#3.1 Upgrade Report
84 messages in this thread
Just to report my experiences on the 3.1 upgrade for the Amiga 2000.
The upgrade kit from Expert Serivces came complete with 3 manuals (DOS,
Workbench, and ARexx), a quick reference sheet, a 40-pin ROM (no depression,
apparently a real ROM), and an instruction sheet that instantly confused me.
"Older machines are maked on the left side with *1989 COMMODORE AMIGA 2000
and MADE IN GERMANY". Mine was marked 1988, burned in in West Chester, so I
assumed it was older yet… "For these boards the ROM IC must have Pin 1
connected to Pin 31".
Out with the magnet wire. Hmmm. If I try soldering directly to the pins,
I'll have a heluva time removing it if needed. Oh well, try the poor man's
wire wrap. "The operating system ROM, U2, is located just to the right of the
68000; pin 1 faces forward". Hmmm. Nothing to the right of the 68000, nothing
marked U2 (no band, no spy plane, no chip there). Chip below looks like it is
marked HN62102, right number of pins, nothing nearby. Make the pin 1-31
connection, plug it in, power up. Nothing. Remove the pin 1-31 connection,
plug it in again, power up. Works. Workbench disk gives me a recogniable 3.1
system.
OK, in with the Install disk, and start clicking. 89% through the Install
operation, I'm told to put in a disk called BOOT. No such disk. Try again,
booting from the isntall disk. 89% through the Install operation (this stuff
takes time), it sez "Disk Workbench is FULL".
Hmmm. The Workbench partition is 2.2 megs; seems like it should fit. No
suggestions in the manual, system requirements or anything.
Go in on floppies, and with a little klooging, clean everything from the
Workbench HD partition except PC (Bridgeboard stuff). Do Install AGAIN. At
the 89% point it tells me my HD is full. Grrrr.
At the current installation stage, the system still will not recognize my
main HD partition. Likely, Install mops that up in the last 11% of its
operation. Well, if I can just get WORK: in play, I can move out most of TOOLS
and make a little room. OK, fabricate an appropriate MountList and gum a
couple of extra commands into the startup. Oh boy: Ahlstrom's gonne be REAL
MAD at me when he finds out I've tampered with s:startup-sequence.
Well, it's in there and working now. No space for FONTS in my Workbench
partition; I'll think about that part another day.
Wonder if I should repartition my hard drive and start over?
–Jim
By all means, backup, repartition and start over. I too have a 2000 with
3.1 OS, but, I don't think you should have a workbench partition. I think
you want a "work" partition. The more programs you put on your drive, the
more things will be added to your system, such as various libraries, files
for your "c" directory, etc. I might be wrong, but I can see no reason to
have partition as small as 2.2meg. My smallest partition is 150 meg.
Regards,
Norman Austin 70743,1535
I dunno Jim……anybody who'd mess with the STARTUP-SEQUENCE!!!!
Sorry to tell you, but the Amiga is a growing kid, like most other computers.
It now takes several megs for the WB that used to fit in less than 880K. I'd
suggest about 7 or 8 M, minimum.
—Betty
Hmmmm. So I have the original 40MB HD, which gives away 10MB to the
BridgeBoard (haven't got that working yet; the Janus Install sez it can't find
s:startup-sequence [??] and stops at that point), and you suggest I should use
another 7-8M for the system, huh?
Sounds like time to buy a bigger HD. What do you recommend?
–Jim
I think you might want to use a hardcard for your Bridgeboard, if that is to be
your major MSDOS machine, Jim. Or a hard drive for one, which would require a
card anyway. I suspect you could locate a 40-50M one pretty cheaply by now.
Maybe even bigger. I suggest the hardcard because it is just so easy to
install.
And I do think it is time you had a second drive for your Amiga. Prices have
dropped dramatically. If fact, with your knowledge and experience, you could
probably do well at one of the outlet places. One of my club members found a
Tandy Outlet in North Ft. Worth that had a huge pallet of hard drives of all
sorts, and they were selling them for $5 each, no matter what kind or size. He
got a dozen or so, and had about 80% success in formatting and using them.
Then he went back and saw that they had even lowered the price. So he bought a
bunch more (if you got 10 or more, they were only $3 each this time.) True, he
could have lost all his money, but with 80% success rate, he did quite well.
Of course, he sells these things at the First Saturday sales in Dallas. He
boxed up all the failures, labelled it as DEAD DRIVES, and sold the box of dead
ones for nearly what he paid for the whole bunch.
