hollnbgh@coral.bucknell.edu (11/23/90)
A few days ago I saw an ad in AmigaWorld about a 2-meg chip RAM enhancement for the A2000. The company was The Grapevine Group. I called them and inquired about the product. They said that it was basically a 2-meg Agnus chip and 1 meg of memory (plus a small amount of circuitry) on a daughter board that fits into the Agnus's square socket. The price he quoted me was $339 (including RAM and 2-meg Agnus). They say that they will purchase your used 1-meg Agnus chip back for $25 if you have one. They also said that this product will NOT fit into the 500 because of physical problems, there just isn't enough room for it. My question: I was under the impression that the "2-Meg" Agnus chip was exactly the same as the 1-meg Agnus chip currently shipping in the Amiga 500's, 2x00's, AND 3000's. I thoght the CHIP was the same, but that the 3000's socket connected the 21'st address line (that the 500's and 2x00's didn't connect to anything.) Since the 2x00 has only 1 meg installed (chip on newer and half chip and half fast on older) the 21'st address line would not have any memory to connect to. If this is so, they would not need to buy back 1-meg Agnus chips - since you could use them in the daughter board. I am probably wrong, and the 3000's Agnus is probably different than the 500's and 2x00's, but I just would like to know for sure. If you are wondering, I just have a Fat Agnus (512K), and want to upgrade to more, but am unsure whether to get this product, or just get normal Agnus upgrade. (Actually, I will wait for 2.0 anyway.) Thanks, Dale Hollenbaugh hollnbgh@coral.bucknell.edu
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (11/24/90)
In article <1990Nov23.020807.2951@coral.bucknell.edu> hollnbgh@coral.bucknell.edu writes: > > I was under the impression that the "2-Meg" Agnus chip was >exactly the same as the 1-meg Agnus chip currently shipping in the >Amiga 500's, 2x00's, AND 3000's. I thoght the CHIP was the same, >but that the 3000's socket connected the 21'st address line (that >the 500's and 2x00's didn't connect to anything.) No, it has been told a little different on the net: The silicon chip inside Agnus is indeed identical in the 1-Meg and 2-Meg version, BUT the inner bondings from the silicon to the outside pins differs, so that in the 1-Meg version you have one address line not connected to the contacts at the edge of the Agnus case. So if you don't want to open that ceramic (or plastic) casing of Agnus and change the bonding (with your 80 W soldering iron :-), you better change the whole chip. -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
dtiberio@csserv2.ic.sunysb.edu (David Tiberio) (11/24/90)
Yes, you can get 2.3 megs of chip ram, at a lower price too! Call MAST at (702) 359 0444. I think it costs 239$, or at the most $330 with more ram. Check the early summer of 1990 Amiga World. MAST however does not advertise in every issue. David Tiberio SUNY Stony Brook 2-3605 AMIGA Toto Productions DDD Men
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (11/25/90)
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) writes: > hollnbgh@coral.bucknell.edu writes: >> I was under the impression that the "2-Meg" Agnus chip was >>exactly the same as the 1-meg Agnus chip currently shipping in the >>Amiga 500's, 2x00's, AND 3000's. I thoght the CHIP was the same, >>but that the 3000's socket connected the 21'st address line (that >>the 500's and 2x00's didn't connect to anything.) >No, it has been told a little different on the net: The silicon chip >inside Agnus is indeed identical in the 1-Meg and 2-Meg version, >BUT the inner bondings from the silicon to the outside pins differs, >so that in the 1-Meg version you have one address line not connected >to the contacts at the edge of the Agnus case. So if you don't want >to open that ceramic (or plastic) casing of Agnus and change the >bonding (with your 80 W soldering iron :-), you better change the >whole chip. OK, next question. My 2000 currently sports 9.5 meg of memory. With this daughterboard, which almost has to have a meg of memory _on_ it to access the chip bus, if I've followed previous discussions correctly, do I get to address 10.5 meg of autoconfiguring memory, 2 meg of it chip, or does one of my existing meg become unusable to make room in the address space for the other meg of chip ram? /// It's Amiga /// for me: why Kent, the man from xanth. \\\/// settle for <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> \XX/ anything less? -- Convener, ongoing comp.sys.amiga grand reorganization.
