ain@s.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (04/23/87)
In the A2000, does anyone have any information about how the Amiga and the 8088 share floppy drives? We have several questions about how this whole thing works. We have elected to call the 8088 (or 8086, or 80286, or ...) an "8088 machine". If which processor makes a difference, please specify. 1: Does the MS-DOS (shipped with the 2088, according to BYTE March 1987, pp 84-98) come on a 3.5" disk or a 5.25"? I expect it is a 3.5" 2: I know the Amiga can have a partition of the 8088 hard disk, but can the Amiga access the drives and other devices attached to the 8088 machine? 3: Can the 8088 machine use (or gain access to) the Amiga 3.5 inch floppies, and the Amiga SCSI devices? Could the 8088 machine have a partition on the Amiga SCSI hard drive? If the 8088 side can use the Amiga 3.5 inch drive, would a requestor show up on the Amiga screen for the appropiate disk? 4: Have provisions been made for transfering between the two formats? 5: What kind of OS support will be provided for sharing data between the 8088 machine and the Amiga? Both Amiga OS support as well as 8088 machine support? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thanks Scott Mark Usenet: h.cc.purdue.edu!npk Pat White Usenet: k.cc.purdue.edu!ain BITNET: PATWHITE@PURCCVM
andy@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Andy Finkel) (04/24/87)
In article <192@s.cc.purdue.edu> ain@s.cc.purdue.edu (Patrick White) writes: > > In the A2000, does anyone have any information about how the Amiga and the >8088 share floppy drives? We have several questions about how this whole thing >works. > > We have elected to call the 8088 (or 8086, or 80286, or ...) an "8088 >machine". If which processor makes a difference, please specify. > >1: Does the MS-DOS (shipped with the 2088, according to BYTE March > 1987, pp 84-98) come on a 3.5" disk or a 5.25"? I expect it is a 3.5" it comes on a 5.25" disk. The 2088 comes with a 5.25" drive. > >2: I know the Amiga can have a partition of the 8088 hard disk, but > can the Amiga access the drives and other devices attached to the > 8088 machine? It could if the software were written do do so, through the janus.library interface, which allows the 2 processors to communicate. There is a matching library on the MS-DOS side. > >3: Can the 8088 machine use (or gain access to) the Amiga 3.5 inch > floppies, and the Amiga SCSI devices? yes, as VIRTUAL MS-DOS disks. > Could the 8088 machine have a partition on the Amiga SCSI hard > drive? no, only as above (currently). Actually, I guess you could reserve a partition of your hard disk for MS-DOS use if you wanted to. This would be your choice, of course. Nothing forces you to. > If the 8088 side can use the Amiga 3.5 inch drive, would a requestor > show up on the Amiga screen for the appropiate disk? yes. > >4: Have provisions been made for transfering between the two formats? we have an awrite command and an aread command for reading/writing files from one side to the other. > >5: What kind of OS support will be provided for sharing data between > the 8088 machine and the Amiga? Both Amiga OS support as well as > 8088 machine support? At first, only what's in the janus.library. (basic read/write/etc stuff) >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Thanks >Scott Mark Usenet: h.cc.purdue.edu!npk >Pat White Usenet: k.cc.purdue.edu!ain BITNET: PATWHITE@PURCCVM -- andy finkel {ihnp4|seismo|allegra}!cbmvax!andy Commodore/Amiga /or/ pyramid!amiga!andy } "Do not meddle with the affairs of wizards, for it makes them soggy and hard to light." Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share. I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.
daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (04/27/87)
in article <192@s.cc.purdue.edu>, ain@s.cc.purdue.edu (Patrick White) says: > > We have elected to call the 8088 (or 8086, or 80286, or ...) an "8088 > machine". If which processor makes a difference, please specify. > > 1: Does the MS-DOS (shipped with the 2088, according to BYTE March > 1987, pp 84-98) come on a 3.5" disk or a 5.25"? I expect it is a 3.5" The ones we've received so far are 5.25" floppies. > > 2: I know the Amiga can have a partition of the 8088 hard disk, but > can the Amiga access the drives and other devices attached to the > 8088 machine? It can physically, using the Janus.library in a way similar to that of the "amiga-partition-on-PC-Harddisk" scheme is currently done. It will require AmigaDOS drivers, though. The only drivers I've seen so far for Amiga using PC facilities is the hard disk driver. Others could be written, though I don't think C-A is too interested in writing a driver to implement Amiga partitions on a PC floppy (does MessyDOS even let you partition floppies?). > 3: Can the 8088 machine use (or gain access to) the Amiga 3.5 inch > floppies, and the Amiga SCSI devices? > Could the 8088 machine have a partition on the Amiga SCSI hard > drive? There's currently work being done that will let the PC side use a partition on an Amiga hard disk. Certainly drivers of other kinds could be written for the PC, and I 'spose if you wanted it, with the proper drivers for the PC you could put a PC partition on an Amiga floppy. Just to let the PC use a 3.5" disk, however, is less involved. All of the internal drives use the same 36 pin disk drive cables, and all external drives use the Amiga 23 pin D style floppy connector, so its easy to physically transport drives from Amiga to PC and back. > 4: Have provisions been made for transfering between the two formats? There's some kind of work being done on this. They've announced a format exchange of some kind (in addition to the simple cut and paste between windows) but I'm not sure what form the transfer will take. Expect either a dedicated transfer program or perhaps an AmigaDOS device. > 5: What kind of OS support will be provided for sharing data between > the 8088 machine and the Amiga? Both Amiga OS support as well as > 8088 machine support? The Amiga's support exists in the form of an Exec library called the Janus.library, which provides routines for allocating and freeing various resources on the bridge cards, so that drivers and the other things I've talked about can be easily written. Since the PC sides doesn't really have an operating system, I'm not sure what all is available for communications. In the case of the Amiga partition on the PC hard disk, a trick hard disk driver program is loaded by the Amiga into shared RAM that looks to the PC as if it were ROM. There are a few hooks in the PC BIOS that let the Amiga play games with it, but I'm not familiar enough with the PC side of things to tell exactly what's going on. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Thanks > Scott Mark Usenet: h.cc.purdue.edu!npk > Pat White Usenet: k.cc.purdue.edu!ain BITNET: PATWHITE@PURCCVM -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga Usenet: {ihnp4|caip|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh "The A2000 Guy" BIX : hazy "These are the days of miracle and wonder" -P. Simon
bakken@tahoma.UUCP (09/29/87)
I just reread the initial AmigaWorld and Byte articles on the A2000 and they raise some questions that I don't recall being answered in comp.sys.amiga (forgive me if something slipped by me and was already answered). 1) What information, if any, from the AW and BYTE articles (which were written 8-9 months ago) is incorrect or obsolete? 2) Amiga World (March/April '87) stated that the SCSI controller board CA was developing had a data transfer rate of 1.2 MByte/sec. I have seen new SCSI chips announced in the last 6 months that sport 4-5MByte/sec rates with quantity prices in the $16-25 range. Is there a chance this board will incorporate these new chips? If not, this seems like a good opportunity for a 3rd party company (wink, wink @ Perry). BTW, approximately what is the data transfer rate of an ST506 drive, an AT hard card [which may be the same as ST506 for all I know - I'm blissfully ignorant of the IBM PC compatible world :-) ], and of the current A1000 floppy drives? How much can 40MB SCSI drives be found for, and how is this likely to change in the next year (don't the new Macs have SCSI ports or peripheral boards?) ? 3) The keyboard doesn't slide under the unit :-(. If it is unpluged and then pluged back in again when the machine is running could this cause damage to the hardware or the something to hiccup? 4) Mr. Clive Smith is quoted in BYTE as saying there will be a 68020 based V.2 with an MMU for the A2000. I have heard elsewhere (I can't remember where) of CA developing a 68020/6881 board. Is CA planning to release more than one board? Any educated guesses, rumors, or CA confirmations about the timetables and prices? Was the 2000 designed with 32 bit paths to take maximum advantage of such a board? Is it fairly easy/quick for a program to sense if a 68881 is in the system and then use it? I hope Amiga software developers start including this in their programs. 5) How much will the LP monitor and the 2MB and 8MB memory boards cost (both minimally and fully poplated), and when will they be readily available? 6) How smart will the autoconfiguration be with extra ports connected to an XT or AT slot? For example, if I get a serial cards will they be able to be addressed as SER1:, ... ? Will it be fairly easy to hook up dumb terminals to them? (this would be an important selling point with a 68020/68881 V.2 system). And would it be reasonably easy for an application program to sense how many ports are present or would it have to query the user? A good example of this would be a multiuser BBS. 7) About how many units will ship in the next 6 months? I hope the production is ready to spit out a lot of them so it isn't 8-12 months before the supply catches up with the demand and we get some competitive pricing. Thank you very much for any replies, especially from the horse's mouth. I suspect I am not the only person who follows comp.sys.amiga that is interested in the answers :-). -- Dave Bakken Boeing Commercial Airplane Company uw-beaver!ssc-vax!shuksan!tahoma!bakken Disclaimer: These views are my own, not my employers.
