30 or 2000gvp030
21 messages in this thread
Do you actually have to open the 2000 and move a jumper on the board to be
able to boot in 68000 mode with the GVP? Seems ridiculously inconvenient.
Also, are you saying the GVP will not work if you have a Bridgeboard
installed–or vice versa?
John
John,
It would be a lot more convenient to just wire the jumper to a switch
on the back of the computer. Don't know about GVP & BB.
Lloyd
Lloyd,
Even having to hook up a switch is a totally primitive solution, IMHO,
coming from a company like GVP. Maybe I'm not old-fashioned enough, but I
buy hardware because I like to use it to run software, not because I like
to spend time installing it and then tweaking it to make it run. Sigh!
John
John,
On the other hand, with *properly written* software, you SHOULDN'T
HAVE to switch to 68000 mode to run the software.
Lloyd
Just today a FEDEX'd an order for the GVP3001. I am getting the
68882 and an 80 Meg Quantum HD. I cannot afford the memory yet though (I
plan to purchase it within the next six month though, when I am expecting a
bonus check).
The reason I choose GVP was I needed the Hard Disk. It seemed the
best buy that way and some reviewers give it the best performance ratings
(for both the accelerator and the drive, although top notch performance of
the drive depends on having the 32 bit memory).
The fact that it is difficult to go to 68000 mode does not bother me
too much. I don't really run that many games, which are the primary
reasons you might want to go to 68000 mode. If I do need to go to 68000
mode though, I can just use my Amiga 500 that I have hooked up to my Sony
KV25XBR TV/RGB Monitor (WOW!! What a picture!!!)
I am a bit disturbed by the problems people are having with the bridge
board and the GVP. I don't own a BB at this time, but it is in my future
plans. Anyway, the die is cast. Now I just must deal with the anxiety of
WAITING for my new baby. 8^)……
Mike
Mike,
Good luck with your GVP. You'll like it, but you'll like it a LOT
more once you get some 32 bit ram in the thing.
My Ronin 68020 card *can't* switch to 68000 mode. Personally, *I*
don't want to, and I don't miss it! I just have to be more careful in
selecting GAMES – try them out first. If I had a GVP, I would hook up a
switch. Just to make it easier. But it doesn't bother me.
Lloyd
Mike,
I have the GVP 3001 with the 32bit memory and also the XTBridgeboard,
although I am not using the drive interface. I have not had any real
problems getting the two to work together. I use SETCPU1.5 and CACHECARD.
Both are public domain programs. Occasionaly I have to do a warm boot to
get the Bridgeboard recognized, but not very often. The 3001 makes a BIG
difference in screen updates on the Amiga and Bridgeboard side if you are
running PC Color.
Norm M.
Norm,
Tell me about CACHECARD. What is it used for?
Mike
Mike,
CACHECARD is a companion program to SETCPU1.5 by Dave Haynie. It is
uses to disable cacheing of devices on the Amiga expansion bus. If you
type in the word CACHECARD by itself, it will list all devices on the bus.
If you then type in CACHECARD DISABLE # # it will disable cacheing for that
device. For the BridgeBoard you would type CACHECARD DISABLE 201 1. This
disables any cacheing of the BridgeBoard. This solved all my problems with
getting the Bridge to work with 030 boards.
I run Binddrivers first, then WAIT 3, then run SETCPU BURST CACHE
FASTROM, then CACHECARD DISABLE 201 1. These are the first commands in my
startup sequence after CD C:. If you would like, I can upload my complete
startup sequence to you in a file through Email. Norm M.
Norm:
Which 030 card do you have? If it's the CBM o30 board, do you have the
proper values for the CardROMList for the CBM 2091 hard drive controller?
Ray Lewis
Ray,
I picked this up off the net…
———————————–is a SetCPU file entry for using CardROM option with the 2091:
0x202 0x03 0x10000 0x2000 0x3FFF CBM_2091_SCSI_Controller
These are, in order, Manufacturer, Product (may be 0x02, use Dave Haynie's
CacheCard Program to check,) Card size, Base Address of ROM, size of ROM.
