scott@stsci.EDU (Jim Scott) (09/18/90)
hiya folks --
first let me say thanks to all of you who answered my posting in
june in which i asked "why buy an amiga" and which model.
i wound up buying a 3000! i love it!
but ....
i am having problems and need answers! maybe some of you
kind folk (particularly those who own 3000) might be able to answer.
^l
1. i noticed in magazines featuring the wb2.0 that the title bar
which gives memory information that they all have slews more
memory than i do. at first i thought 'well, maybe they have
extra ram installed. this weekend i was at a users meeting
at valley forge, pa where various companies had the 3000
demonstrating hard/software. all of them, too, had huge
amounts more memory than i. well i asked one of the
fellows, and he was at a loss to explain the difference.
tonight i noticed in my "using the system software" manual
that came with the machine that all the sample wb pictures
had more memory! this is getting ridiculous. normally,
i might drop it, but i have been having problems which
indicate that my memory is low (see 2., below)
lemme give you the figures...
my machine: 944000 graphics 193000 other
amiga world:
(10/90 pg 60) 944160 graphics 2256648 other
manual (2-41) 942480 graphics 1274024 other
at the expo 941000 graphics 2120000 other
^l
now, okay, the 'graphics' memory seems in line, but!
my 'other' memory is like 1/10th of everybody else!
another curious point is that my "ram disk" title bar
always shows 100% full!
as a double check, i downloaded several memory test
programs from some bb's and got weird answers (all
consistant...like ....
size in use avail
chip: 1,040,152 69,232 970,920
fast 0 0 0
$c00 0 0 0
>16m 524,256 198,616 325,640
--------------------------
1.564meg 267,848 1.3meg
^l
can it be that my machine isn't 'seeing' a 1meg chip?
can it be that it was never installed? did my "authorized
dealer" swindle me? what can i do?
2. i have tried backing up my hard disk. since the tool
"hdbackup" is not available yet, c= has given 3000 owners
bru. when i try to use the compress option (-z) i get
about 5 floppies into it and get a ram disk full error.
wierd. it is writting to df0. what has ram got to do
it? it does say in the manual, do not attempt the comp-
ression if you have <= 512k ram. well, that shouldn't be
a problem! bru _will_ do the whole backup perfectly
fine if i do not compress (37 floppies! yikes!)
i watch the title bar while doing this. most of the time i
see the 'graphics' memory oscillate between 800,000 and
600,000. but at five floppies i watch it drain...down...
down .... down ... to about 10,000 and then bloop
ram full error and a reboot for me.
^l
have other 3000 owners had problems with bru?
the command i use is:
bru -c -l "blah blah" -vz work:
(work is my hard disk partion for general use, system2.0
and system1.3 are other partitions)
3. i, too, never got amigavision. it was not in the box, nor
was there a coupon! (i ordered it in july through the
educational discount and got it the end of august.) when
i found out i was supposed to get it, the dealer sent me the
wait 4-46 weeks coupon. it has been 5 weeks, we'll see ...)
4. friends of mine who have the 1000 and 500 all got basic.
i find it nowhere on my system, nor is mentioned in the
documentation. does c= no longer provide basic? how come?
^l
5. when is the real wb2.0 comming? will i need to bring the
machine in to the dealer? will i still have the option of
booting with 1.3? (i hope so)
6. by the way, c= never showed up at that users expo they were
having in valley forge that i mentioned before (about an
hour away from thier place.) people were pissed, and i
don't blame 'em.
the host didn't show up for their own party.
thanks in advance for any and all *help*
jim scott
scott@stsci.edu
ps. if my ^L's don't come out, sorry. we're having trouble ....fnf@riscokid.UUCP (Fred Fish) (09/18/90)
In article <1788@nemesis.stsci.edu> scott@stsci.EDU (Jim Scott) writes: > 2. i have tried backing up my hard disk. since the tool > "hdbackup" is not available yet, c= has given 3000 owners > bru. when i try to use the compress option (-z) i get > about 5 floppies into it and get a ram disk full error. > wierd. it is writting to df0. what has ram got to do > it? it does say in the manual, do not attempt the comp- > ression if you have <= 512k ram. well, that shouldn't be > a problem! bru _will_ do the whole backup perfectly > fine if i do not compress (37 floppies! yikes!) One of the "features" of the bru format is that it REALLY wants to know how big the file is before it starts writing it out. This is so it can record the size in the file header block in the archive, allowing it to seek to the next file header block when the archive device is seekable (thus a "-t" on a floppy may only take 5-15 seconds instead of about 90). Since there is no way to know the size of the compressed file without actually compressing it first, bru creates a temporary copy in the place specified by the environment variable BRUTMPDIR, usually pointing to "ram:". For really large files, or small amounts of ram, you have an obvious problem. You can try setting BRUTMPDIR somewhere else, like to a directory on the hard disk. Before anyone else beats me to it, I should point out that there are a couple of things bru could do differently. One is that it could compress the file twice, first to find the compressed size, and again to write it out. This eliminates the temporary file, but just about doubles the time requirements, and if the file happens to change between each pass, the compressed size would likely be different anyway. Another thing it could do is to write the file out to the archive, compressing it on the fly, and then seek back to the header block to record the final size. This would work ok for seekable devices like floppies, but fails on things like streaming tapes, pipes, or serial lines (the archive format is a pure stream format which means that bru should never be required to "backup" in the archive). -Fred
billsey@agora.uucp (Bill Seymour) (09/19/90)
In article <1788@nemesis.stsci.edu> scott@stsci.EDU (Jim Scott) writes:
:
: hiya folks --
Hiya!
: first let me say thanks to all of you who answered my posting in
: june in which i asked "why buy an amiga" and which model.
: i wound up buying a 3000! i love it!
:
: but ....
:
: i am having problems and need answers! maybe some of you
: kind folk (particularly those who own 3000) might be able to answer.
:
: 1. i noticed in magazines featuring the wb2.0 that the title bar
: which gives memory information that they all have slews more
: memory than i do. at first i thought 'well, maybe they have
: extra ram installed. this weekend i was at a users meeting
: at valley forge, pa where various companies had the 3000
: demonstrating hard/software. all of them, too, had huge
: amounts more memory than i. well i asked one of the
: fellows, and he was at a loss to explain the difference.
: tonight i noticed in my "using the system software" manual
: that came with the machine that all the sample wb pictures
: had more memory! this is getting ridiculous. normally,
: i might drop it, but i have been having problems which
: indicate that my memory is low (see 2., below)
: lemme give you the figures...
:
: my machine: 944000 graphics 193000 other
: amiga world:
: (10/90 pg 60) 944160 graphics 2256648 other
: manual (2-41) 942480 graphics 1274024 other
: at the expo 941000 graphics 2120000 other
:
: now, okay, the 'graphics' memory seems in line, but!
: my 'other' memory is like 1/10th of everybody else!
OK, each of these other machines have had extra expansion
memory added. the standard A3000 comes with two megs of memory,
one meg of chip and one meg of fast. There is 512K of fast memory
used up by loading the 2.0 Kickstart. That only leaves 512K of fast
before mounting partitions, loading workbench, Addbuffering floppies,
etc... It's not unusual to use 300K during a system boot.
The solution is going to be to plug in more memory, or
wait until 2.0 ships in ROM. That'll free up 512K.
: another curious point is that my "ram disk" title bar
: always shows 100% full!
That's normal. RAM: allocates memory as needed, and never
uses more than needed to store the files.
: as a double check, i downloaded several memory test
: programs from some bb's and got weird answers (all
: consistant...like ....
:
: size in use avail
:
: chip: 1,040,152 69,232 970,920
: fast 0 0 0
: $c00 0 0 0
: >16m 524,256 198,616 325,640
: --------------------------
: 1.564meg 267,848 1.3meg
This looks right... 1M of chip and 512K of fast.
: 2. i have tried backing up my hard disk. since the tool
: "hdbackup" is not available yet, c= has given 3000 owners
: bru. when i try to use the compress option (-z) i get
: about 5 floppies into it and get a ram disk full error.