I'm seeing drives advertised these days for about 50 cents per meg, Jim.
CompUSA had some 540M drives for less than $300 a week or so ago.
Now, I know all about the Yorkshire way of thinking. You've taught me well.
Just how much drive do you want, and how much do you want to pay for it? I can
check with my friend in Dallas and see what he'll do for you if you wish. But
a new one under warranty might be a better buy.
—Betty
No, the Bridgeboard isn't my main MS-DOS machine. It's useful for passing
information to/from the Amiga using aread/awrite, for checking such data, and
for "true multiprocessing" (doing something there while my OTHER MS-DOS machine
is occupied). I'm not looking to expand the BB to more memory, more RAM, or
more storage – the 10MB borrowed from Janus is adequate (and all I can afford
to lose from my 40MB job).
I should look around locally, Betty, and see what's available. I take it
that any standard IDE drive will plug in and replace my existing 40MB drive.
With 3.1, things are VERY crowded, and it's time to find more HD room.
–Jim
Jim,
Do you have a 2090A or a 2091 HD controller? I strongly suspect that your
drive is either a 40M XT drive (if you have the 2090A) or else it is a 40M SCSI
if you have a 2091. The 2090A can manage SCSI drives, but the only Amiga that
uses IDE drives is the 4000.
—Betty
2090A or 2091 controller? Can I tell without opening up the box? The HDToolBox
program that came with 1.3 give me NO data when I run it.
–Jim
Go into SYS:Tools and double click on ShowConfig — it will tell you about the
boards you currently have in your computer. For instance, on my 3000
ShowConfig reports …
PROCESSOR: CPU 68030/68882fpu/68030mmu
CUSTOM CHIPS: ECS NTSC Agnus (id=$0030), ECS Denise (id=$00FC)
VERS: Kickstart version 40.68, Exec version 40.10, Disk version 40.42
RAM: Node type $A, Attributes $505 (FAST), at $7C00000-$7F7FFFF (3.5
meg)
Node type $A, Attributes $703 (CHIP), at $400-$1FFFFF (~2.0 meg)
BOARDS:
CBM A590/A2091 HD controller: Prod=514/3($202/$3) (@$E90000 64K)
Board + ROM (HD?) (unidentified): Prod=2017/11($7E1/$B) (@$EA0000 64K)
(The "unidentified" board is a GVP I/O Extender)
-sja
Jim,
Try a program called SYSINFO to learn what all is in your machine. You can
find it in AmigaTech:
[76702,337] Lib:11 SYSINF.LHA/Bin Bytes: 42474, Count: 170, 20-Feb-93
Keywords: SYSINFO V3.11 WILSON SYSTEM INFORMATION
Sysinfo is an Amiga Sytem Information program. It interrogates
the Amiga and determines types of hardware, software, modes,
speed etc. Users have found it very useful for determining
correct operation of an Amiga before purchase and that the
unit actually contains hardware that they are paying for, without
having to open it up. Author: Nic Wilson. Version 3.11
Or AmigaUser:
[76703,2006] Lib: 8 SYSINF.LHA/Bin Bytes: 48603, Count: 687,
19-Jul-93(26-Feb-94) Last:16-Nov-94
Title : SysInfo v3.23
Keywords: SYSINFO TEST COMPARE SPEED WILSON
This is the ever popular Sysinfo Version 3.23 written by Nic
Wilson. Sysinfo shows your internal hardware modes, Installed system
software, speed comparisons against other amiga based systems, drive
speed, amound of memory ect.
There are much newer versions, and you probably have it on a Fred Fish CDROM.
But it will tell you exactly what is in your system. Do look for a newer
version. And I shall look for the latest version for the libraries. It was one
of those things that seemed to be updated every couple of weeks, and eventually
we stopped collecting every new verion, I think.
Title : Gives all kinds of system information
Ke
—Betty
SYS:Tools/ShowConfig indicates:
CBM A2090/A2090A HDcontroller Prod = 514/1($202/$1)(@$E90000 64K)
SYSInfo shows (among other things):
A2090 CARD
DH0:, FH0: UNIT 1
hddisk.device
Wonder if the UNIT 1 part is why HDToolBox can't see ANY hard disk? And why
the 3.1 low level format apparently has the same problem?
–Jim
Looks more and more like you have an XT drive, Jim. If you had SCSI, I think
that would show scsi.device instead of hddisk.device.