schweige@aldebaran.cs.nps.navy.mil (jeffrey schweiger) (11/25/90)
In article <1990Nov24.223511.5632@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >OK, next question. My 2000 currently sports 9.5 meg of memory. With this >daughterboard, which almost has to have a meg of memory _on_ it to >access the chip bus, if I've followed previous discussions correctly, do >I get to address 10.5 meg of autoconfiguring memory, 2 meg of it chip, >or does one of my existing meg become unusable to make room in the >address space for the other meg of chip ram? > > /// It's Amiga > /// for me: why >Kent, the man from xanth. \\\/// settle for ><xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> \XX/ anything less? >-- >Convener, ongoing comp.sys.amiga grand reorganization. According to Dean Brown of DKB Software (the makde of MegAChip 2000), it adds an additional 1 Meg of autoconfig RAM. The board does come with the 1 Meg on it. My question to you is how do you have 9.5 Meg of autoconfig memory at present. I thought the present limit was 9 Meg. (I'll admit in advance that I could quite possible be wrong in this). In any event, the flyer I have for the MegAChip 2000 states that you can have a total of 10 Meg of RAM, 2 Meg of Chip and 8 Meg of Fast RAM. Jeff Schweiger -- ******************************************************************************* Jeff Schweiger Standard Disclaimer CompuServe: 74236,1645 Internet (Milnet): schweige@taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil *******************************************************************************
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (11/25/90)
schweige@cs.nps.navy.mil (Jeff Schweiger) writes: > xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >>OK, next question. My 2000 currently sports 9.5 meg of memory. With this >>daughterboard, which almost has to have a meg of memory _on_ it to >>access the chip bus, if I've followed previous discussions correctly, do >>I get to address 10.5 meg of autoconfiguring memory, 2 meg of it chip, >>or does one of my existing meg become unusable to make room in the >>address space for the other meg of chip ram? >According to Dean Brown of DKB Software (the makde of MegAChip 2000), it adds >an additional 1 Meg of autoconfig RAM. The board does come with the 1 Meg on >it. My question to you is how do you have 9.5 Meg of autoconfig memory at >present. I thought the present limit was 9 Meg. (I'll admit in advance that >I could quite possible be wrong in this). In any event, the flyer I have for >the MegAChip 2000 states that you can have a total of 10 Meg of RAM, 2 Meg of >Chip and 8 Meg of Fast RAM. Yep, I've lost the ability to do simple arithmetic in my head. Avail shows a total of 9,428,696 bytes of memory; a little is being eaten somewhere, but that is still smaller than the 9,437,184 bytes in 9 megabytes. My error; I thought a lot was being eaten (like perhaps all of workbench), giving a higher total, and I hadn't bothered to do the math. So, with this daughterboard setup, I could go from the half meg chip, half meg something (on chip bus but not chip?) on the mother board to two meg of chip, one on the motherboard, on on the daughterboard, plus the 8 meg of fast ram on the expansion card. Nice. I have _lots_ of use for more chip ram; gobs of screens, for starts. While I'm spinning dreams, there was once an indication that C= had given back 4 mbytes of address space for user memory that had been reserved for system use. 1) Is that true? 2) Has anyone ever built for sale a method of making a 12 mbyte A2000? 3) Is this daughterboard/motherboard memory already coming out of that 12 meg of address space, or is 14 meg an upper limit for installed ram? [Dream on.] Put another way, just how much usable ram could I have in an A2000 without going to a 68020 or 68030 processor, under today's rules, and does anyone actually sell the goodies to make it possible? /// It's Amiga /// for me: why Kent, the man from xanth. \\\/// settle for <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> \XX/ anything less? -- Convener, ongoing comp.sys.amiga grand reorganization.
billsey@agora.uucp (Bill Seymour) (12/01/90)
In article <1990Nov24.223511.5632@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
:
:OK, next question. My 2000 currently sports 9.5 meg of memory. With this
:daughterboard, which almost has to have a meg of memory _on_ it to
:access the chip bus, if I've followed previous discussions correctly, do
:I get to address 10.5 meg of autoconfiguring memory, 2 meg of it chip,
:or does one of my existing meg become unusable to make room in the
:address space for the other meg of chip ram?
Well, I haven't seen the daughterboard, but there are two possibilities
as I see it... They either have one meg of ram on their board, mapped to
$100000-$1FFFFF or they have two meg onboard, mapped to $000000-$1FFFFF. If
they have two meg onboard, it's possible they will remap the motherboard
memory to $C00000-$CFFFFF.
First case allows to expand your 2000 to 11 megs, up one meg from the
10 megs supported now (Note, that's not 9.5...)
Second case, part one, alos allows you to expand to 11megs.
Second case, part two, allows you to expnad to a full 12megs. That is
very close to the maximum you could take a 2000 without a coprocessor card.
(You could actually hack up some memory into the 512K below the ROM, I believe.
And possibly to the 512K at $D00000...
: /// It's Amiga
: /// for me: why
:Kent, the man from xanth. \\\/// settle for
:<xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> \XX/ anything less?
:--
:Convener, ongoing comp.sys.amiga grand reorganization.
--
-Bill Seymour billsey@agora
***** American People/Link Amiga Zone Hardware Specialist NES*BILL *****
Bejed, Inc. NES, Inc. Northwest Amiga Group At Home Sometimes
(503) 281-8153 (503) 246-9311 (503) 656-7393 BBS (503) 640-0842billsey@agora.uucp (Bill Seymour) (12/01/90)
In article <1990Nov30.171201.21397@agora.uucp> billsey@agora.uucp (Bill Seymour) writes: :In article <1990Nov24.223511.5632@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: :: ::OK, next question. My 2000 currently sports 9.5 meg of memory. With this ::daughterboard, which almost has to have a meg of memory _on_ it to ::access the chip bus, if I've followed previous discussions correctly, do ::I get to address 10.5 meg of autoconfiguring memory, 2 meg of it chip, ::or does one of my existing meg become unusable to make room in the ::address space for the other meg of chip ram? : : Well, I haven't seen the daughterboard, but there are two possibilities :as I see it... They either have one meg of ram on their board, mapped to :$100000-$1FFFFF or they have two meg onboard, mapped to $000000-$1FFFFF. If :they have two meg onboard, it's possible they will remap the motherboard :memory to $C00000-$CFFFFF. : First case allows to expand your 2000 to 11 megs, up one meg from the :10 megs supported now (Note, that's not 9.5...) Woops! I fell into your trap there... :-) subtract a meg from all my total memory numbers. You only have nine megs possible right now, this will expand you to either 10 or 11 megs... : Second case, part one, alos allows you to expand to 11megs. : Second case, part two, allows you to expnad to a full 12megs. That is :very close to the maximum you could take a 2000 without a coprocessor card. :(You could actually hack up some memory into the 512K below the ROM, I believe. :And possibly to the 512K at $D00000... -- -Bill Seymour billsey@agora ***** American People/Link Amiga Zone Hardware Specialist NES*BILL ***** Bejed, Inc. NES, Inc. Northwest Amiga Group At Home Sometimes (503) 281-8153 (503) 246-9311 (503) 656-7393 BBS (503) 640-0842
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (12/06/90)
In article <1990Nov23.020807.2951@coral.bucknell.edu> hollnbgh@coral.bucknell.edu writes: > I was under the impression that the "2-Meg" Agnus chip was >exactly the same as the 1-meg Agnus chip currently shipping in the >Amiga 500's, 2x00's, AND 3000's. They use the same dice, but the 8372A in the A2000 has a slightly different pinout than the 8372B used in the A3000. Basically, the 1 Meg version hooks up directly to 512K or 1 Meg of memory, whereas the 2 Meg version needs external logic to deal with anything less than 2 Megs. Since the A3000's chip bus system is 32 bits wide, we needed external logic anyway, and had the money to spend on the system for this extra logic. >Dale Hollenbaugh -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...........