ for $200…..
Very interesting you say that, as wasn't their problems with the inital
release of the Amax IV – i've certainly read peoples messages saying there
was problems.
As for ReadySoft – It's amazing people stood by them, hell talk about a
company going quiet…. it was about two years between this update. At
least with Emplant, it's getting more and more features added all the
time, AND you can get support for it easily.
I'm sorry but your arguments for "trashing" the Emplant based on the
empscsi problem don't hold water with me. You should be basing your
opinions on how well it works as a MAC EMULATOR – and not the fact that
you can use the built in SCSI on the Emplant for the Amiga side (an ADDED
bonus, I might add) even though it is currently slightly buggy.
Tim
Ying Tong Ying Tong Ying Tong Tiddle I Po…..
On Autopilot Over Hong Kong
Geeez guys. I'm sorry. I forgot I am talking to "Amiga Owners" here.
I'm real sorry I "trashed" (your term, not mine) your nice little
Emplant. I'm real sorry. I promise not to say anything but good
things from now on. Let's leave it at that. I wouldn't want to argue
a point when I am so obviously wrong. P.S. I have problems with
empscsi.device regardless of whether I use it on the Mac side, or the
Amiga side. (Try to get your facts straight _before_ you start
"trashing" me!) Erik Flom
Eric,
Ah, come on now. This kind of exchange is what makes CIS
interesting. There's nothing mean or personal happening here. And I
still think you make some of the best d$#m renders I've seen come out
of an Amiga.
Now back to the discussion: The empscsi.device is used ONLY on the
Amiga side. It was written by an outside programmer just to allow
access to Emplant's scsi port on the Amiga side. On the MAC side
Emplant's scsi port is 100% MAC. I have a MAC HD, CDrom, and Syquest
on my "MAC" scsi and all work perfectly. Empscsi.device has nothing
to do with it. Others are using MAC scsi scanners and even scsi nubus
expansion devices. Anything that plugs into a real MAC scsi port can
be plugged into Emplant's scsi port. If you are having trouble on
the MAC side you have one of three problems: scsi termination,
trouble with a MAC device driver, or a hardware problem with Emplant.
If it is the latter then remember that UU provides a lifetime
guarantee. Just return it and they will send ya a new one.
Unfortunately, it's a hardware problem with my 4000/040 – or so UU's tech
support says.
I've got a rev11 Buster in a recently replaced motherboard, and I have a
rev 3.1 CPU board with a single rev2 PAL (U209 – all the rest are rev1)
Everything seems to work just fine with the Emplant SCSI controller. (A
more generic classification than empscsi.device – I'm referring to
operations on _either_ side of the emulator) I have 2 Quantum drives(80,
200MB), 1 Syquest 5110C, 1 Toshiba 3401 CD-ROM, and 1 Seagate drive(400MB)
on the bus. All of them work quite well, most of the time when using the
Empllant SCSI (Most of the drives are in an external case, and I've not
had any problems with it on my 3000, or the 2091 in my 4000.
A consistent bug I run into is that the Seagate drive will hang with the
disk light on until I power it down and back up – a soft reboot is not
enough, the disk itself is physically locked-up.
After describing it to Tech support, I was told that the best they could
offer was a new driver – that was due out 'Real Soon Now'.
Anyway, I still think the Emplant is a decent Emulator. They're just like
all other Amiga operations – run by a couple of lunatic coders with little
concern for user support (beyond their own novel 'update-of-the-week' tech
support – if you call and get lucky, this update might fix your problem,
then again it could introduce 6 new ones…..)
Having worked in software/hardware development for several years, I can
understand where they're coming from. Unfortunately, I'm now in a
production environment where bugs cost money – this means I'm may have to
cough up the bucks for a real Mac sooner than I wanted to.
BTW, thanks for the compliments – if you want some 3D objects for
LightWave, make sure and DL some of the new objects I've put in Amiga Arts
3D forum.
Thanks,
Erik Flom
Eric,
I've had that system lockup happen to me as well, but always when
trying to use the empscsi.device from the Amiga side, never when accessing
anything on the MAC side. I guess I'm not as concerned because I know if I
use SID to copy real big files (the only time it happens to me) it will
avoid the problem (It seems to send the data in small pieces. Its slow but
safe.). And I figure I'll be getting a scsiII controller soon and the
problem will be moot.
I've got a great hammerhead shark & a moray eel that I'll trade for
your humpback whale. You'll see them both swimming around on the next
Amiga Gang Tape. These are Imagine format but could be converted.