Does your Amiga autoboot? If so, you must have the 2090A. It ought to show a
very small BOOT partition, a Workbench partition, and a Work partition…and
you also have a partition for the Bridgeboard. Gee, on a 40M drive, that
doesn't give ANything very much room!
But I don't know why HDToolBox can't find your drive at all. That really is
unusual, since you are obviously able to use the drive.
—Betty
I don't know if you have done this or not but look at the tooltypes in
HDToolBox. That may not be set right. If you have a scsi drive, it
should say SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=scsi.device. There are several other
tooltypes as well. That might be a start. I know that HDToolBox would
not recognize my GVP controlled hardrives until I changed the name to
gvpscsi.device.
PMFJI, but speaking of HDTooBox, how does this program stack up against
the old Quaterback Tools and Amitools? How about its siter program
HDBack-up? I never hear about anyone using these two programs for
harddistk maintenence. Is this because they shipped from Commodore
(anti-C= prejudice)? Or is it because the other programs were (are) better?
!Que Viva la Amiga! Digital Universe at the touch of our fingertips
The A2090 is not an autoboot scsi host adapter (I don't remember if the A2090A
is or not). HDToolbox does not recognize that board.
-sja
Yes, the A2090A is autoboot, but doesn't use the newer Rigid Disk Boot
Block method.
73, Kelly
Jim: What you might need to do to get HDToolBox to recognize the device is
set a tooltype for the icon that reads: SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=hddisk.device.
That might get it to start recognizing the drive.
// John – (TechnoJunkie at heart)
\X/ Mercury@ins.infonet.net
Hmmm. This is turning into an interesting trip. Changing tooltype
SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=hddisk.device a list of SEVEN drive types, all designated
SCSI, status: Unknown, address: 0 to 6, varying LUN values.
OK, I'll play along. Click on CHANGE DRIVE TYPE. Set DRIVE TYPE to XT, then
click on DEFINE NEW.
Now the program wants: Manufacturer's Name, Drive Name, and Drive Revision.
Wonder what should go in there? The forme showing other data seems to be
pre-filled in; some data matches that from SysInfo data:
Cylinders: 612 (SysInfo shows cylinders 2 to 613)
Heads: 4 (??? SysInfo specifies '8 surfaces')
Blocks per track: 17 (Sysinfo has sectgors/side = 17 ??)
Blocks per cylinder: 68 (seems to be 17 x 4)
Park head where: (613 suggested)
Reduced Write current cylinder (shaded, but shows 612)
Write Precomp cylinder (again, shaded, with 612)
Supports Reselection: Shaded.
I would think that "heads" should be changed to 8, unless I misunderstand
the question. So I do this but the program demands I supply a drive name.
Huh? OK, try DRIVE and go back to the CHANGE DRIVE TPE screen. I am told,
Wrong type for drive, use XT types.
Hmmm. At a dead end again. But at least it's a NEW dead end.
–Jim
Jim
re:
> Wonder if the UNIT 1 part is why HDToolBox can't see ANY hard disk?
I believe your harddrive has two cables going from the 2090 to it, right?
If so it is an MFM not a SCSI. The UNIT 1 refers to the fact that these
type controllers can only support two drives. I assume it is in fact
either a 2090A or a 2090 with the little kludge board installed to upgrade
it so it can autoboot, since you don't say you have to boot from floppy.
What to do? Well, you could add another drive of the same kind to the
system by daisy-chaining the wide cable to it and adding a 2nd smaller
cable from the card to the 2nd drive. They are quite inexpensive now. It
is normally advised to get another drive of the same manufacturer to avoid
incompatibilities or be sure you are well advised. You probably will need
to get a two drive cable for the wide cable.
HDToolBox is a SCSI tool, it can't see MFM or IDE drives. You will need to
use the software that comes with the 2090A to lowlevel format and
partition.
Good luck with your upgrade.
Tom
Oklahoma City, OK
Thanks for the information, Tom. I'm still taking stock of my alternatives.
–Jim
Jim,
> 2090A or 2091 controller?
The 2500 w/1.3 that I have has a 2090A with an RLL HD. In either case, you
won't have IDE and finding anything that isn't IDE or SCSI is not easy. :/
Maybe you can tell by seeing which .device is in memory?
Malcolm
The 1200 uses IDE also.
-sja
Hi Betty
> but the only Amiga that uses IDE drives is the 4000.
Well, yes and no.