dcall@dadla.TEK.COM (Dale Call;6291513;92-725;LP=A;60QC) (10/06/87)
In article <176@tahoma.ARPA> bakken@tahoma.ARPA (Dave Bakken) writes: > >2) Amiga World (March/April '87) stated that the SCSI controller > board CA was developing had a data transfer rate of 1.2 MByte/sec. I > have seen new SCSI chips announced in the last 6 months that sport > 4-5MByte/sec rates with quantity prices in the $16-25 range. Is > there a chance this board will incorporate these new chips? If > not, this seems like a good opportunity for a 3rd party company > (wink, wink @ Perry). > > BTW, approximately what is the data transfer rate of an ST506 > drive, an AT hard card [which may be the same as ST506 for all > I know - I'm blissfully ignorant of the IBM PC compatible > world :-) ], and of the current A1000 floppy drives? How > much can 40MB SCSI drives be found for, and how is this likely > to change in the next year (don't the new Macs have SCSI ports > or peripheral boards?) ? A ST506 drive transfers at 5 Mbits -> 500 Kbytes per second. If the SCSI disk controller uses RLL or enhanced RLL, the transfer rate goes up (up to 1 Mbyte per second with enhanced RLL, I think). Therefore unless you use a different interface drive (maybe EDSI, SMD, etc.) you aren't going to exceed the maximum transfer rate of the A2090 (?) controller board. Faster SCSI chips won't buy you much. What would be more important is whether or not the drive does internal buffering of multiple sectors. A 40Mb embedded SCSI drive will run around $600 - $700. An Adaptec controller ($130) with an ST506 40Mb drive ($400 ?) will be cheaper, but requires more room. The other problem limiting hard drives is of course AmigaDOS itself, but we really don't need to rehash this subject. Hopefully ASDG's SDP will help here ... >5) How much will the LP monitor and the 2MB and 8MB memory boards > cost (both minimally and fully poplated), and when will they be > readily available? My dealer quoted $399 for the 2Mb memory board from CA. No data on LP monitor or 8Mb board. Dale Call
perry@well.UUCP (Perry S. Kivolowitz) (10/09/87)
The rate at which a disk will squirt data to a controller is insignificant (on the Amiga) compared to the time it takes for the drive to have the data available and the time lost by within the o.s. It is precisely here that the SDP will do its magic. A) Replace DOS. Run the entire file system code right on the controller. B) Pre-Fetch most data accesses. Oh, by the way, if I am not mistaken, we use 3MByte per second SCSI chips. But as I said, this doesn't mean anything for other peoples controllers. Ours is the only one which would feel constrained by 1.2 Mb/sec Xfer rate. Perry Kivolowitz - ASDG Incorporated
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (10/12/87)
in article <176@tahoma.ARPA>, bakken@tahoma.ARPA (Dave Bakken) says: > Keywords: SCSI, ST506, keyboard, 68020, 68881, MMU, V.2, production > > 1) What information, if any, from the AW and BYTE articles (which were > written 8-9 months ago) is incorrect or obsolete? Both of these articles reviewed the German designed A2000. The only system being legally sold in the USA is the West Chester, PA designed A2000, sometimes called the "B2000" (which was an internal designation we used to avoid the "which A2000" question any time someone mentioned "A2000"). So the machines you can actually buy are similar to those reviewed in the aforementioned articles, but with a few differences. 1 meg of memory on the motherboard instead of 512K. A better video expansion slot. > 3) The keyboard doesn't slide under the unit :-(. If it is unpluged and > then pluged back in again when the machine is running could this > cause damage to the hardware or the something to hiccup? Providing you plug and unplug in the proper way, you'll be safe even when running. If you try to plug it in wrong, you could very easily cause a system reset (equivalent to Control-Amiga-Amiga) to occur. Mine usually gets stuck on top of the monitor when not in use, just like I used to do with my C.Itoh terminal. > Is it fairly easy/quick for a program to sense if a 68881 is in the > system and then use it? I hope Amiga software developers start > including this in their programs. The Amiga OS tries a 68881 instruction early on in its startup code. If the coprocessor is present, the instruction is executed and a flag for 68881 is set in ExecBase. Otherwise an F-line trap occurs, and no 68881 flag is set. The OS also indicates if 68000, 68010, or 68020 are installed, and some OS services change base on the processor in place (like the GetCC() function). > 5) How much will the LP monitor and the 2MB and 8MB memory boards > cost (both minimally and fully poplated), and when will they be > readily available? So far, the 2 meg board, hard disk controller, and PC-XT bridge card are available. I'm not sure of the retail prices. > 6) How smart will the autoconfiguration be with extra ports connected > to an XT or AT slot? For example, if I get a serial cards will > they be able to be addressed as SER1:, ... ? Will it be fairly > easy to hook up dumb terminals to them? (this would be an > important selling point with a 68020/68881 V.2 system). And > would it be reasonably easy for an application program to sense > how many ports are present or would it have to query the user? > A good example of this would be a multiuser BBS. Well, since a PC doesn't autoconfigure, it's not all that easy to many the Amiga autoconfigure PC-side resources. However, it would be reasonable to write a serial.device that included any PC-side serial devices as additional serial units. Probably the best thing to do would be to write such a serial device as an Expansion drawer device that's bound by the presence of the bridge card. A mountlist entry could allocate serial units on the PC side and call them SER1: or whatever. This system will certainly have to have some PC side code as well, just like the PC side hard disk code does. If there's any good way to determine in software how many serial devices exist on the PC, then your device could allocate these automatically instead of each explicitly via Mount commands. > Dave Bakken -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga Usenet: {ihnp4|caip|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh "The B2000 Guy" PLINK : D-DAVE H BIX : hazy "Computers are what happen when you give up sleeping" - Iggy the Cat
UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (10/13/87)
In article <2467@cbmvax.UUCP>, daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) says: >Both of these articles reviewed the German designed A2000. The only system >being legally sold in the USA is the West Chester, PA designed A2000, sometimes My dealer has a bunch of 2000's that are in boxes clearly labeled in German. Does that mean these are some kind of bootleg machines? lee
adb@a.UUCP (Allen D Barnett) (10/14/87)
Having had my A2000 (B2000, really, even though the box was labeled in German), I would appreciate some help with a particular problem. I have a code that neglects to clear register D0 before it does a _LVOOpenLibrary. The garbage in D0 is larger than 33 so the library fails to open; so, since we are trying to open dos.library, there is no way to report this failure other than through Alert. However, when the Guru is summoned, with a recoverable alert, the entire screen turns blue and the power LED begins to blink benignly. After waiting a while, I administer the nerve pinch and lo, the requstor appears. I press the right mouse button and the machine resets itself. When this code ran on my 1000, it properly displayed the alert and proceeded to clean up and exit properly when you pressed the mouse button. No more. What is the source of this problem? Any speculation is welcome. (oh, one other thing, I meant to say that I pressed the left mouse button in response to the alert; my mind wanders.) Thanks, Allen Barnett abd@a.lanl.gov
billh@tekig4.TEK.COM (William Hansen) (10/14/87)
> >My dealer has a bunch of 2000's that are in boxes clearly labeled in >German. Does that mean these are some kind of bootleg machines? > lee My A2000 came in a box that was originally used by CBM Germany. It had tiny white lables applied to the side saying it was shipped from West Chester, and is a B2000 with the monochrome video jack. I guess that either the German boxes are printed in West Chester and so were "available", or that CBM Germany gave CBM USA some boxes so that they could ship on schedule. Of course this is just a guess, since I don't work for CBM. Bill Hansen billh@teklim.LIM.TEK.COM
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) (10/14/87)
In article <22314UH2@PSUVM> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes: > In article <2467@cbmvax.UUCP>, daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) says: > >Both of these articles reviewed the German designed A2000. The only system > >being legally sold in the USA is the West Chester, PA designed A2000, > >sometimes > > My dealer has a bunch of 2000's that are in boxes clearly labeled in > German. Does that mean these are some kind of bootleg machines? Nope, it means there was a long lead time on getting domestic sources set up for boxes and packaging materials and we had perfectly good boxes available at our German facility. Not to worry (too much 8-). -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: out to lunch... Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
