billsey@agora.UUCP (Bill Seymour) (10/30/89)
From article <3481@scolex.sco.COM:, by brianm@sco.COM (Brian Moffet):
:
: Now for some amiga stuff:
: I have a Supra Hard Disk/controller on my ami 1000, and a StarBoard II
: which currently has 1 Meg installed. Anyone else been able to add
: more memory to their system beyond the 2 Meg capacity of the Starboard
: when they have the configuration?
When I had a similar setup I was able to add a C-Ltd aMEGA one
meg card and a Spirit Technologies 1.5 meg internal card to my system.
That gave me 4.75 meg (With the Kickstart Eliminator giving me the extra
.25 meg.)
: Thanks
:
: Brian Moffet {uunet,decvax!microsoft,ucscc}!sco!brianm
: -or- ...sco!alar!brian
: "I was everything you wanted me to be. You were afraid, I was frightening."
: My fish and company have policies. I have opinions.
--
-Bill Seymour ...tektronix!reed!percival!agora!billsey
...tektronix!sequent.UUCP!calvin!billsey
Bejed, Inc. NES, Inc. Northwest Amiga Group At Home Sometimes
(503) 691-2552 (503) 246-9311 (503) 656-7393 BBS (503) 640-0842mikes@lakesys.lakesys.com (Mike Shawaluk) (10/31/89)
In article <1665@agora.UUCP> billsey@agora.UUCP (Bill Seymour) writes: >From article <3481@scolex.sco.COM:, by brianm@sco.COM (Brian Moffet): >: >: Now for some amiga stuff: >: I have a Supra Hard Disk/controller on my ami 1000, and a StarBoard II >: which currently has 1 Meg installed. Anyone else been able to add >: more memory to their system beyond the 2 Meg capacity of the Starboard >: when they have the configuration? > > When I had a similar setup I was able to add a C-Ltd aMEGA one >meg card and a Spirit Technologies 1.5 meg internal card to my system. >That gave me 4.75 meg (With the Kickstart Eliminator giving me the extra >.25 meg.) Speaking of which; does anyone out there who owns a Supra 4X4 for the A1000 have the RAM board which fits inside of the 4X4, which Supra _used to_ sell? I currently have 1.5 meg of total memory on my 1000, which is getting to be not quite enough for me, and it's frustrating to know that there is a connector on the inside of my Supra interface that will accommodate extra memory, but that Supra decided to quit offering, because memory chip prices skyrocketed. Has anyone heard whether Supra would consider re-offering this board, now that prices have come down? Personally, I would doubt it, since they seem to have abandoned the A1000 owners in terms of several other possibilities (specifically, AutoBoot ROMS, which I was told by Supra was a possibility with the 4X4 for the 1000, but they hadn't decided yet if it was worth doing on the 1000... Grrrr.) Another possibility; barring any offerings from Supra to address these issues, has anyone either (a) tried to create their own RAM board which would fit in the A1000 4X4, and plug into the expansion connector? Is the technical information available which would permit design of such a beast? If no one has tried this yet, would there be any interest/market/whatever to create something like this? There have got to be a significant number of A1000 owners with Supra 4X4's out there, who would presumably jump at the chance to have Autoboot ROMS and/or extra expansion memory on their systems, but who don't want to have to trade in their disk interfaces or else have to make their system box another 3 inches wider. If you think you might be interested in helping make this happen, please email me, or post your thoughts here about this. -- - Mike Shawaluk "Rarely have we seen a mailer -> DOMAIN: mikes@lakesys.lakesys.com fail which has thoroughly -> UUCP: ...!uunet!marque!lakesys!mikes followed these paths." -> BITNET: 7117SHAWALUK@MUCSD
billsey@agora.UUCP (Bill Seymour) (11/02/89)
From article <1254@lakesys.lakesys.com:, by mikes@lakesys.lakesys.com (Mike Shawaluk):
: In article <1665@agora.UUCP: billsey@agora.UUCP (Bill Seymour) writes:
:: When I had a similar setup I was able to add a C-Ltd aMEGA one
::meg card and a Spirit Technologies 1.5 meg internal card to my system.
::That gave me 4.75 meg (With the Kickstart Eliminator giving me the extra
::.25 meg.)
:
: Speaking of which; does anyone out there who owns a Supra 4X4 for the A1000
: have the RAM board which fits inside of the 4X4, which Supra _used to_ sell?
: I currently have 1.5 meg of total memory on my 1000, which is getting to be
: not quite enough for me, and it's frustrating to know that there is a
: connector on the inside of my Supra interface that will accommodate extra
: memory, but that Supra decided to quit offering, because memory chip prices
: skyrocketed.