Even ignoring the A1200 series, there have always been IDE drives in some
Amigas. For instance My 1988 German A2000 had two ST157A hanging off a
GVP3001 accellerator from day one, and still has one only now hanging off
the IDE port of an ICD Trifecta (which also runs a gig of SCSI-2 fast
drives).
Also, for a long time us BBS sysops used Adaptec 4070A scsi-to-mfm
adapter boards to hang up to 16 cheap XT drives off a 2090A card. The
ICD2000 supported this too, until the last rom upgrade killed it. I still
have a spare 4070 board. It's too bad Novell decided too early to port
their software from a 68000 to Intel platforms, even early 2000's could
have been excellent servers for less money.
The GVP3001 was replaced by a 50mhz CSA Derringer with 16mb, by the way.
The old Ami seems determined to live forever.
Oklahoma City, OK
Sorry—I would have been more accurate to say that it was not until the A4000
that Commodore shipped Amigas with IDE drives.
—Betty
Jim,
Hard disks are now less that 50 cents (USD) per meg — I saw a 540M HD at a
computer warehouse type store the other day for $249. The 4000 shipped with a
120M HD … 300-500M in HDs make things livable.
-sja
Betty Clay appears to be recommending that I keep my existing 40MB hard drive
and add a supplementary SCSI unit (as opposed to replacing the existing drive
with one of larger capacity).
I wonder what the pros and cons are of either approach?
–Jim
Jim,
I'd definitely keep the existing drive, turn it into your SYS:, and get a
larger (100M+) companion.
-sja
Jim,
I am going to second Betty and Steve on this one. I kept my 90MB Wren and
added an older ST4376 (310MB) drive to my A2000. That gives me a total of
about 400MB. Then I dedicated the 90MB drive to the A2386 Bridgeboard.
My WB partition is at 90MB, and installing OSv3.1 went in real snappy.
Adding capacity is always better than replacement. The SCSI bus is
atenuated in that direction anyway. Good luck!
muv — AutoPilot from Mpls/St. Paul
Daniel A. Darlington 71564.1216@compuserve.com
Sounds like I'm getting a unanimous opinion on this one.
Thanks
–Jim
You are welcome Jim, it is always a pleasure to help someone who made it
all possible, even to the point that our beloved Amiga's are in the fold.
Drop me a line the next time you are coming to the Twin Cities, I'll buy
lunch … Happy Holidays, Jim
muv — AutoPilot from Mpls/St. Paul
Daniel A. Darlington 71564.1216@compuserve.com
Just for comparison, my Windows for Workgroups 3.11 sub-dir tree holds 51.7
megs, my Windows NT 3.5 partition takes 58 megs. A minimal Linux set is five
1.44 meg floppies, compressed, which might expand to 10 megs or so. Of course,
Microsoft helps subsidize PC dealers by increasing memory requirements, so
you'll need at least 8 or 16 megs, respectively, to effectively run WfW or
WinNT. I bet you can still boot your Amiga with one meg, and even do things.
That's true, John. It WILL do things with only 1M and with only floppies. Not
as convenient, but it will do them. I don't think an MSDOS machine will do
much of anything with so little.
—Betty
Although you can load straight Windows in about 4 meg, it won't do much very
quickly.
And here's some Microsoft jokes, courtesy of Wired magazine:
How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? None. Gates
will just redefine Darkness(tm) as the new industry standard.
How many Microsoft technicians does it take to screw in a light bulb? Three.
Two holding the ladder, one to screw the bulb into the faucet.
How many Microsoft vice presidents does it take to change a light bulb? Eight.
One to work the light bulb, and seven to make sure Microsoft gets $2 for every
light bulb changed anywhere in the world.
Yukity. :^)
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
There were more light-bulb jokes there… like the rest of the magazine, they
just re-printed a message that's been circulating on the Internet for quite
some time.
I told it at work today… got lots-o-laffs.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Great jokes, John. Thanks!!
—Betty
You can boot MS-DOS. You can't even boot Windows, which is the nearest
thing to WB. Pretty sad.
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where a little paranoia keeps you healthy and sane …
> I don't think an MSDOS machine will do much of anything with so little >
(RAM)
Let's not go overboard here. Have you considered paper weights, door
stops, 286 throwing competitions … 🙂
Lu, 2500/30 APpy downunder
Monitor stands, room heaters, movie props. . .
