HAM-E is here!
44 messages in this thread
Ben, I got my HAM-E Thursday (and Imagine 1.0 at the same time, what a
dirty trick, I couldn't figure out which to play with first!). I think I
may have one of the bad Agnus chips (I'm waiting for the complete chip
upgrade, my dealer says there will probably be a package discount over
buying them seperately) as I can get the pictures to display nicely, bit
get the ragged right side of the screen. Playing with P2 minimizes it, and
I've tried the other factory pots. I'm going to try it on a friends
computer which has had the fatter agnus installed recently to see if that's
the problem. One question: when I replace the lid, I can see the jaggies
on the right hand side of the screen increase in magnitude. Why?
If my friend's 2000 also looks wierd, I'm going to borrow a 'scope and
check the factory presets.
BTW, the picture quality is GREAT!
Douglas Bullard 71330,214
P.S. Thanks for using paper packaging instead of Styrofoam popcorn. I'm
into recycling, and it is rare today to find somebody who bothers. Every
little bit helps!
Douglas,
Well, if you really want, I'll send you the styrofoam popcorn that my
HAM-E was shipped in <grin>.
I like the companies that are starting to use 'REAL' popcorn as packing.
Pull the gear and pop the shipping box into the microwave to warm it up.
Great!
Greg
Greg White / MicroSearch 72230,1617
We listen to our customers..carefully
Greg- be sure it is un-buttered! <g>
Michael
Oh, well, so much for altrusim!
Do you have the GVP '030 board by any chance???
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
Yep, a 28 Mhz with 4 Mb of ram. I tried the board on a friend's 2000 which
has a fat agnus and a CSA Hurricane '030 board, and it looked great. Guess
I'll have to stop putting off the agnus upgrade <grin>.
Love the board, I'm going to try to win a prize in your HAM-E contest!
With Imagine 1.0 I think I'm gonna have a killer animation for you.
Douglas Bullard 71330,214
(Just gotta get some sleep _sometime_…so many goodies, so few hours
to play with them!)
Ok, looking forward to seeing it.
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
The bad news is: You are the fourth person to report this tearing; all four
of you have the GVP '030 boards.
We've alled GVP and they promised to send us a unit we could test, but it's
been over two weeks now and they did not send us one – so we can't identify
the problem. We _do_ know that it is caused by the GVP processor board;
it's screwing with the system clocks. It seems to be the only accellerator
that does this.
Until we get that 030 board from GVP, there is no way we can figure out
what's going on, and that means that you're going to have that tearing. It
is possible that it can be adjusted out (our clock circuitry is really
quite flexible) but we won't know that until we get it, as I say.
We suggest you call GVP, and try and get ahold of someone with some
authority – point out that they have not provided the board, and until they
do, we're simply advising our customers NOT to buy their accellerator, as
it seems to do "no-nos" to the system.
There is _no way_ that the accellerator board should cause these problems –
we're hoping that it's something unusual that is our fault, but personally,
I do think that the accellerator is at fault.
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
Ben,
George Rapp is a good guy to call at GVP. He has always been very
helpful to me both when I have had problems with my HD board and just had
questions about different GVP products. Hope he still works there since
his help to me has been instrumental in my praising GVP responsiveness
whenever I can.
– Don
Ben, I installed the CPU switch recommended by GVP when I installed my
3001. When I switch back to the 68000 and reboot (minus all ram and
ignoring the hard drive controller) I get the exact same tearing. Without
knowing the dirty details of the way the GVP board works, I think that this
indicates it's not the board.
My dealer is inquiring wen the ECS upgrade is coming, he assures me that
the price break on all three chips will be worth it rather then buying the
nes agnus then getting the other two. Maybe before Xmas, he'll be able to
tell me tomorrow.
BTW, check out the picture I uploaded in AmigaArts. It's a digitized
picture of the sun in x-rays. Looks pretty good.
Later!
Douglas Bullard 71330,214
Douglas. Pull the GVP board _out_ of your system. Bet you a dollar the
tearing goes away.
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
Did and done, the tearing is still there. Also didn't talk to my dealer
today, I want to know what he heard from CBM when he placed his ECS order.
Still having fun with it, though.
Douglas Bullard 71330,214
If you pulled the HAM-E out, and the tearing is _still_ there, then perhaps
it's just an adjustment… this is a _very_ distict possibility. Further,
if it *is* just an adjustment, I'd very much like to see if we could get
your particular unit woring er, working, without the GVP board… then see
if it would work with it. If we can get it working, then we have some
important data!