…AutoPilot Engaged…
-Paul-
hi erik, just my .02 cents 🙂 i have a 2000, toaster, ZEUS 040, and
Amax IV. The Zeus has a built in very quick SCSI II controller, but
Amax IV does not support it-despite the advertised claims that any
controller could work without special drivers-i am stuck using my
2091 🙁 The video speed with the 2000 and 16 colors is terrible. I
use Macs *a lot*, a centris 650, 660AV, and a Mac IIci, and this isn
't even close. My old mac II was a lot quicker in all operations.
heck, my sisters IIsi is quicker w/256 colors ! i have heard
conflicting reports on the net about video speed wtih 3rd party video
cards-get more info before investing in them…
look, i really like amax (i loved amax + until photoshop 2.5 stopped
running on it :-)), and i want to love amax IV too, since i use a mac
at home rarely, but….i'll use amax until Power PC mac, then, all
bets are off !!! btw, the #1 task i use amax for is to transfer large
lightwave files directly to photoshop for editing, then to a service
bureau…
Thanks _MUCH_ for the 'straight poop' on the AMAXIV.
I seem to be in pretty much the same situation: loved AMAX until PhotoShop
req'd 32bit QuickDraw – after that, I _had_ to get an Emplant.
I was hoping ReadySoft would pull ahead in the end, but it sounds like
I'll be looking for a purchaser for my AMAXII+ board……..
Thanks for making the decision that much easier (less painful? :^(),
Erik Flom
People "trashing" you isn't helping you with your problem, so you are
correct. I agree that anyone having the trouble your having
shouldn't be met by animosity, you shouldn't be apologizing (although
I suspect it was meant as sarcastic ;-} others might take it
seriously). BTW are you in the NY area? (forgive me if I've dealt
with you but I almost never remeber peoples names, glitches, repairs,
problems- yes names of people almost never), if so I'll gladly help
you out with your Emplant Problems.
Thanks for the offer of support – alas, I'm on the West Coast – a little
too far away. :^)
I do tend to whine a bit, but I thought the guy was a little off base in
attacking me for my frustration. (Not to mention, he was a wee bit too
defensive. 'Trying to justify our choice of the Amiga, are we?' I've given
up on that long ago. :^)
I figure UU will sort out the problem – eventually. Until thewn, I have to
keep on using my 2091. (Yawn!)
>Geeez guys.
>I'm sorry. I forgot I am talking to "Amiga Owners" here.
Oh I'm so glad you realize that. But hang on a minute are you trying to
suggest that because I'm an Amiga User that I only know and Love Amiga's?
I quite often use Mac's (other than my Emplant) and PC's, so please don't
try an suggest I'm ignorant of other systems – or that I might be some
sort of fanatic.
>I'm real sorry I "trashed" (your term, not mine) your nice little
>Emplant.
No need to get shirty…. I know it's my term, as that is what you were
doing – I can understand people if they have a vaild complaint, but you
were out of order.
>I'm real sorry. I promise not to say anything but good things from now
>on.
Unfortunatly you seem to miss the point totally, it's not a case of
saying "just good things" you were bitching about empscsi.device and
ONLY that – yet with that in mind you were telling all to forget the
Emplant (as though it were worthless) all based on this ! (oh and Jim
HAS made good with his promises so far).
>Let's leave it at that. I wouldn't want to argue a point when I am so
>obviously wrong.
Again it's not a case of you being wrong, it's more of a case of how you
word your messages, your original message was no more than flame bait.
>P.S. I have problems with empscsi.device regardless of whether I use it
>on the Mac side, or the Amiga side. (Try to get your facts straight
>_before_ you start "trashing" me!)
Err well that's were you have a problem – empscsi is ONLY for using a
drive hooked up to the Emplant SCSI for use as an AMIGA drive – it
has NOTHING at all to do with using a drive hooked up and formatted
as a Mac drive. I've said it and so have others – we have NO
problems using Mac formatted drives hooked up to the Emplant's SCSI
connector.
Maybe it is you who should get your facts straight before you go making
crass statements.
Tim,
This is the first release of Amax IV that I'm aware of and it came
without any problems in the sense that it works. Amax IV won't read and write
800k disks through the Amiga drive in Mac emulation, but there is a utility
which runs under AmigaDos that reads the 800k disk and writes an Amax readable
file image of the disk. Sort of like what the same utility that came with
Emplant did. However, Amax II Plus reads and writes both formats and always
did.
As for update time, well actually the last version upgrade for Amax II
came out earlier in 93, so not quite two years. Actually, there is really not
a great deal of difference between Amax IV and Emplant as far as the emulation
is concerned. They are really quite similar except that Amax uses the older
Mac Plus ROMs rather than the 256k ROMs which Emplant uses. Thus, Amax does
some of the ROM in emulation software rather than firmware as does Emplant.
In addition, Amax IV won't work with SCSI devices which have drivers which
bang directly on SCSI hardware and will not work with software that
requires 32bit Quickdraw in ROM and will not offer any additional
emulation modules. I liked Amax, but they took too long for color support
and so far, Emplant has over-delivered on promises…
-Jonathan
// Amiga online via Autopilot
\\// MAC Quadra 900 & 486 emulation via Amiga!