#Amiga & BB share CDROM
3 messages in this thread
Finally, I had the time to install a SoundBlaster16 with SCSI-2 into my
A2386 equipped A2000 box.
I made up a SCSI cable to go from the A2091, to my harddisk, then to my
old Toshiba 3041 CDROM, and finally on to the SoundBlaster. I removed the
terminating resistors from the drives, leaving the ones on the A2091 and
Sound Blaster. The blaster software was installed and one line in the
AUTOEXEC.BAT changed from:-
DEVICE=C:\SCSI\ASPI2DOS.SYS /D /Z
to:-
DEVICE=C:\SCSI\ASPI2DOS.SYS /D /Z /H5
The /Hs at the end changes the SounBlaster controller ID from 7 to 5. The
Amiga is using ID 7 and I don't think that it can be changed for a CD.
Everything now works well. From Windoze I can access the CD (drive D).
If the Amiga CD0: is mounted or used after the BridgeBoard is booted it
seems that I have to issue a "CHANGEDISK CD0:" command to get it to read
properly.
This appears to be a simple (and hopefully safe way to acces the CDROM
from both sides of a big box Amiga.
David Kay
Flying in from Montreal.
Have you run into any problems with the system trying to access the CDROM and
your hard drive simultaneously?
Marion
CROSSINGS
Newsletter for Amiga/PC/Mac compatibility
Marion:
>Have you run into any problems with the system trying to access the CDROM
>and your hard drive simultaneously?<
Not yet. Right now I'm listening to a CD using YACDP on the Amiga side,
playing across the SCSI lines, and using the Hard Disk for AutoPilot.
Earlier today I was listening to a CD on Amiga SCSI and re-installing
Windows AT THE SAME TIME!! I only lost about 10 secs from 70 mins of music
when the BridgeBoard was hogging the SCSI line for writing files. As I
said before, if I'm using a data CD I have to issue 'Diskchange CD0:' to
pressumably let the CD drive know which controller it is talking too. The
set up seems very stable. I am very surprised.
I have also just bought a Quantum 540 Lightning hard drive, which seems to
help. I presume this is because it is faster than the old LP52S (1.5 Meg
per sec versus .95 Meg per sec) and doesn't hog the controllers. I use
15Meg for SYS:, 308Meg for Work:, and 200Meg for the BridgeBoard C:\. I
bought a SoundBlaster purely for economic reasons. A SCSI-2 card with
software was going to cost me >$200.00 .A trip through Computer Shopper
led me to the SounBlaster16 with SCSI-2 and software (SCSI driver, Blaster
driver, Voice recognition, wave editor, CD player, awful speech) for
$125.00.
I also use PCDisk by Eddie Carroll (downloaded from Compuserve) to let me
use a partition rather than a file as my BB C:\ drive. This has sped
things up a bit as well, and I can access the C:\ drive via CrossDos with
care.
So after all this, I have no reason to upgrade to anyother machine for
some time. I have all I need in one large, warm box.
Anyone worried about incompatability? Here's what is inside the A2000:-
Workbench 3.1
8372B Agnus + 2Meg Chip Ram on motherboard per Phil Combs article in
Amazing Amiga – Feb 1993 (+ correction
file here on Compuserve)
A2091 Hard disk controller with 2Meg Ram + Quantum 540 Lightning Drive
Toshiba 3041 CDRom drive (Software reports it as an IBM)
A2630 Accellerator with 4Meg Ram
High Density Commodore Floppy
GVP PhonePak
A2386 25Mhz Bridgeboard with 5Meg
Elite Micro (OAK) Multi I/O display board
SoundBlaster16 with SCSI-2 controller
I will try to confuse the system and let you know if I do.
David Kay
Flying in from Montreal.