Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!watdragon!rose!ehoogerbeets From: ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Introduction to comp.sys.amiga Message-ID: <16223@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Date: 1 Sep 89 04:03:52 GMT Expires: Oct 1 00:02:52 EDT 1989 Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu Reply-To: ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets) Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 1492 [please note: my new address will be w-edwinh@microsoft.uucp. Please do not reply to this account as it is dying soon. -ed] This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information, please read the following articles. This posting last changed: Aug 31, 1989 Changes this month: Added: Questions [and answers] about AT Bridgeboard It is recommended that you save this article for future reference. Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still availble from the editor via email. * * There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech. * To save this posting when you are using rn or vn: s newuserto save in the file News/newuser. notes: snewuser to save this article in the file ./newuser. To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on the left. This article contains the following topics: ,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article before posting anything. edwin@hcr.UUCP ,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga newsgroups. page@Sun.COM (Bob Page) ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu ,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks and how to submit programs. fnf@fishpond.UUCP ,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show' programs. joe@dayton.UUCP ,ARC How to use the kilowatt archive server raz@sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry) ,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?) uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis) geoffs@smoke.UUCP AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP ,LED What does flashing caps lock LED mean? bjc@pollux.UUCP ,CLI Closing the initial CLI hcr!edwin ,KIK Crashing all the way to Kickstart 1.3 (*the solution*) bryce@cbmvax ,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000) Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu ,COL All dem [screen] colors during boot hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen) ,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives jesup@cbmvax ,ECS How to get RAD: to recover with the new Agnus adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS) New Agnus for older B2000s daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) ,2500 Can I get a 2500 UX? papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) ,SUP Supra Controllers and SCSI ID's thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) ,MIN Minix for the Amiga ??? ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga) ,010 Need information about 68010. scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden) ,HAM What is HAM? Tom Limoncelli ,EXE Execute script errors Tom Limoncelli ,AT Questions [and answers] on AT Bridgeboard higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom) Send questions, comments to: Edwin ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (or as of September: w-edwinh@microsoft.uucp) ************************************************************************* ,NET From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) Subject: Netiquette Behaviour on the net: Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for useful information. Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga news groups. Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct" answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to harass other readers that are not interested in the subject. Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Have fun via mail. Newsgroups: There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they should contain: comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga related news, software and hardware. comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga. comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators. comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be posted to by the moderators. Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups. Mail: If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article. Following up: If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net, then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up, and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to re-read the entire text. Posting original material: Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the readers. However, if you post a request for information or software, please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again, this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day. Cross posting: Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article, and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post, please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is relevant. Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the most from Usenet. Edwin uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin ************************************************************************* ,MOD From: page@Sun.COM (Bob Page) Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups How To Use The Comp.Binaries.Amiga Postings Every comp.binaries.amiga submission is archived with the ZOO archive program, which does a fair amount of data compression and retains the original names, dates and directory structure within the archive. Because Usenet data paths are not 8-bit, these archives must be encoded to "regular ASCII" which is 7-bit. The encoding is done with a program called 'uuencode'. The version used adds a checksum at the end of each line, and includes the file size at the end of the encoding. Sometimes the files are too large for one posting (Usenet postings should generally be less than 64k bytes but you can sometimes get away with longer postings). If this uuencoded zoo archive is too large, it gets split into pieces, roughly 64k in length. Finally, the (possibly split) .zuu files are enclosed by some simple UNIX commands. This 'shell archive' is commonly known as a 'shar'. There is a more-or-less standard set of file extensions used to show the file type. The file extension is the set of characters after the dot (or period) in the name. The set of file extensions used is: .zoo An archive file in ZOO format .zuu A .zoo file that's been uuencoded .zu1 The first file in a split .zuu file .zu9 The ninth file in a split .zuu file .zu10 The tenth file in a split .zuu file .uu1 The first shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu .uu9 The ninth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu .uu10 The tenth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu To get all this back into a usable form, you need to: 1. Unpack the files from the shar format (the verb is usually called 'unshar'). You can either use a standard text editor to remove the info, or the unix 'sh' (Bourne Shell), or a publicly available tool to do it for you. With some tools (like 'sh'), you are required to remove the Usenet header information first; other unshar tools will remove it for you. Once you unshar a .uu? file, you'll have a .zu? file. 2. Combine all the .zu? pieces into a large .zuu file. You should use something like 'cat' under UNIX or 'join' under AmigaDOS. It is important that you combine the pieces in numerical order. Be aware that the single digit pieces do not have a leading zero, so a wildcard sort will probably not do what you want. Instead, you should specify the files in this way: zu? zu??, which will do the single digit files first, then the double digits. You can rest assured there will not be any triple-digit postings. 3. Convert the .zuu file to a .zoo file with the 'uudecode' program. If you have a version of uudecode that understands the checksum and file size information, you should use it. If you don't, you can still use the old uudecode program, but you will not know if the file has somehow become corrupt. 4. You now have a .zoo file. To extract the files into a directory, you need a program called 'zoo'. After "un-zoo'ing", most submissions will have some documentation to tell how to set up and run the software on your Amiga. --------- Of course you need to get the program(s) to your Amiga to run them. Usually this means downloading the software to your Amiga through a terminal program. If you want to download the files as quickly as possible to your Amiga, you should do steps 1-3 above on your UNIX machine and download the .zoo file to your Amiga, since the .zoo file is the smallest of the files. It's also usually faster and easier to do steps 1-3 on the UNIX machine because you have less worry about disk and memory limitations. However, some terminal emulators available for the Amiga do not handle binary downloads well. Experiment with yours and see. If you have trouble, you might try a different protocol or different terminal program. If all else fails, you can download the .zuu file, which is an ascii file, and do the uudecode on your Amiga. The mechanics of terminal programs, protocols and downloading are beyond the scope of this document. Most terminal programs should have a manual section describing how to log in and do remote downloads. --------- Here are the tools you need, under UNIX, AmigaDOS, or both. All are publicly available; you do not need to purchase anything to make use of the software that comes across in comp.binaries.amiga. shar, sh, unshar - a tool to unpack the shell archives, or use an editor cat or join - to append the split .zu? files to one .zuu file uudecode - to decode the .zuu file to a .zoo file zoo - to unpack the ZOO archive. -------------------------- From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White) Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in preferred order.. 1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission to a different machine. 2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the submissions) 3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail might never be heard from again. Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens at our end. The current moderators are: Bob Page - page@Sun.COM - uunet!sun!page ************************************************************************* ,FNF From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP Subject: How to get Fish disks. WHAT'S AVAILABLE ---------------- There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual. HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS ------- First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution points fairly quickly. If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials, postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives). My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves to be. Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release. In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release. Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full. HOW TO ORDER ------------ To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to: Fred Fish 1835 East Belmont Drive Tempe, Arizona 85284 USA Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order. Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish. DISK CATALOG ------------ A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks (disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to the above address. DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA --------- To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the following conditions: (1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting redistribution. (2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice. (Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown that copyright notices were illegally removed.) (3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if they contain no notice limiting distribution. (4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the public domain. This is not the same as condition (1). One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine (fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf. [Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188 uihub.cs.uiuc.edu (128.174.252.27) for fish 189-222 - ed] ************************************************************************* ,PIC >From: joe@dayton.UUCP Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo) So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it back with what I may have found by that point. A few notes: 1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would be appreciated. That's up to you. 2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as to how I should display it. 3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such. 4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite magazine, but that's not legal..... 5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get into trouble with someone Official. 6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're willing to lose in the mail. If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me.... My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to: Joe Larson 6121 St. Croix Ave. N. Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422 Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better.... -- UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060 (standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402 ************************************************************************* ,BUY From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis) Subject: a comparison of PC's... which one to buy This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises. When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised, and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective. Take the following comments from Peter as an example : In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes: > ...I'd say Atari will have no > problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already > done so! ... Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read (especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number. > Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales > were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine > while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much > greater utility. This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same machine, to wit : 1040 ST Amiga 500 ---------- ---------- Processor 68000 68000 "Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200 various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200 colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440 Disk Drive 720K 880K Serial Port Yes Yes Parallel Port Yes Yes MIDI Port Yes No DMA Port Yes No Expansion Bus No Yes Hard Disk Available Yes Yes Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb Blitter No* Yes Audio Yes Yes ----- * Blitter optional according to some things I have seen And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.) Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better" machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer the same functions. The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?" Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers different. Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from *their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it. Well thats *my* perspective, -- --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. ---------------- >From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy? ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY? * the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. * but here are some thoughts: WORK/SCHOOL OS features: ======================== What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?) - (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix). - (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and "emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST). - (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version 7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and unix-behaving tools. - (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are used to multi-tasking, you are already set. - (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam) that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel. - Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's. ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's. MIDI: ===== The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You may wish to look here too... Final suggestions: 1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers. Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!". 2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the keyboard. *BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST). I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of the retail computer industry. -- ---> geoffs@brl.arpa -- ---------------- >From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ? >My next question is this: >should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000? >Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines? Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150. You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500. The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand. The 2000 is bigger than the 500. If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space. The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500. The 2000 is now selling for $1499. The 500 is now selling for $649. Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made things easier rather than harder. Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com ************************************************************************* ,LED >From: bjc@pollux.UUCP Subject: Re: What does flashing caps lock LED mean? In article <1200@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US> grj@tellab5.UUCP () writes: >sometimes when I power on my A2000, >the caps lock LED flashes at about a 1 or 2 Hz rate. The keyboard is then >useless and nothing typed gets recognized. Look on page 3 of Appendix H to the Hardware Reference manual. Briefly, though, it says: One blink Keyboard ROM test failed Two blinks Keyboard RAM test failed Three blinks Watchdog timer test failed Four blinks A short exists between two row lines or one of the seven special control keys. It also says that you probably would not have been able to type anything before this sequence would be completed, but if so, the key codes would be sent to the computer and then a "terminate key stream" code would be sent. There is more information in that appendix. Betty ************************************************************************* ,CLI From: hcr!edwin Subject: Closing the initial CLI % "I can't get my initial CLI window to close" seems to be a commonly % asked question. It would be good to explain "run" vs. "runback" Okay, a CLI will not close if a program has been "run" from it. (Check your startup-sequence) This is because the program that has been "run" needs someplace to get and put its I/O. If your program does not need to do I/O to the CLI, you should use the RunBack program from Fish 152 (earlier version on Fish 65), or RunBackGround on Fish 73. These programs will totally detach your program from the CLI and allow you to close it normally with endcli. Edwin ************************************************************************* ,KIK From: bryce@cbmvax Subject: Re: Crashing all the way to Kickstart (*the solution*) In several articles <> several.net.posters wrote: > [Since installing V1.3 I have noticed something strange. If the > machine ever crashes, it sometimes goes back to the Kickstart hand > instead of the Workbench hand.] Thank you all for noting and reporting this bug. I have located the cause; a code mistake causes the Kickstart protected memory to be left open open for writing during some types of system Alert. This problem will be addressed in the next version of "SetPatch" (no date or distribution details are available at this time). ************************************************************************* ,HAR From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu Subject: Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000) NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price diff you will actually be working with. BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506 1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the new standard. 2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a 40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506 and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things. The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to Autoboot. The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and several extra SCSI interfaces. There are a few other points to consider: 1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of the three. 2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another 60 or 70 bucks. 3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP cards may still require additional PROMS. Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they are extremely happy with them* paul -- "Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man" "Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay" 6 6 Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--' ************************************************************************* ,COL >From: hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen) Subject: All dem colors during boot A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N C O L O R S Dark gray Ok Hardware Light gray Ok Software Red Bad ROM Checksum Green Bad RAM Blue Bad Custom Chips Yellow Exception A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N Clear Chips Disable DMA and Interrupts Clear the Screen Check the Hardware Pass or fail the Hardware to the Screen Checksum the ROMs Pass or fail the ROMs to the Screen System setup Check the for RAM at $C00000 Move SYS_BASE to $C00000 if it exists RAM Test Pass or fail the RAM to the Screen Check the Software Pass or fail the Software to the Screen Set up the RAM Link the Libraries Find External RAM and link it to the list Set up Interrupts and DMA Start default Task Check for 68010, 68020, and 68881 Check for an Exception System Reset Hans ************************************************************************* ,HED From: jesup@cbmvax Subject: Re: 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a) In article <1735@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dretor (Wallace B. Wallace) writes: >I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover >that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drive. -- Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup ************************************************************************* ,ARC From: raz%kilowatt.EBay@Sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry) Subject: How to use the kilowatt archive server The following message is the reply that kilowatt (the archive server) will mail to you if you ask it for help. Also, if anyone is interested in setting up their very own archive server, contact me at the above address and I'll send you all information and programs that you need to set one up. -Raz ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message comes to you from the archive server at kilowatt@sun.com, archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. It