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
I removed the GVP board (your message said HAM-E, a typo I assume). I'm
taking the unit to my local user's group tomorrow morning for a
demonstration, and I'll play with it some more after then. The fact that
it runs well on my friend's machine and tears on mine without the GVP board
(no amount of adjustment on all four pots makes it go away) would seem to
point to the Agnus chip, would it not?
It might – that's not the same symptoms we've seen before. Let me ask you
this – were there any modifications to the a2000 that GVP had you do, or
you had done by someone else, to amke the GVP operate or be more reliable
or anything like that? I'm speaking here of things like pal changes, extra
ground jumpers, cut traces, capacitors here and there… anything at all
like that? Or did you simply insert your GVP and up it came?
I'm more than willing that you should get a 1 meg agnus, if you have a 512k
one; if you have a 1 meg, though, there are no known problems with
compatibility there, unless you actually have a _bad_ agnus.
Please do let us know what happens, ok?
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
Both my A2000 and GVP are straight stock items. I have an internal modem
(2400 baud) but everything else is straight out of the box. Did I mention
that I do have a Flicker Fixer? I have an A-B box which I use to switch
outputs. I still have the old 512K agnus, my dealer missed his connection
at CBM and will place his order for the ECS next week.
BTW, I attended the local user's group meeting Saturday and demonstarted
the HAM-E. They swarmed all over it! About 7 people said "I've GOT to
have that!" There were some questions about comparisions with DCTV and the
MAST units, I answered these the best I could with the information I've
seen here and on your BBS. One I couldn't answer was what the upgrade
policy would be when you up the resolution to 640. Would this be a factory
upgrade or a user project, and what will the (projected) cost be (ball park
figures are OK).
My dealer will probably order some units after Christmas, right now he is
so busy and understaffed he doesn't hav ethe time to look at mine, but he
is _very_ interested.
Well, gotta go. Later!
Douglas Bullard 71330,214
And I'll get the pic.
I don't know if this is any consolidation, but I just bought CSA's Mega
Midget Racer and have been using it with my HAM-E board without fault!
According to the CSA engineers (who are probably biased) the MMR is one
perfectly engineered board that will be 100% compatible with everything.
Though, I am having one problem – that is with Dynamic HIRES. I can not get
Dynamic HIRES to work properly on my system now. Though, since I have an
Amgia 500, it may be because I modified my system to accept 1 meg of CHIP
ram with the new Agnus. Anyone here have ismiliar problem?
Joe
I presume you meant "consolation" :^)
The only accellerator we have problems with is the GVP 030, to date. They
are apparently doing bad things – that might explain why they have failed
to send us the evaluation unit they promised us.
We're hoping that's not so, and really want to know just what is going on
with the GVP accellerators. It's not that they represent a big portion of
our sales, it's just that people with accellerators can realize a great
advantage – some of our software, specifically render software – takes a
lot of processor power.
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
Ben,
Yes, I see your point. (Yes I did mean consolation, my fingers often type
faster than I think). I find that rendering 24-bit files with my
accelerator is a breeze now, and I actually enjoy watching a few of the
mode draw in.
Joe
Examination of the 86 pin CPU connector will tell you that none of the
video lines, except system clock lines, are connected. The only two failure
modes possible are overloading of the clock signals or radiation of RF into
the Agnus, either via the clock lines or induced into the syncs. There is
no way to electronically mess with the timing of any of these lines; they
are generated externally.
-Greg
What happens, Greg, is that the HAM-E will not lock properly with a GVP
board in system. The pixels tear at the right end of each scan line; it's
as if the timing of the clock re the pixel data is changing across the
line; it starts out fine, croaks at about the 75% point. It's not
adjustible out, as I understand it. I have NOT seen it myself, though – GVP
said that they would send us a board, but they have not done so. Until they
_do_ send us one, we're telling GVP owners that there is a compatibility
problem, and that as far as we can tell, since all the other accellerators
work, that the problem is very likely with the GVP.
As soon as we can identify it, we'll do something final, either fix it or
make a firm declaration of non-compatibility.
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
A scope on C1* or the syncs will probably show RF is getting transmitted
out the video cable into HAM-E. It may have weird effects on the horizontal
pixel counter if it is on *C1. May also affect the 221s since they trigger
on C1* as well.
There is no way a card in the CPU slot can modify the system timing. It has
to be noise.
-Greg
Ok, thanks for your input.