Actually, the main reason the memory board never really made it to
market (they didn't sell more than a dozen or so...) was because of recurring
noise problems between the 4X4 and the daughtercard. The only way they could
get it running on most machies was via a *lot* or extra power and ground
connections and on many 1000s it wouldn't even run then. The logistics of
replacing the 4X4 board with a different (and more expensive four layer)
design at the same time as the 1000 market was going away just didn't appeal
to them.
: Has anyone heard whether Supra would consider re-offering this
: board, now that prices have come down? Personally, I would doubt it, since
: they seem to have abandoned the A1000 owners in terms of several other
: possibilities (specifically, AutoBoot ROMS, which I was told by Supra was a
: possibility with the 4X4 for the 1000, but they hadn't decided yet if it was
: worth doing on the 1000... Grrrr.)
If enough people called up and asked for it, they'd do either a piggy
back card for that same expansion connector, or a seperate SOTS card to add
autoboot. The problem is that there just aren't enough 1000 owners who'd be
willing to pay a reasonable price for it... After all, you can always go
the RAD route for all boots except cold boots.
: Another possibility; barring any offerings from Supra to address these
: issues, has anyone either (a) tried to create their own RAM board which would
: fit in the A1000 4X4, and plug into the expansion connector? Is the
: technical information available which would permit design of such a beast?
: If no one has tried this yet, would there be any interest/market/whatever to
: create something like this? There have got to be a significant number of
: A1000 owners with Supra 4X4's out there, who would presumably jump at the
: chance to have Autoboot ROMS and/or extra expansion memory on their systems,
: but who don't want to have to trade in their disk interfaces or else have to
: make their system box another 3 inches wider.
The folks at Supra would probably (no guarranties here!) be willing
to publish or at least describe the pinouts for that connector. Building
a autoboot card would be fairly easy, but programming the ROMs would be
another matter altogether. I doubt very much if they'd be willing to
provide source code for their device driver! I don't know if there'd be
any way past that hurdle without active cooperation direct from Supra.
Something simpler to do would be a generic autoconfig ROM card with autoboot.
you could put whatever software you want in the ROMs and have it act like
a small RAD disk.
BTW, I talked to the folks at Supra this last week, and the next
release of their software will have the scsidev.h stuff fully supported.
He even said he'd have some sort of example source code for accessing the
SCSI buss directly. Things are moving in the right direction! (Now, if they
will only allow me to change SCSI IDs on the host card and run NET: over
the SCSI buss!)
: - Mike Shawaluk
: "Rarely have we seen a mailer -: DOMAIN: mikes@lakesys.lakesys.com
: fail which has thoroughly -: UUCP: ...!uunet!marque!lakesys!mikes
: followed these paths." -: BITNET: 7117SHAWALUK@MUCSD
--
-Bill Seymour ...tektronix!reed!percival!agora!billsey
...tektronix!sequent.UUCP!calvin!billsey
Bejed, Inc. NES, Inc. Northwest Amiga Group At Home Sometimes
(503) 691-2552 (503) 246-9311 (503) 656-7393 BBS (503) 640-0842bevis@EE.ECN.PURDUE.EDU (Jeff Bevis) (11/03/89)
In article <1254@lakesys.lakesys.com>, mikes@lakesys.UUCP (Mike Shawaluk) writes: >In article <1665@agora.UUCP> billsey@agora.UUCP (Bill Seymour) writes: >Speaking of which; does anyone out there who owns a Supra 4X4 for the A1000 >have the RAM board which fits inside of the 4X4, which Supra _used to_ sell? > >If you think you might be interested in helping make this happen, please >email me, or post your thoughts here about this. >-- > - Mike Shawaluk Gee! I didn't realize they had a slot in there for RAM! I just bought the thing a few weeks ago; still haven't got the drive. When I bought it, the ad seemed to suggest a RAM expansion possibility. However, all subsequent documentation referred only the the A500 interface. I really need this RAM, too. If Supra doesn't sell the sucker anymore, I'd sure as hell like to see tech specs for the 4x4 -- and try to roll my own RAM card. God! Have you seen chip prices lately?? They're lower than they were before the 'Great Memory Famine'. You can get ~1Mb for ~$100 now. If anyone out there knows anything about this, please Email me, too!! (Being an EE has its advantages -- at times). +--------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+ | Jeff Bevis | "But I don't like spam!" | | bevis@en.ecn.purdue.edu | Give me Amiga or nothing at all. | +--------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+