received a message from you asking for help. The archive server is a mail-response program. That means that you mail it a request, and it mails back the response. The archive server is a very dumb program. It does not have much error checking. If you don't send it the commands that it understands, it will just answer "I don't understand you". The archive server has 4 commands. Each command must be the first word on a line. The archive server reads your entire message before it does anything, so you can have several different commands in a single message. The archive server treats the "Subject:" header line just like any other line of the message. You can use any combination of upper and lower case letters in the commands. The archives are organized into a series of top-level directories. The top-level index gives you the index for each of the files in the archive. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are bored with reading documentation and just want to try something, then send the server a message containing the line send index When you get the index back, it will give you the names of all of the files in the archive; send the server another message asking it to send you the files that you want: send applications plplot.2 plplot.3 etc. If you are using a mailer that understands "@" notation, send to archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. If your mailer deals in "!" notation, try sending to {someplace}!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server, e.g. uunet!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server. For other mailers, you're on your own. For BITNET mailers and those lazy typists out there, I have aliased archive-server to archive and archive-management to manage. This means that you can also use the net address of: archive%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!archive manage%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!manage --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The server has 4 commands: "help" command: The command "help" or "send help" causes the server to send you the help file. You already know this, of course, because you are reading the help file. No other commands are honored in a message that asks for help (the server figures that you had better read the help message before you do anything else). "index" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is "index", then the server will send you the index of the contents of the archive. For example, you can say index You can then send back another message to the archive server, using a "send" command (see below) to ask it to send you the files whose name you learned from that list. The index is updated nightly, to reflect the contents of the archive. So if you are getting messages that inform you that the file you requested does not exist, ask for the index again and double check the file name. If your message has an "index" or a "send index" command, then all other "send" commands will be ignored. This means that you cannot get an index and data in the same request. This is so that index requests can be given high priority.) "send" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is "send", then the archive server will send you the item(s) named on the rest of the line. To name an item, you give its directory and its name. For example send workbench ptranim.uu2 or send audio vclock.uu Once you have named a category, you can put as many names as you like on the rest of the line; they will all be taken from that category. For example: send exec xoper13.1 xoper13.2 xoper13.uu1 Each "send" command can reference only one directory. If you would like to get files from more than one directory, you must use two "send" commands. One of the most common mistakes that a new user makes when formatting a send command is to type something that looks like: send dos/fs pthass.sh1 dos/fs pthass.sh2 (This is incorrect... ) This will not work for 2 reasons. One, simply because the archive will look for a directory called "dos/fs". All that you need to do is: send fs pthass.sh1 pthass.sh2 (This is correct) The second reason that the previous send command would not work is that you may only specify one path per send command. You may put as many "send" commands as you like into one message to the server, but the more you ask for, the longer it will take to receive. See "FAIRNESS", below, for an explanation. Actually, it's not strictly true that you can put as many "send" commands as you want into one message. If the server must use uucp mail to send your files, then it cannot send more than 100K bytes in one message. If you ask for more than it can send, then it will send as much as it can and ignore the rest. Since many files in the archive are around 60K, it's probably best to ask for one file at a time unless you know it's safe to do otherwise. "path" command: The "path" command exists to help in case you do not get responses from the server when you mail to it. Sometimes the server is unable to return mail over the incoming path. There are dozens of reasons why this might happen, and if you are a true wizard, you already know what those reasons are. If you are an apprentice wizard, you might not know all the reasons but you might know a way to circumvent them. If you put in a "path" command, then everything that the server mails to you will be mailed to that address, rather than to the return address on your mail. For example, if you say path decwrl!pyramid!rutgers!zakkaroo!jj@uunet.uu.net then all mail sent by the server will be sent to that address. If you use mixed-mode addresses (! and @), the archive-server will put precedence on '@' before '!'