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
Ben,
There is a problem that I've learned about from Expert Service's repair
tech: If any 28Mhz gets into the Vsync and Hsync of the (especially 1 and 2
Meg) Agnus, The Agnus goes nuts. It can be as little as 40 mV. A bypass cap
at the Agnus on the sync fixed that problem (external genlock's 28Mhz was
radiating onto the syncs). It has been seen on A2000s with accelerators and
A3000s. This might be the same thing.
-Greg
Greg – is this a "for sure"? How much do you trust the ES tech???
It sounds pretty strange… We can certainly pretty well nuke the sync
lines, they run _real_ slow compared to 28 mhz, alhtough we can't degrade
the edges completely, or the reset signals form the genlock might not get
happy either.
Hmmm… maybe I need to stick our SuperGen on here and stick a scope on
some lines… thing crashes like a pig.
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
I know that this is the fix for the A3000/2300 genlock. A Rev 6 B2000 with
external genlock (I don't remember which one) had similar problems. A cap
on the Vsync fixed the problem. I trust the tech as he is an EE doing
repair work for extra pocket change. He has several Amiga-related designs
on the market.
-Greg
Ok, that's good enough for me. I'll implement it, and we'll see what
happens. Thanks!
Ben
Amateur Radio Callsign is A A 7 A S
CSA Hurrican Board? Imtronics makes the Hurrican brand, which I believe
they are out-of-business. CSA Makes the Mega Midget boards.
Hmmm, whatever it is, it's still being made, as my buddy contacted them
about a problem a few days ago. Turns out the old CBM 2Mb board I sold him
(it didn't work with my 3001) also barfs out his '030 board. Something
about the 150 ns chip speed or something….
The reason the A2052 soesn't work is described in the AmigaUser/hardware
section.
-Greg
Doug- Good point on the environmentally sound pacakging practice!
Michael
Michael;
I wonder how many billion barrels of oil (for transportation) these
"environmentally sound" packaging practices will cost us! Even the real
popcorn is substantially heavier than the other variety.
73, bill
I like the foam popcorn. It is light, protects things, doesn't pack down
or break down. And it is re-cyclable (sp?). There isn't a bit of foam
popcorn that comes in here that doesn't go right back out in packages we
ship for business or gift giving.
– Don, N2LCR @ K2UK.#SNJ.NJ.USA.NA
Don; I was really surprised at the weight difference between the two. Like
you, I try to reuse the stuff.
73, bill
Bill,
By my estimates, about 23 bbls/week for un-buttered and 28 bbls.week for
butter ed. I am happy using croutons or UnderBedDustBunnies (UBDB's) for
packages sent out for Christmas.
Due to a warmer than normal fall, I am forced (yes forced) to brush out my
gold en retriever daily. We are collecting his silky for future packaging
needs.
Michael
Michael;
Actually I am serious. The weight difference between the two is
substantial. I would not be at all surprised if the trade of were
negative. Remind me not to order anything from you <grin>.
73, bill
Bill,
For what it's worth- caramel corn shipping material is available at
slightly higher cost.
Seriously, I do not have a problem with styrofoam cheetos that are *not*
blown with CFC's *and* are recycled back to shippers. We save all cheetos
at work from packages received and re-use them in items shipped out. At
home, I save all shipping containers and packing for re-use. Matter of
fact, I just sent my Ham-E unit and transformer back to BBS in the original
box. Course my garage is full. <grin>
Michael
> Due to a warmer than normal fall, I am forced (yes forced) to brush out >
my golden retriever daily. We are collecting his silky for future >
packaging needs.
I know someone who will spin it into yarn for you….
. . . . . . JimDoc
Jim,
If the woolsmith would like any hair of the dog, I'd be happy to ship them
some.
Michael
Doug, I'd be interested in how your HAM-E looks on the 1 meg Agnus. I have
512K Agnus and I have ragged edges sometimes too. I thought it might be
the power supply, which I am returning.
With my friend's 1 meg agnus, it looks great! Time to shell out some
bucks, now at least I can run DigiPaint and DigiView at the same time…
Thanks for the update. I was waiting for the ECS to come out and upgrade
all at once. This way I only have to bring the computer into the shop once
(assuming they don't screw up the installation.) On the other hand, I
might see the price of the ECS & Fat Agnus plus installation and have a
stroke! I doubt it will be cheap and I am SURE I'll have some major
compatibility problems (at least in the beginning.) Does anyone know if
DiskMaster works on 2.0 yet? (I know it gagged on the first version.) It
is my favorite disk utility so far and I'd hate to give it up.