-Karl
Boat anchors, stepping stools, spare parts …
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where a little paranoia keeps you healthy and sane …
Actually, 16 megs for NT is kind of like 4 megs for windows… it runs, yeah…
but it isn't worth goat snot to DO anything with. For NT I personally think you
need 24, just to start. 32 is comfortable, and 64 is a "real" system.
Mind you, when you GET all that memory in there, NT runs like a scared rabbit
compared to AmigaDOS – but the Amiga's got all the windows variants beat
hands-down for effciency. It's no longer even close in gfx performance, though.
Unfortunately.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Just how much is goat snot worth these days anyway?
jf – lamplight productions
~~~sailing on autopilot~~~
I dunno… I understand the price is dropping as we type. :^)
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
I wish the same were true for the price of operating in a multi-platform
environment. It's just a shame that many Amiga and MAC lovers are rather
rudely forced to bend the knee to the "grand old goat heads" (IBM &
Microsoft) if we wish to continue doing business in cyberspace. I'm not
an expert on the logistics of how or if it can be done but, if the Amiga
survives, I hope the new owners of the technology have the resources and
the sense to get on the PowerPC bandwagon. It would seem the only way to
survive is total compatibility (AmigaDOS, MS-DOS, Windows, Unix, MAC
Finder, etc. etal.)
jf – lamplight productions
~~~sailing on autopilot~~~
Jeff,
I look at it like this. At this point, CBM has, through inaction and stupidity,
blown the Amiga opportunity. Although I'd like to think that CEI et al could
bring it back, I don't believe it.
NT on a Pentium or RISC CPU – more than standard windows on any platform –
offers the Amiga user several things they're used to (true multitasking that
works well, snappy operation, etc), and several things they should have had but
didn't (excellent retargetable graphics, several decent font systems, an
incredible range of hardware at low prices). It's an opportunity. At this
point, rather than thinking it's a shame, I'm just glad it's there, period, if
it wasn't, likely the only choice would be a Mac – and _that_ is a really
limited choice for people who are used to both a GUI and a CLI environment,
believe me. I have to use a Mac to deal with our print shop and it's quite
painful after the flexibility of NT (or an Amiga). It's a good machine for
computer novices, but for me, thank goodness there are very powerful and
flexible alternatives.
PowerPC would seem to be a good way to go for a new Amiga, if a restart can be
accomplished at all. A PowerPC could emulate a 68040 with pretty fair ease, so
compatibility ought to be no problem. The hardware end of it would be worse,
and I know that's not insurmountable either.
me, I'd like to see NT ported to the 68030 or better, anyway… that'd give all
the Amiga hardware somewhere to go.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Ben –
> NT on a Pentium or RISC CPU – more than standard windows on any
> platform – offers the Amiga user several things they're used to (true
> multitasking that works well, snappy operation, etc), and several
> things they should have had but didn't (excellent retargetable
> graphics, several decent font systems, an incredible range of hardware
> at low prices).
Do you have experience with OS/2 also? I would be interested in an Amiga
fan's comparison of NT and OS/2….
jsaklad@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu . . JimDoc, on AutoPilot
OS/2 is a better operating system than the current NT (v3.5). The new one –
"Warp" – is the best so far. Having said that, I don't think it's got a
snowball's chance in heck against Windows at this point. Applications make the
computer, not the operating system, and they just aren't there. Sound familiar?
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Yea sounds real familiar. Maybe that's why so many Amiga users are
extolling the virtues of OS2! I've had it on my system at work for some
time and it's not too shabby. Other than playing around with Rexx, there's
not a whole lot I can do with it. Hearing the whining in the OS2 forums
about what a cool system it is, how it multitasks etc. and why doesn't
anybody recognize it gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. If it doesn't run
anything, it's worth alot less than goat snot.
On the bright side, looks like IBM is going to throw mondo bucks into
promoting it. I've already seen Warp advertised on the tube here and I
don't even watch that much t.v. since they took RoboCop off.
-Richard
I'm going up to Myanmar at the end of December – I'll find out for you.
If it's snot too dear I'll get you some …
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where a little paranoia keeps you healthy and sane …
Hmm, believe it or not, I've been running WinNT with just 16 megs for quite
some time. I've been telling myself to spend the dough on more memory, but I
wasn't sure what it would get me. Does it mean that I'll get faster context
switches, when I Alt/Tab? Does it fix the sluggish performance with processing
interrupts? And with WinNT, does it fix the keyboard handling so it stops
missing my keystrokes and introducing dyslexia in others? It's always swapping
m and o for me, and doubling others… strange.