. You cannot expect the archive server to pick a uucp path to be determined for you. If you can't determine a path yourself, make the path relative to a 'known' site, e.g.: path place!person@uunet.uu.net which will cause the archive-server to send to site uunet.uu.net with the instructions "send this to place!person". EXAMPLES: 1) Find out the list of all of the Amiga files that are in the archive. Send this message: To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com Subject: hi there index 2) Get files from the archive (you have learned their file names from the list that was sent to you in step 1). To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com Subject: send digest 3.17 send iff gif2iff.uu2 ifflib161.uu1 send iff dplaz.uu1 (it turns out these three files add up to less that 100k, so they can all be sent by return mail). 3) Get a file, and send it over the best path to my site: To: uunet.uu.net!mcvax!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server path myname@site.uucp send iff iff2ps20.1 ************************************************************************* ,ECS >From: adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS) Subject: Re: RAD: won't In article <4425@crash.cts.com> spierce@pnet01.cts.com (Stuart Pierce) writes: >Unfortunately, RAD: loses everything now when I reboot the machine. I added >the R option to SetPatch in my startup-sequence, but that didn't help. What >am I missing? Use a lower case 'R' as in SetPatch >NIL: r and your RAD: will reboot. This could be considered a bug or a documentation error; I will get it corrected. Adam -- Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore-Amiga Technical Support 1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180 BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!adam ------------------------------------------ >From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) Subject: Re: New Agnus for older B2000s in article <274@vuecon.econ.vu.nl>, niesemc@econ.vu.nl (Marco Niese) says: > could a reliable source at Commodore (best would be Dave Haynie) give a final > statement here on the net about the New 1MB Agnus working in older (pre-rev.6) > B2000s? The 1 Meg Agnus works in all B2000s. There are two or three jumpers to change to install it correctly (J101 is moved, J500 is removed or cut depending on how your board was assembled, and J102 is cut if you want to come up PAL instead of NTSC). The Rev 6 board _requires_ the 1 Meg Agnus for support of refresh on it's 256K x 4 DRAMs, but it will work in every revision of the B2000 ever shipped. It will not work on the original A2000, which may be available in the Netherlands as well as other parts of Europe. The easiest way to identify the type of motherboard in your system is to see how many RCA phono jacks you have in the back of the machine: there are 2 on the "A" board, 3 on the "B" board. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it ************************************************************************* ,2500 >From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) Subject: Re: 2500 UX In article <[465]un.amiga@tronsbox.UUCP> tron1@tronsbox.UUCP (HIM) writes: >Is the Amiga 2500 UX available??? Yes, ONLY to qualified commercial developers. >If so, where can I get one ? (mail order I assume) You can ONLY get directly from Commodore. You can contact: Brenda Billings - CATS 1200 Wilson Drive West Chester, PA 19380 >Does anyone have any idea how good the UNIX is??? It runs AMIX, a port of AT&T Unix System V, Release 3.1, and provides the AMIX proprietary Windowing Interface. Price is *CONFIDENTIAL*. The original "technology announcement" of AMIX posted a while back on Usenet and other nets (after the COMDEX show) included the following disclaimer: "PRELIMINARY INFORMATION -- SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE NOT PRESENTLY FOR SALE" As far as I know, *ALL* THE ABOVE INFORMATION IS A MATTER OF PUBLIC RECORD. -- Marco Papa 'Doc' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Diga and Caligari!" -- Rick Unland -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ************************************************************************* ,SUP >From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) Subject: Re: Supra Controllers and SCSI ID's Re: Doug's questions about the Supra controller for the A1000 and SCSI IDs ... Set the SCSI ID jumpers on the drive to something OTHER than 0. Do NOT set the ID to 7, because the Supra 4x4 for the A1000 has 7 as its ID. The reason to set the drive's ID to other-than-zero is to NOT usurp the first 6 or 7 cylinders for an autoboot partition. Run the Supra Formatter (and you better be running at least version 5.1; 5.3 is preferable), specify the ID to which the drive has been set, and let it do its thing. Specify FORMAT but do NOT specify the MAP option, let the drive do its own verification ... embedded SCSI drives are supposed to present a perfect media to the host, and the surface checking performed by the drive's built-in controller will do a far better job of checking and bad-block sparing than the present host software. This process will take about 20 minutes for the 3280 (280MB) and about 30 minutes for the 3380 (380MB). Reboot. Re-run the Supra Formatter, respecify the ID to which the drive has been set, and THIS time only do the partition info ... takes but 1 second or so. Reboot, and assuming the SupraMount program is executed in the startup-sequence, then the drive is automatically mounted and ready for use. These procedures are for the Maxtor XT3280 or XT3380 drives, and work fine on ALL my systems and the systems I've built and/or put together for others. Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ] ************************************************************************* ,MIN >From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Subject: Re: Minix for the Amiga ??? Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested. I am working on that one, however. Andy Tanenbaum >From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga) Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around AmigaMINIX. For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga. While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST) format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100% compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of- day clock won't run properly of course!) Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track- cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected. Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk. To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX: - AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have, what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC. - You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented. - The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80- track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.) Up to four drives can be connected. - The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro- nics) port. - The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides limited access to the color registers. Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC. The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15 page scheduler, but getting all the details right.") AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX. -Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl) ************************************************************************* ,010 >From: scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden) Subject: Re: Need information about 68010. In article <1407@rivm05.UUCP>, ccemdd@rivm.UUCP (Marco Dedecker) writes: > - Is swapping the chips all you need to do, or are there some other > ajustments you have to make ? Thats all you need to do. I switched mine over 2 years ago with no ill effects. > - Does all the software still work with the 68010 ? All current software (that I have anyways) works just fine. (The old pre-1.2 Calculator used to blow up on /0 errors). Even A-Max works properly with the 68010 (w/ 128K ROMS of course). There is a PD program called "decigel" available in various places which patches the trap vector for the 1 instruction which is incompatible. I can't remember the last time I used "decigel". > - What are the advantages of the 68010 ? About 7% speed improvement as measured by Jez San's Amiga Speed Program (recently on BIX and elsewhere). This number is about exactly what I have experienced up to now, and I think it agrees with Motorola's own figures. I think the speedup is noticeable, but then I can also see infrared and hear to 25KHz ;-), so... Should you replace your 68000 with a 68010? Well, they don't cost $60 anymore (what like $12 or so??), so you can't really lose. You can always go back... -- Scott Evernden PRIME Computer Inc. scott@ssgp32.Prime.COM Commercial Systems Group uunet!ssgp32!scott Technology Drive (508) 478-8600 x2984 Milford, MA 01757 ************************************************************************* ,HAM From: Tom Limoncelli Subject: What is HAM? What is HAM? (A NON-technical description) HAM (Hold And Modify) is a special graphics mode on the Amiga. It involves a special mode of the graphic chips that allow for all 4096 colors to be displayed at the same time; with some restrictions. If you have Fish Disk #1, the program "colorful" will show what I mean. It displays all 4096 colors at the same time. How is it done? Each pixel on a normal screen has three components; the red, the green and the blue (RGB). These R-G-B values are combined to make the color of that pixel. In HAM, the first pixel on each line can be any color. Then, the next pixel is the same color as the previous one, except the value of either R, G, or B has been changed. Only one component can change at any time from pixel to pixel so you are restricted in displaying very different colors directly next to each other. There is facility for two adjacent pixels to be exactly the same, i.e. no change in either R, G, or B. Using HAM many impressive graphic screens have been created. Because of its peculiar restrictions doing certain tasks are not well-suited to HAM and HAM is usually used for non-moving graphics (though it's good for ray-traced animation). Digitized pictures look great in HAM. Some programs store their graphics internally as 24-bit graphics (more colors that the Amiga can display) for use with high-end graphics equipment but permit the user to preview their graphics in HAM mode. This is a real boon for high-end users because it enables them to "estimate" results on their Amiga before they send them off to very expensive printing services, etc. HAM isn't perfect but it has its uses. Users should be careful about selecting when and when not to use it. ************************************************************************* ,EXE From: Tom Limoncelli Subject: EXECUTE: No K Directive A common question that comes up is "I just wrote a script and when I EXECUTE it I get an error like 'EXECUTE: No K Directive. What am I doing wrong?" Try making the first two lines ".bra {" and ".ket }". This tells EXECUTE how to interpret {'s and }'s. A plain Amiga EXECUTE script can do a heck of a lot more than most people know about. This is documented in the AmigaDOS manual from Bantam which is still the only C-A book that gives the CLI complete coverage. I hope that after 1.4 comes out we'll find much better documentation. ************************************************************************* ,AT From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom) Subject: Re: Questions on AT Bridgeboard In article <30153@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> frerking@grapenuts.llnl.gov (Chris Frerking) writes: $I have recently had the misfortune of being told that I need to have a PC $compatable computer. I currently own an A2500, and would like information $on the AT Bridgeboard (I need a 286 or 386 machine). Specifically: $ $1. Would it be cheaper to just buy an inexpensive AT clone? (I would $prefer the Bridgeboard, as I haven't lots of desk space... but