scot@amigash.UUCP (Scot L. Harris) (07/23/89)
I am currently looking at purchasing a new Amiga system.
This system will include an A2000, GVP 030, GVP 100meg hardcard.
I am looking for any first hand experience with these components.
Want to confirm that they work as advertised etc. Also I have been informed
that the GVP 030 32 bit memory is available only in 4meg increments. Are
the simm modules used available from any third party sources? Are they
socketed or must they be soldered?
Also what are the available multi-serial port options?
Another item I don't believe I have seen discussed before is multiple
parallel ports? Anybody working on this?
What is the latest word on the A3000? Any specs on it?
Is the latest version of DNET available to the general usenet population
yet? I do not have FTP capability so that option is out. One project I
am going to undertake when I get the new system is to network it with
amigash, hopefully with DNET and uucp. Did I read the messages correctly
about DNET allowing NFS?
If you can please respond via Email. amigash gets the amiga groups but I
am still about 800 messages behind. <grin> Please use the address below.
--
_
/// /_\ Scot L. Harris !hoptoad!peora!rtmvax!amigash!scot
\XX/ / \ M I G A
[If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, perhaps
you have misunderstood the situation.]protcoop@bnr-public.uucp (Co-op Student) (07/25/89)
There is a great letter to the editor in the latest issue of Amazing Computing (the one with the insert on games). The letter will let you know what kind of company GVP is in general. I think you will be pretty darned impressed after reading the letter, I know I was. It seems that GVP aims to please, and they will go to great lengths to do just that. --------------------------------------------------------------------- I have no connection with GVP other than I wish I had one --------------------------------------------------------------------- Alan W. McKay | My opinions are mine, yours are yours. | Eat Food | NEPEAN, Ont. | I in no way pretend to represent the | and | 613-763-8980 | the options of my employer. So there. | LIVE !! |
CFW@S67.Prime.COM (07/27/89)
>/* Written 10:11 am Jul 26, 1989 by scot@amigash.UUCP in S67:comp.sys.amiga */ >/* ---------- "Info Recommendations on system" ---------- */ >I am currently looking at purchasing a new Amiga system. :-) >This system will include an A2000, GVP 030, GVP 100meg hardcard. >I am looking for any first hand experience with these components. >Want to confirm that they work as advertised etc. We have 2 of these configurations, except with the 80mb disk (it's a disk, not a hardcard - I mounted mine in the left half-height floppy drive slot). I was interested in getting the 100mb disk, but GVP said (and still says as of 7/21/89) that they are having manufacturing problems with the 100mb disk and it is not available. I have been told by GVP that a 160mb disk will be available "by the end of the quarter" - which quarter I don't know. Note that the disk uses an AT driver - it is not a SCSI device. Seems to work just fine, although I discovered a problem with the max transfer rate of the disk's AT driver. Seems that it wasn't being set at all, and this caused problems because the drive loaded data TOO FAST for some software (like DPaintIII 3.1) to handle it - it hung the system. GVP has a fix for this (they told me this on 7/26/89) and will be shipping out new drivers to registered owners with the max transfer rate set to 128K. I found that the documentation supplied with my 030 board was rather sloppily put together, hard to read, and was missing the last 2 pages. I am still waiting for new documentation, which they promised to ship to me. If you install your disk where I installed it, you'll end up putting the tan plastic cover back over the front of the drive bay. This is because the disk is shorter than a typical floppy drive and sits back about an inch in the bay. Also, even if you don't cover the bay slot, you can't see the disk's LED - it's too low. So, I ended up cutting off the A2000 hard disk LED end connector and soldering the wires directly to the LED pins on the 80mb disk. Now the hard disk LED on the A2000 works for the 80mb disk and the LED on the disk is disconnected. I had to get them to ship me autoboot proms - they forgot to supply them on my board. Then it turns out they were bad. So I had to return them and get new ones. Also, the 80mb disk cable was bad and had to be replaced. Note that to get back to 68000 mode, you must jumper switch J11. There is no software switch as is available on the 68020 accelerators. This can be an annoyance, since several games depend on a 68000 CPU running as a particular speed. I got bit by this on Populous by Electronic Arts. It was not the smoothest of installations, but I'm real happy with the results [although it turns out my A2000 has a bad memory bus or something which corrupts the data read from the hard disk on its way to RAM, so the A2000 is back in the repair shop :-(] PS - my 25mhz 030 board with 4mb RAM, 25mhz 68882 co-processor, and 80mb disk cost $3850. >Also I have been informed >that the GVP 030 32 bit memory is available only in 4meg increments. True. 0mb, 4mb, or 8mb only. >Are the simm modules used available from any third party sources? I have been told by someone here at Prime that we should be able to get the needed simm modules internally. I haven't verified this, nor have I figured out whether only GVP can get 'em. For your info, the printed data on my 1mb SIMM module chips is as follows: .. ... KM41C1001AJ-8 ... 917 KOREA .. The '.'s are apparently the maker's "signature" - it's actually all on 1 line just to the left of the 'KM41...' >Are they socketed or must they be soldered? Each 1mb SIMM module is socketed into the board. >Also what are the available multi-serial port options? I don't know. I am ignorant here. >Another item I don't believe I have seen discussed before is multiple >parallel ports? Anybody working on this? I have only heard of some work going on in this area. Nothing more than this. >What is the latest word on the A3000? Any specs on it? Amiga Transactor mentioned that the only word so far is that it would have use a 68030 cpu. >Is the latest version of DNET available to the general usenet population >yet? I do not have FTP capability so that option is out. One project I >am going to undertake when I get the new system is to network it with >amigash, hopefully with DNET and uucp. Did I read the messages correctly >about DNET allowing NFS? I don't know. I am ignorant here. >If you can please respond via Email. amigash gets the amiga groups but I >am still about 800 messages behind. <grin> Please use the address below. Hope this helps. Email me or call me if you'd like. > /// /_\ Scot L. Harris !hoptoad!peora!rtmvax!amigash!scot > \XX/ / \ M I G A >[If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, perhaps > you have misunderstood the situation.] Christopher Wroten Prime Computer Inc. 500 Old Connecticut Path Framingham, Ma. 01701 508-879-2960 x4336 (7:30am-4pm EST) Internet: CFW@S67.PRIME.COM
jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) (07/29/89)
In article <419500002@S67.Prime.COM> CFW@S67.Prime.COM writes: >Note that the disk uses an AT driver - it is not a SCSI device. > >Seems to work just fine, although I discovered a problem with the max >transfer rate of the disk's AT driver. Seems that it wasn't being set >at all, and this caused problems because the drive loaded data TOO FAST >for some software (like DPaintIII 3.1) to handle it - it hung the system. >GVP has a fix for this (they told me this on 7/26/89) and will be shipping >out new drivers to registered owners with the max transfer rate set to 128K. A bit of confusion - your problem was with the maximum transfer SIZE, not speed. It sounds like their driver isn't smart enough to break transfers too large for their DMA chip into mutliple transfers. This causes large reads/writes to fail. Dpaint has VERY large hunks in the load file (greater than 128K), so attempts to read the hunk fail. They're probably using a DMA chip with 64K words (128K bytes) maximum transfer size. This is a distressingly common error among HD driver writers, and even caused us to add a MaxTransfer setting for FFS to keep it from making big requests of the driver. -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!"
hugh@censor.UUCP (Hugh D. Gamble) (07/31/89)
In article <419500002@S67.Prime.COM>, CFW@S67.Prime.COM writes: ... > We have 2 of these configurations, except with the 80mb disk (it's a disk, > not a hardcard - I mounted mine in the left half-height floppy drive slot). > I was interested in getting the 100mb disk, but GVP said (and still says > as of 7/21/89) that they are having manufacturing problems with the 100mb > disk and it is not available. I have been told by GVP that a 160mb disk > will be available "by the end of the quarter" - which quarter I don't know. > > Note that the disk uses an AT driver - it is not a SCSI device. > > Seems to work just fine, although I discovered a problem with the max > transfer rate of the disk's AT driver. Seems that it wasn't being set > at all, and this caused problems because the drive loaded data TOO FAST > for some software (like DPaintIII 3.1) to handle it - it hung the system. > GVP has a fix for this (they told me this on 7/26/89) and will be shipping > out new drivers to registered owners with the max transfer rate set to 128K. Sounds like you're being snowed by "marketspeak". I'm sure it makes GVP owners feel better if they think their drive is "too fast" for normal S/W, but the truth is that maxtransfer is a kludge that Commodore added for 3rd party HD controller vendors who don't know how to write proper driver S/W. Specifically, there is a limit on the largest IO transfer that the controller can handle in a single request. If a number larger than this is requested, the proper thing for the driver to do is to break it up into requests of a suitable size, & everything gets handled transparently to all higher level S/W. The fix C= provided for people with controllers with driver S/W that doesn't do this, is maxtransfer. It keeps requests bigger than a specified size from ever getting to the controller (does what the driver should be doing). DeluxePaint III is a good test for this flaw, because it has a very large load module likely to cause this problem to show up. Controller vendors who had this problem originally, should have fixed their S/W. If GVP still hasn't fixed their flawed S/W you should ask them why not. Setting maxtransfer will patch over the problem, but isn't the real solution. [rest of article deleted] > > > /// /_\ Scot L. Harris !hoptoad!peora!rtmvax!amigash!scot > > \XX/ / \ M I G A > >[If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, perhaps > > you have misunderstood the situation.] > > Christopher Wroten > Prime Computer Inc. > 500 Old Connecticut Path > Framingham, Ma. 01701 > 508-879-2960 x4336 (7:30am-4pm EST) > Internet: CFW@S67.PRIME.COM -- Hugh D. Gamble (416) 581-4354 (wk), 267-6159 (hm) (Std. Disclaimers) hugh@censor, kink!hugh@censor # Jimmi Hendrix isn't dead, I saw him on channel 10. # (unknown)