: wierd. it is writting to df0. what has ram got to do
: it? it does say in the manual, do not attempt the comp-
: ression if you have <= 512k ram. well, that shouldn't be
: a problem! bru _will_ do the whole backup perfectly
: fine if i do not compress (37 floppies! yikes!)
:
: i watch the title bar while doing this. most of the time i
: see the 'graphics' memory oscillate between 800,000 and
: 600,000. but at five floppies i watch it drain...down...
: down .... down ... to about 10,000 and then bloop
: ram full error and a reboot for me.
As BRU does it's backup, it store temporary files in ram,
before writing them to floppy. you're just running out...
: 4. friends of mine who have the 1000 and 500 all got basic.
: i find it nowhere on my system, nor is mentioned in the
: documentation. does c= no longer provide basic? how come?
They aren't shipping AmigaBASIC with the 3000, just with
the 500 and 2x00. AmigaBASIC has real problems with memory above
the 24bit address space.
: 5. when is the real wb2.0 comming? will i need to bring the
: machine in to the dealer? will i still have the option of
: booting with 1.3? (i hope so)
Once 2.0 goes to ROM, you won't have as easy of a time booting
back to 1.3. you'll have to use something like SetCPU to load the
1.3 Kickstart from within 2.0. It's still doable, just not as easy.
: thanks in advance for any and all *help*
:
: jim scott
:
: scott@stsci.edu
--
-Bill Seymour ...tektronix!reed!percival!agora!billsey
=============================================================================
Bejed, Inc. NES, Inc. Northwest Amiga Group At Home Sometimes
(503) 281-8153 (503) 246-9311 (503) 656-7393 BBS (503) 640-0842drtiller@uokmax.uucp (Donald Richard Tillery Jr) (09/19/90)
For all of you 3000 owners who will want to maintain the ability to boot into 1.3, be sure to retain a copy of the 512K 1.3.2 kickstart for use with SetCPU. The Kickstart used in the 500,1000 and 2000 machines IS NOT the same as that used in the 3000. A special version had to be hacked for the 3000 to run 1.3. This is why the 3000s 2.0 will not run on the other machines. For future reference, keep a grip on that 1.3 kickstart because the rest of us won't be able to help you boot into 1.3 after 2.0 is in ROM if you lose it. _______ __________ _/____) ' __ /_/ / ' / / __ _ "N.I.N.J.A.J.I.S."-Me / \___/__/___/ |_ /__/__/__/_/_-_/__/_/ The Displaced Razorback. ___________________________________________/ Founder: IDGAFF Ltd. The Amiga Computer - "...a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperbolic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus Twelve..." -D.Adams; Well, almost.
UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) (09/19/90)
>In article <1788@nemesis.stsci.edu> scott@stsci.EDU (Jim Scott) writes: >: >: 4. friends of mine who have the 1000 and 500 all got basic. >: i find it nowhere on my system, nor is mentioned in the >: documentation. does c= no longer provide basic? how come? One answer to "how come?" is because AREXX is there. AREXX is a fine language and can be used to do many of the things that BASIC might have been used for in the past. For example, on this mainframe I am using to read this newsgroup, the entire news package is written in mainframe REXX. The main obstacle then is learning AREXX. There are only a couple of REXX books available aside from the manual, and you probably won't find it in the usual bookstore. Try the library, books in print, any large IBM site, and so on. Others can tell you the details, but there are also a number of distributable REXX addons for windows, serial ports, and so on. lee
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (09/19/90)
In article <1990Sep19.000307.4728@uokmax.uucp> drtiller@uokmax.uucp (Donald Richard Tillery Jr) writes: >For all of you 3000 owners who will want to maintain the ability to boot into >1.3, be sure to retain a copy of the 512K 1.3.2 kickstart for use with >SetCPU. The Kickstart used in the 500,1000 and 2000 machines IS NOT the same >as that used in the 3000. That's certainly true. >A special version had to be hacked for the 3000 to run 1.3. Actually, that's not the reason. Plain old 256K 1.3 works just fine on an A3000, but it doesn't know anything about the 3000's hard disk or Fast memory. So the special version adds in modules to manages these items. >This is why the 3000s 2.0 will not run on the other machines. The 3000's 2.0 won't run on other machines because it has an A3000-specific module which panics if the hardware it expects isn't there. Much the same way the generic startup code panics if it finds a Chip RAM or CIA failure. >For future reference, keep a grip on that 1.3 kickstart because the rest of >us won't be able to help you boot into 1.3 after 2.0 is in ROM if you lose it. Again, you could run standard 1.3. I still have an A3000 or two around here with a pair of A2000 1.3 ROMs plugged in, no problem. Unless, of course, you want a hard disk and/or object to having to AddMem the extra A3000 RAM. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Get that coffee outta my face, put a Margarita in its place!
bbaker@cbmvax.commodore.com (Bob Baker) (09/20/90)
In article <14538@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: > In article <1990Sep19.000307.4728@uokmax.uucp> drtiller@uokmax.uucp (Donald Richard Tillery Jr) writes: > >For all of you 3000 owners who will want to maintain the ability to boot into > >1.3, be sure to retain a copy of the 512K 1.3.2 kickstart for use with > >SetCPU. The Kickstart used in the 500,1000 and 2000 machines IS NOT the same > >as that used in the 3000. > > That's certainly true. > > >A special version had to be hacked for the 3000 to run 1.3. > > Actually, that's not the reason. Plain old 256K 1.3 works just fine on an > A3000, but it doesn't know anything about the 3000's hard disk or Fast memory. > So the special version adds in modules to manages these items. along with something for the Real Time Clock which is also different. > -- > Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" > {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy > Get that coffee outta my face, put a Margarita in its place!
tope@enea.se (Tommy Petersson) (09/20/90)
In article <1990Sep18.190542.25968@agora.uucp> billsey@agora.uucp (Bill Seymour) writes: -In article <1788@nemesis.stsci.edu> scott@stsci.EDU (Jim Scott) writes: -: -: hiya folks -- - -: 4. friends of mine who have the 1000 and 500 all got basic. -: i find it nowhere on my system, nor is mentioned in the -: documentation. does c= no longer provide basic? how come? - - They aren't shipping AmigaBASIC with the 3000, just with -the 500 and 2x00. AmigaBASIC has real problems with memory above -the 24bit address space. - Buy AMOS. It's much better than AmigaBASIC ever dreamed of being. It's not very expensive either. Tommy P.
DEB110@psuvm.psu.edu (Doug Bischoff) (09/22/90)
Anybody know where a soon-to-be Amiga 3000 owner can pick up 1.3 so I can (I hope) run older 2000 and below software on my 3000? Will this still work once the 2.0 roms are installed? This is one topic about the Amiga that I don' t understand, having never had an operating system in ROM before. Thanx! /---------------------------------------------------------------------\ | -Doug Bischoff- | *** *** ====--\ | "Beggars can't | | -DEB110 @ PSUVM- | * *** * ==|<>\___ | be users. Just | | -The Black Ring- | *** *** |______\ | give me the damn | | --- "Wheels" --- | *** O O | disk, willya?" | | Corwyn Blakwolfe | T.R.I. ------------- | -"Grendel" Roe | \---------------------------------------------------------------------/
seanc@pro-party.cts.com (Sean Cunningham) (09/22/90)
In-Reply-To: message from tope@enea.se One problem with that though...AMOS (the Creator) doesn't work on the A3000. It runs into timing problems (my guess) on any accellerated machine and starts "fragging-out"...pitty, I was about to get it. Sean //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc | ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc@nosc.mil | " Fanatics have their INET: seanc@pro-party.cts.com | dreams, wherewith they | weave a paradise for RealWorld: Sean Cunningham | a sect. " Voice: (512) 994-1602 PLINK: ce3k* | -Keats | Call C.B.A.U.G. BBS (512) 883-8351 w/SkyPix | B^) VISION GRAPHICS B^) \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\