if the price $difference were too great, I could find some space.) It's tough to find an AT clone for less than the price of our Bridgeboard. You MIGHT be able to, but generally the cheap clones are the large footprint models (read `huge'). $2. Does the AT Bridgeboard cause any problems on the A2500? Is there certain $software that won't run/hardware that won't work if the Bridgeboard is $installed? I have an A2500 with AT Bridgeboard installed here, and they work fine. I believe you cannot have more than 6Mb of Amiga RAM with the Bridgeboard installed, which isn't a problem for most people. $3. How AT compatable is the Bridgeboard? (I am new to PC compatables, $and have been told that this is a question which needs to be asked) (can it $run xenix? minix? microport unix? OS/2?) The A2286 is an entire PC AT on a card, including processor, math coprocessor socket, BIOS, video RAM, 1Mb system RAM, and of course, PC slots in the Amiga. So in a word - it's very compatible. The potential incompatibilities, which relate to an interrrupt and a couple of memory locations that are used for communication between AmigaDOS and MS-DOS are documented, and prevent (for example) you having more than 1 serial card installed, and a parallel card becomes LPT3: (I think), but I would think that with the mode command you could make it act like an LPT1:. I don't believe Commodore has tested OS/2 or XENIX at this time. I see no reason why they shouldn't work, although they may not if they want to share Amiga peripherals. $4. Does the Bridgeboard provide any graphics capability - if so, what sort? $CGA compatable? EGA compatable? The Bridgeboard has RAM enough for MDA and CGA displays, which the Amiga interprets and displays in a window or on a separate screen. The emulation is very good, but... $- If not, can a CGA/EGA/VGA card be plugged into the PC slots, and run $off of a separate monitor? What about using the same monitor? ...if you want other modes or a real MDA or CGA display, you can, yes, plug in a video card and use that. It may require a second monitor though. $5. Does the Bridgeboard have its own memory, or does it use the Amiga's memory? Yes, 1Mb, and no, although you could use Amiga's RAM disk as a DOS device. $can it be expanded? Is extra memory added accessable to the amiga? Yes, and no. $6. Can the Bridgeboard use the Amiga harddrive? Yes. It can even boot of it. $Can the Amiga access PC harddrives plugged into the PC slots? Yes, you can create an Amiga partition on a PC hard drive. In addition you can move files back and forth using supplied utilities. $What about access to the Amiga's 3.5" drives? Only as virtual drives, not transparently. $Does the Bridgeboard come with a 5.25" disk drive? Yes, high density with AT version, and low density with XT version. $...can it be mounted externally You might have to extend your power cable, but it's possible, yes. Plus, you might want to get a case of some sort for the drive. $7. Does the Bridgeboard provide its own serial/parallel ports, or does it share $them with the Amiga? No built in ports, but the Amiga's parallel port can be loaned to the Bridgeboard. $If it shares them, how compatable are they? This is implemented at the BIOS level, so anything that goes through that should work. That is, software that tries to bang on hardware directly won't work, which is why we don't allow sharing of the serial port, because no-one goes through the BIOS to use it. $Can I plug any piece of PC hardware into them without fear of harming the $equipment? Normal precautions apply. If you want the real mccoy, just get a multi-function card - they're cheap. Paul. ----------------------------- >From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom) Subject: Re: Problems with BridgeBoard, Bad Virtual Dirs In article <626@uranus.UUCP> esker@abaa.UUCP (Lawrence Esker) writes: $...having persistent problems with data integrity on 'JLink' virtual $drives in the IBM side of the bridgeboard. Does $anyone share this problem. Can anyone help? Yes. The JLINK software creates a virtual drive file that must grow if new data added requires it (i.e., there's no more room with the file at its current size). When this occurs, the JANUS software has to open the virtual drive file and append the new data. THE FILE ONLY GETS CLOSED IF YOU DO AN UNLINK!!! The problem may therefore not exhibit itself if new data was added but the virtual drive file didn't have to grow (there was still room left in it due to your deleting some other stuff perhaps). One fix: add tons of dummy stuff to the virtual drive, then delete it all then unlink it. From that point forth the virtual drive should not be required to grow since it's already huge. Another fix: using the new JANUS 2.0 software, you can create a [bootable] DOS drive space on the Amiga hard drive that looks like, smells like [etc.] a real PC hard drive as far as MS-DOS is concerned. You even specify cylinders, heads, etc. for the new MakeAB command that creates the space. This solution does not require the first fix. $... Why is a virtual drive on $the ibm a single Amiga file. A significant reliability issue IMHO. A $single problem can destroy a whole (ibm) disk and DiskDoctor can't help. The manual recommends that you have a separate partition for the PC data, to prevent accidental removal of the file, etc. However, most people have no problem with just allowing it to coexist with other stuff. $Is there a way to force PCdisk to complete pending writes once the ibm has $crashed, before rebooting it and remounting the virtual drives? Maybe $executing PCdisk a second time? No - I recommend you use the new software. $Other Possible Bugs: $The command AREAD does not seem to transfer data between an Amiga file and a $virtual drive. Problems with AREAD/AWRITE have been fixed for the new 2.0 software (they were re-written). I hope this helps, Paul. *************************************************************************