schein@cbmvax.UUCP (Dan Schein CATS) (10/14/87)
In article <2500@cbmvax.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: >In article <22314UH2@PSUVM> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes: >> In article <2467@cbmvax.UUCP>, daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) says: >> >Both of these articles reviewed the German designed A2000. The only system >> >being legally sold in the USA is the West Chester, PA designed A2000, >> >sometimes >> >> My dealer has a bunch of 2000's that are in boxes clearly labeled in >> German. Does that mean these are some kind of bootleg machines? > >Nope, it means there was a long lead time on getting domestic sources set up >for boxes and packaging materials and we had perfectly good boxes available >at our German facility. Not to worry (too much 8-). > Too be sure it is an American 2000 just look on the side of the box. It will have a white label that says "Assembled in the USA of importated and domestic components." -- Dan Schein uucp: {ihnp4|rutgers}!cbmvax!schein Commodore Business Machines or: {allegra|burdvax}!cbmvax!schein 1200 Wilson Drive Bix: dschein Plink: cbmtelecom West Chester PA 19380 phone: (215) 431-9100 ext. 9542 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ All spelling mistakes are a result of my efforts to avoid education :-) +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Those who worked the hardest are the last to surrender -- Gary Ward
higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom SALES) (10/15/87)
in article <22314UH2@PSUVM>, UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) says: > My dealer has a bunch of 2000's that are in boxes clearly labeled in > German. Does that mean these are some kind of bootleg machines? > lee PLEASE, PLEASE - stop panicking about German machines. We use German packaging (read BOXES) for all U.S shipments currently. That's why there's German writing on the boxes. They are U.S designed motherboards though, I assure you. Paul.
eric@hector.UUCP (Eric Lavitsky) (10/15/87)
We had this same behavior exhibited to us at AmiExpo. The B2000 that
was on loan to us forced you to hit ctl-Amiga-Amiga before it would
display an alert and really loose it's cookies ... should we tell this
person to return their machine as defective?
Eric
ARPA: Lavitsky@RED.RUTGERS.EDU
UUCP: ...{wherever!}ulysses!eric
...{wherever!}rutgers!topaz!eric
SNAIL: 34 Maplehurst La., Piscataway, NJ 08854carolyn@cbmvax.UUCP (Carolyn Scheppner CATS) (10/16/87)
In article <317@a.UUCP> adb@a.UUCP (Allen D Barnett) writes: > >Having had my A2000 (B2000, really, even though the box was labeled in >German), I would appreciate some help with a particular problem. >I have a code that neglects to clear register D0 before it does a >_LVOOpenLibrary. The garbage in D0 is larger than 33 so the library >fails to open; so, since we are trying to open dos.library, there is >no way to report this failure other than through Alert. However, >when the Guru is summoned, with a recoverable alert, the entire screen turns >blue and the power LED begins to blink benignly. After waiting a while, >I administer the nerve pinch and lo, the requstor appears. I press the >right mouse button and the machine resets itself. When this code ran on >my 1000, it properly displayed the alert and proceeded to clean up and exit >properly when you pressed the mouse button. No more. What is the source of >this problem? Any speculation is welcome. >(oh, one other thing, I meant to say that I pressed the left mouse button >in response to the alert; my mind wanders.) 1. Try pressing the LEFT mouse button. I think the right mousebutton throws (or can throw) you into RomWack. If you did not have a 9600 baud terminal connected, all would would see is a freezing of the guru'd system. 2. Here's a patch for fixing executables afflicted with the trash-in-d0 OpenDOS problem. It patches in a piece of d0 init code and re-routes things through it. /* * LPatch.c - C. Scheppner 03/87 * * Corrects the startup code of some 1.0/1.1 programs such as * Atom so that they don't abort during startup with the Alert * 00038007. (can't open dos library). The problem is caused * by d0 (version) being uninitialized prior to the OpenLibrary. * * LINKAGE INFO: * Compile with -v flag on LC2 * Link with AStartup.obj ... LIBRARY Amiga.lib, LC.lib */ #include <exec/types.h> #include <libraries/dos.h> #include <libraries/dosextens.h> /* Patch Offsets, Old Values, New Values */ ULONG offset[] = {0x196,0x197, 0x213, 0x23E,0x23F,0x240,0x241,0x242,0x243}; UBYTE oldval[] = {0x01, 0x4E, 0xD2, 0x24, 0x3C, 0x00, 0x00, 0x03, 0xED}; UBYTE newval[] = {0x00, 0xA8, 0x2C, 0x70, 0x00, 0x60, 0x00, 0x00, 0xA2}; LONG file; main(argc, argv) int argc; char **argv; { LONG rLen, wLen; char *filename; UBYTE buf[4]; int k; if (argc==0) cleanexit(""); if ((argc==1)||(argc>2)||(*argv[1]=='?')) cleanexit("Usage: LPatch filename"); filename = argv[1]; if(!