Hmmm… well, I dunno, but we're not having those problems at all… the
smallest NT system we have is a Pentium 90 with 24 megs; next up is an Alph
with 32 and we've never had a MIPS with less than 64 megs so I don't even have
a benchmark for that.
Also, NT on the 24 megabyte Pentium 90 feels _blindingly_ fast compared to my
486dx3/75 running Win 3.1; so anything described as "sluggish" tends to make me
wonder.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
I truly dislike buying new computers. 🙁 It always takes me so long to get
them set up just the way I want, to double-check all the applications are
working right so I don't hit a barrier at full-speed at 12 AM some night, and
then to simply run it in parallel with my previous system to prove it works
without random crashes… I think it took three weeks to get my 486/66 working
right.
Can't say I blame you. I've had similar problems with Amigas, excepting my
a4000.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
I have linux on a 120mb scsi drive John, and it takes more than 10mb, more
like 50 with x-windows and a few basic utilities. As you said it does need
at least 16mb to run any serious work well. But it does run well.
> Microsoft helps subsidize PC dealers by increasing memory requirements
There has been a standing bit of wit for years that suggests IBM and Intel
could give away computers to generate memory sales. It is probably more
the truth today that IBM and MS could give away computers to generate
software sales, which is where the real money is now.
But as to using an amiga with one meg off floppy, 2.1 and 3.1 won't leave
as much of one meg of memory as 1.3 did so I'm unsure how much software
would still be able to work. Probably most of it though.
I can also _boot_ my 486dx2/66 off one Dos6.2 diskette. I can't however
create a Dos 1.44 floppy that will boot and single handedly reload my
software from the tapedrive the way my Amiga does from a 880K disk, It
always grates on me to have to restore MsDos 6.2 to the harddrive and then
install the PC tapedrive software before I can restore the rest of the
backup from tape. Guess we are just spoiled, eh?
I think it was Dave Haynie that said his definition of a serious computer
was one that could format a floppy while also doing useful work, something
PC's have only very recently managed to even try to do. But they are
catching up, while the Amiga did not advance much after the introduction
of the A2000/500. Even AGA was a late effort to catch back up when SVGA
was no longer sufferable. Thanks Commodore, where ever you are, for
delivering as little as possible as late as possible and may your golden
parachutes crush you.
Oklahoma City, OK
Betty,
My SYS: partition is 10M … and it's time to give it another 10M or so.
Steve, I gave up my 40M drive for the Workbench and system files, and put
everything else on the 213M Maxtor.
—Betty
Jim, don't skimp on the WB partition – you're only asking for trouble. If
you're tight in HD space, give it 4MB. Remeber apps install things like
devices, libs and fonts sometimes, although you can now add multiple dirs
to an assign. I made mine 15 MB and have some OS-related software
installed in it, like networking and terminalemulation. I always make
sure there's at the very least a MB free.
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where a little paranoia keeps you healthy and sane …
JB >> "Older machines are maked on the left side with *1989 COMMODORE
AMIGA 2000 and MADE IN GERMANY […] For these boards the ROM IC must have
Pin 1 connected to Pin 31".
Hmmmm… even Commodore's instruction sheet for the 2.04 ROM was more
detailed.
The A500's with rev 3 & 5 motherboards, needed the wire to signal the
system that the 2.04 Kickstart ROM was a 512K chip instead of the 256K ROM
chip used for 1.2 & 1.3. Later revisions of the A500 & A2000 could detect
the presence of either a 256K or 512K ROM.
I would assume the same is true for the 3.1 ROM, if it is 512K. It will
need the wire for systems that can't detect 512K ROMs without help.
—
JB >>Make the pin 1-31 connection, plug it in, power up. Nothing. Remove
the pin 1-31 connection, plug it in again, power up. Works.<<
The side affect of having an Amiga that can detect either a 256K or 512K
ROM. These systems get confused by the wire.
—
JB >>Wonder if I should repartition my hard drive and start over?<<
Yes. To install the WHOLE system you will need more than 2.2-megs of Boot
space. However, you might get away with installing the basics on the boot
partition, and the extras on another partition.
I, myself, have a 10-meg partition just for the Workbench, and any 3rd
party files that with the Workbench (3rd party libraries, devices, fonts,
etc.) So far, I've filled 7-megs of the 10-meg partition, but could
reduce the amount used to 5-megs if I removed 3rd party fonts, patterns,
and pics.
Ron. – ("I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'm not going!"
– quote made by any low level RPG player.)
Jim, A pretty vanilla 3.1 with a few added tools and utilities is about 6.5 meg
on my machine.
Also, I installed it on a MB rev 6.4 A2000 with no problems. Perhaps you have
a bad disk in the set.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Jim: The German version of the 2000 couldn't have been made in 89. I would
guess probably 86 so I think somebody goofed when printing up the
instructions <g>. It doesn't sound like Expert Services did the best job
in writing up those instruction sheets. After reading mine over a couple
of times, I said the heck with it and used my own judgement on what chip
went where in the 4000 upgrade. Fortunately, I was right and it booted
right up into the 3.1 Kickstart. As far as Workbench goes, well I was
already running the latest Beta version of the 3.1 WB anyway, so I just
manually updated a few files and didn't bother using the Install disk.
In the case of your install, 2.2 megs seems a little small for a 3.1
Workbench partition. Even with installing just 80% of 4 880K disks would
be 2.8MB so I think you need to expand your partition a bit. I would
recommend at least 5MB and then it would give you a little extra room for
further expansion.
// John – (TechnoJunkie at heart)
\X/ Mercury@ins.infonet.net
Jim,
Like everyone else, I say "nuke the hard drive for morbid" and start all over.
However, you could copy the fonts to another directory (i.e. fonts2) in the
"work" partitition. Then add the following line to your "s:user-startup" file:
;BEGIN Fonts2
Assign fonts: Work:fonts2 add
;END Fonts2
This will tell AmigaDOS to look for fonts in the sys:fonts directory AND the
new work:fonts2 directory.
Regards,
John Chang
Right, John. A newer, bigger, shinier HD is undoubtedly the way to clean up my
system, which is getting MIGHTY crowded.
In previous operating system incarnations, I've gone through this business of
assigning system resources outside the boot partition, especially FONTS and
LIBS. Everybody wants to stuff in more fonts of their own, and there are so
many home-brew libraries around that I've long ago lost count. (Wish
directories had a 'last used' entry so that I could identify which libraries
could be gracefully retired).
But a bigger HD with a much bigger boot partition will ease the crowding and,
at least for a time, bring back sanity to the system. (Irrelevant quote of the
week: "As far as Microsoft contracts are concerned, there ain't no sanity
clause").
Thanks for the help.
–Jim
Jim,
You know, the memory and storage hog of the Microsoft products has a side
benefit for us Amiga users. We just bought a new 2.1GB Seagate Hawk SCSI-2
Fast (9.5 ms seek time with a 256KB Multi-Segmented Cache) hard drive for about
$1,100. Incredible. We bought the same hard drive, for our Server, about 9
months ago for about twice the money.
Regards,
John Chang
Toshiba showed a 1.3 gig, 3.5 inch removeable optical drive, and other
companies were showing 5.25 drives with twice that storage. And NEC and Hitachi
have developed techniques to make 1 giga-bit DRAMs, using 0.25 micron
technology… samples expected in three years. 🙂
John,
Indeed, I had heard about the 1GB DRAMs. Thanks for the info on the drives.
Could be interesting from here on out.
Regards,
John Chang
Unix keeps a last used date … Of course that doesn't help us any 🙁
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where a little paranoia keeps you healthy and sane …
Kinda odd, so many poeple giving Jim advice on a C= machine???
Robb
Fair game, Robert. Doing a hard drive replacement/supplement is not a daily
task for most of us, although I suppose that there are some who work in a
dealer/retail/service environment who have done this job frequently.
I can benefit from the advice of those who have trodden this path before me.
–Jim
A wise man always learns from what the children have to say …
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where a little paranoia keeps you healthy and sane …
" He who knows, and knows he knows: he is wise, follow him.
He who knows, and knows not he knows: he is asleep, wake him.
He who knows not, and knows he knows not: he is a child, teach him.
He who knows not, and knows not he knows not: he is a fool, shun him.
On this one, you can put me in category 3.
–Jim
Ah, yes……..but for SO many years, you've always been in category 1, and in
just about everything except this one, you still are!
—Betty
I think many of us are in that fun boat 🙂
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where a little paranoia keeps you healthy and sane …
Jim,
Easy shot, although I didn't mean anything negative towards you.
Although I've done my share of drive replacements, etc., in my Amiga and
lot's of other upgrades to PS/2's and clones at work, I'm not offering
advice. You've gotten plenty of tips from others.
You are one of the people that aided me in being prepared for the future
of desktop computing and thereby aided me a few(!) years ago to gel my
vision of the future of computers.
It's starting to come about and I appreciate your assistance.
Robb
No negative meaning taken, Robert.
I always encourage users to ask "dumb" questions. So many people are scared
to ask for fear they would look, well, dumb.
So I'll be a shining example. I'LL ASK AS MANY DUMB QUESTIONS AS IT TAKES!
🙂
–Jim
Not nearly so odd as the weeks several of us spent teaching Jay Miner how to
use the Amiga he had designed! Even though he had done much of the design, he
had never actually worked with the machine once the design was completed. He
used to be here every night in CO, and we would all tell him about the things
we were doing with ours. At that time, he only had an old prototype Amiga
1000. Eventually, he got a 2500, and that made things easier.
—Betty
Betty,
<<Not nearly so odd as the weeks several of us spent teaching Jay Miner how to
use the Amiga he had designed! >>
Sounds fascinating! Have you ever written anything recounting those days? I for
one would be very interested in learning more about the history of the Amiga
and its inventor. Did Jay have eccentricities ala Steve Jobs? I still get a
grin thinking about Steve being against hard drives in the early days of the
Mac because the necessary "noisy" cooling fan destroyed the "karma" between man
and his machine.
-mls ProActive Images Inc. "WE BECOME WHAT WE THINK ABOUT ALL DAY LONG" -RW
Emerson
I don't think I ever wrote much about Jay, but Mike Todd did an interview with
him (I was sitting in at the time, but didn't take notes) and wrote it up in
the UK version of the TRANSACTOR. That must have been around 1989 or so.
Jay was a huge man–very tall and big-boned. He was friendly to everyone, and
made no fuss about himself. He was kind and gentle. I only met him personally
on two or three occasions. Once, he was asked to speak at an Amiga show in
Houston, and he asked my husband and me to come down and spend some time with
him that weekend. (This was during the time he was online here nearly every
night.) We went, and spent a great part of the weekend in his company…along
with people who were sponsoring the show, of course. We shared several meals,
spent some time talking in the lobby of his hotel, and on Sunday, one of the
show sponsors – once in charge of all the TV activity at NASA near Houston)
took the three of us on a tour of the NASA facilities. It was a great weekend,
and we came away feeling that we knew Jay pretty well. Another time, he came
to speak at a show in the Dallas area, and I was one of the people working on
that show. It was during that weekend that Mike Todd interviewed Jay.
There are others in this forum who knew Jay much better than I did. I chatted
with him online, and visited with him those two weekends, but not much more. I
didn't find him to be eccentric. I thought him to be just a very nice,
friendly, warm-hearted man. He liked to talk of his family, of his little
dogs, of his sister who had donated a kidney and thus enabled him to live a
number of years longer. The sister later died of cancer, which brought him
much grief. He talked of his boat and the good times he had on it, and he was
always willing to tell about the development of the Amiga. But I really think
Jay was at least as proud of some other chips he developed. Before doing the
Amiga…and after leaving the Amiga…he had a job developing chips to go in
pacemakers. Some of the most interesting of our conversations involved his
plans for those chips and the things he felt he could do to improve pacemakers.
He received considerable satisfaction from that work.
I don't know if I have the article that Mike wrote, and I'm not even certain
that Mike still has a copy. I'll ask him, though. There were several articles
written by people who interviewed Jay, and they appeared in quite a few
magazines in the 'olden days.'
—Betty
Betty,
OK. I'll give you that! Giving Jay advice on how to use an Amiga is almost
comical, but…
Robb
(I just got some big tears in my eyes writing that, 'scuse me)
Backup, repartition and start over — you don't have the room on your SYS:
partition. 3.1 comes on 5 (or 6) disks 880k disks … that probably should
have been a clue that it wouldn't fit in 2.2 meg.
PMFJI – But does the new 3.1 support AGA graphics or better with a 24-bit
card. Would be a great boon for A2000's with VT4000's. Thanks for any
input.
Hank Teller/ Videology Where you get all the P.O.M.P.
under all circumstances
It all depends on the software supplied with your graphics card.
-sja
Then AGA is possible at the workbench level with 3.1 AmigaDOS? That's what
I'm trying to find out. Thanks again.
Hank Teller/ Videology Where you get all the P.O.M.P.
under all circumstances