I found the size of the ROM by guessing and checking. The system crashed
when I was wrong. Be sure to use the verbose option of setcpu, to be sure
your file was accepted, and always use the cardrom option along with the
Fastrom option.
Now for the wierd part; I'm not getting _any_ performance improvement.
It's about 382K/sec Reads, and 335K/sec Writes (32KBits at a time) using
DiskSpeed. Has anyone had any better luck?
dylan mcnamee
dylan@cs.washington.edu
———————————-
Larry:
I think 2091 ROMS are ported to 32 RAM automatically on bootup if an 030 is
present in the system. Running SHOWCARDS indicates that the 2091's ROMs are
in 32 bit RAM space even if there is no CARDROMLIST entry for the 2091.
suspect that using a CARDROMLIST entry for the 2091 will result in a
degredation of performance. I found this to be the case.
Regards Charles
Ray,
It looks like two members have already gotten back to you. I have the
GVP 030 board. Many hard drive controller automatically remap the ROMs to
fast memory. I have the CLtd Kronos and it does it. Norm M.
Also, it should be noted that with the GVP 3001, if you do go into
68000 mode, you loose the use of the HardDisk and the 32 bit memory.
Mike
The type of ram that the GVP 030 card uses are SIMM's, but not the type
Apple uses[page], rather they are nybble-mode mem chips, designed
specifically for utilizing the 030's burst mode, and intruction cache.
GVP's 030 *can* be expanded up to 8 megs, in 4 meg increments *only*. It's
either 4 or 8 if you own one of these babies…
It is also an asynchronous design (as opposed to the Ronin/Imtronics
Hurricane design), and since it's mpu can be run clocked at a different
freq. han the Amiga's clock, will not have the problems associated with
using genlock supplied external clock signals of possible dubious quality,
and synchronous accelerators.
As for the "switch" dis/enable, there were some very good reasons for GVP
using this approach, rather than software disabling. I don't fully recall
why off hand although I see if I can dig up the text file explaining why
they did this (Someto do with AMIX, although I'm not certain).-Rick
Rick –
Just as a point of information, the Imtronics card now has an
asynchronous design, and while it does need a hardware switch (which I have
mouted on my LED panel) to go to 68000 mode, the SCSI hard drive controller
still allows autoboot from the hard drives.
Harry
Mike,
Right. I knew that one. With the Imtronics board, the SCSI interface
is still active in 68000 mode. But the RAM doesn't autoconfig.
Lloyd
As of last October, you had to physically open up the 2000 and move a
jumper on the board to boot in 68000 mdoe with the GVP, or have your dealer
install a switch on a long wire.
The difficulty with the Bridgeboard is that the little beastie needs to do
a lot of settling and configuring in order to spring to life, and the GVP
decoupling made it a one-out-of-three chance that the BBoard would 'catch.'
Cure was to "reboot and try again." Now there's a new BIOS for the BBoard,
and the problem may have gone away.
Well, my (Vega) VGA card already is a 50-50 proposition. If I added a GVP,
that would probably mean the BB would boot successfully one time in six.
<Grin>
I'll have to see my dealer about the new BIOS ROM. Does it fix any other
problems that you know of?
Do you happen to know anything about hooking up a floppy controller on the
bridge? I'm thinking of adding the Inboard-386 if I can get any
confirmation that it will work. I'd like to swap in a 1.2meg drive and am
wondering whether there would be any conflict with the bridge if I add a
new controller. Seems like there shouldn't be, but the Bridge has always
had a ton of hardware idiosyncracies.
John
I don't know abou the 1.2 Meg drive for the XT bridge.
John,
in a word, yes. The best solution is to hook a switch across the
jumper to the back of the machine, and I have seen this done, but not on my
machine. I always run in '030 mode and haven't had any compatability
problems, so what's the use of the 68000 mode.
As for working with the BB, it must work since they include everything
on the installation disk for setting it up to run in a BB environment.
Also, the programs the modify your startup-script test for the BB and will
do the appropriate things (Binddrivers, etc.).
I haven't tried it here, since I don't have that many pennies saved
up, but it is now on the agenda since I work on IBscuM's for a living.
Gawd, I hate typing that! :-).
Brian J. Bartlett