(file = Open(filename, MODE_OLDFILE))) cleanexit("File not found"); for(k=0;k<9;k++) { Seek(file,offset[k],OFFSET_BEGINING); if((rLen = Read(file,buf,1)) < 1) cleanexit("Read error"); if(buf[0] != oldval[k]) cleanexit("File not correct for patch"); } for(k=0;k<9;k++) { Seek(file,offset[k],OFFSET_BEGINING); if((wLen = Write(file,&newval[k],1)) < 1) cleanexit("Write error"); } cleanup(); } cleanexit(s) char *s; { if (*s) { printf("%s \n",s); } cleanup(); exit(); } cleanup() { if(file) Close(file); } /* end */ -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Carolyn Scheppner -- CATS >>Commodore Amiga Technical Support<< UUCP ...{allegra,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax!carolyn PHONE 215-431-9180 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (10/16/87)
in article <22314UH2@PSUVM>, UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) says: > > In article <2467@cbmvax.UUCP>, daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) says: >>Both of these articles reviewed the German designed A2000. The only system >>being legally sold in the USA is the West Chester, PA designed A2000, sometimes > My dealer has a bunch of 2000's that are in boxes clearly labeled in > German. Does that mean these are some kind of bootleg machines? > lee I doubt it. You're correct in noting that the boxes are from Germany. The computers in them, however, were designed and probably assembled in West Chester. The A2000 casework is also from Germany. Maybe someday they'll have a nice looking US box to sell A2000s in. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga Usenet: {ihnp4|caip|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh "The B2000 Guy" PLINK : D-DAVE H BIX : hazy "Computers are what happen when you give up sleeping" - Iggy the Cat
millerje@holst.cs.colostate.edu (jeffrey scott miller) (10/09/90)
My brother has just bought an Amiga 2000 and has some questions, kindly reply via mail to my address below. 1) He's thinking about getting the AMAX. How compatible is it? Should he wait for the AMAX II+? What experiences have you had with it? 2) He's thinking about getting the PC BRIDGEBOARD (I realize it's discontinued, but they're still available). Same questions as with #1. 3) Can you use the AMAX and bridgeboard at the same time on the 2000? 4) He likes the Panasonic 1124 (24 pin, 80 column) printer. Does most A2000 software support this printer, if not, what is a recommended printer? Many thanks, #$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*#$*# In Xanadu did Kubla Khan # A stately pleasure dome decree; # Jeff Miller Where Alph, the sacred river, ran # millerje@handel.CS.ColoState.Edu Through caverns measureless to man # millerje@holst.CS.ColoState.Edu Down to a sunless sea. #
vlsi4@erato.cs.kun.nl (Freddy Aries) (10/09/90)
In comp.sys.amiga you write: > My brother has just bought an Amiga 2000 and has some questions, kindly >reply via mail to my address below. [stuff deleted] >2) He's thinking about getting the PC BRIDGEBOARD (I realize it's > discontinued, but they're still available). Same questions as with #1. There is a new version of the bridgeboard (A2088T) - Turboboard, which is an official version from Commodore that uses a NEC V20 chip. This means it is (almost) as compatible as the previous (current) board, it is faster (up to 9.54 MHz) and it is (in contrast to the previous board) able to use the Amiga-drives as PC-drives as well (eg. boot the PC from DF0:). More about compatibility: Commodore said that they had implemented a new better BIOS-version, so the board would be more compatible than the previous one. The current board is already about 99% compatible, the only programs that can cause problems are the ones that directly address some special areas of the BIOS. But I have to tell you that I have only once experienced a (small utility) program that refused to run. All other programs work fine. It is made in Germany (Commodore Braunschweig), and I don't know if it is already available, but if it isn't, I think it's better to wait for it. Believe me, the old board is REALLY slow, and not being able to use the built-in Amiga drives is terrible. Hope this helps, Freddy Aries. FAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFA A F F Freddy Aries A A Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science F F University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands A A Email: vlsi4@erato.cs.kun.nl F F A AFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAFAF