drh@sun.uucp (D. Ryan Hawley) (02/06/89)
I talked to PACIFIC PERIPHS. INC and found out why I was
having problems. The deal is that my 8 MB ASDG board isn't
compatible with the P.P. controller and the Fuji disk.
Since I went through 4 Seagate drives and 3 2090 controllers
I'm pretty sure it's something that the ASDG board is doing,
but I'm no expert on hardware. My moniter flickers a lot
too (this is the third moniter, and the best of the three)
I think this is also some low level interrupts being sent
out onto the buss by the memory board. My understanding
is that Pacific Peripherals and ASDG are working on this
night and day, and are near a solution. So for now I'm
running AmigaDos with FastFilesystems just fine under
1.3, on sigh..... 1MB of RAM.
Cheers, David (Ryan)
--
{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ * }}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
D. Ryan Hawley "And they will fly with the wings of Eagles"
{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ * }}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}aaron@madnix.UUCP (Aaron Avery) (02/08/89)
In article <88459@sun.uucp> drh@sun.uucp (D. Ryan Hawley) writes: > I talked to PACIFIC PERIPHS. INC and found out why I was > having problems. The deal is that my 8 MB ASDG board isn't > compatible with the P.P. controller and the Fuji disk. That is probably correct. > I'm pretty sure it's something that the ASDG board is doing, > but I'm no expert on hardware. My moniter flickers a lot > too (this is the third moniter, and the best of the three) > I think this is also some low level interrupts being sent > out onto the buss by the memory board. My understanding Does that monitor only flicker in INTERLACE? I'm sorry, but that's just one of those things which goes along with the amiga's being NTSC compatible. There are more expensive monitors which will flicker less in interlace, but will smear some with animation. They're called 'long persistance phosphor' monitors. You can also get a FlickerFixer (made by Micro Way) which will alleviate this problem for a lot more money. This has nothing to do with your hardware problem. No memory board for the amiga generates interrupts. The ASDG 8MI is fully complient with Commodore's specifications regarding expansion timing. Not all boards are. The 8MI relies on other boards in the system complying with the spec. more than some other memory boards. You may draw your own conclusions. > is that Pacific Peripherals and ASDG are working on this > night and day, and are near a solution. So for now I'm I don't know if it's near a solution, but it is being worked on. -- Aaron Avery, ASDG Inc. "A mime is a terrible thing to waste." -- Robin Williams ARPA: madnix!aaron@cs.wisc.edu {uunet|ncoast}!marque! UUCP: {harvard|rutgers|ucbvax}!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!aaron
perry@madnix.UUCP (Perry Kivolowitz) (02/09/89)
Seeing language like ``the ASDG memory board puts low level interrupts
out of the bus'' is pure science fiction. Who told you that?
Here's the low-down on the Pacific Peripherals Overdrive controller:
Background:
Pacific Peripherals is a marketting company. They sell other peoples
designs. In this case, the product in question was designed by Interactive
Video Systems (IVS) who makes competing products on their own (interesting).
Pacific Peripherals, having no internal hardware staff asked IVS to look
into problems reported concerning their controller. IVS said: ``problems?
impossible!'' and rendered no help. Pacific Peripherals, wanting to do
the right thing, sent US a board and asked US to investigate reports of
problems.
The Good Part:
Well, investigate we did. Upon cursory inspection of the IVS design we
found that they invert the clock signals as they enter the board. Upon
deeper inspection we found that the inverted clock causes every timing
aspect of the IVS design to be suspect of failing to comply with Zorro
specifications. We found that this board was quite lucky to work with
nothing else in the box as is even displayed timing inconsistencies with
Chip ram. (in short: the controller does everything 180 degrees out of
phase with the rest of the system).
The Epilogue
We reported all of this to Pacific Peripherals who asked us to get in
touch with the designers who have not returned our phone calls yet (as
it has been about two months, I somehow think they won't).
Summary
The problems cited have nothing to do with the ASDG memory board.
Side Note
We tried to do the right thing and keep the tone ``no-fault''. That
didn't seem to work too well did it? ``Low level interrupts.'' Indeed.
--
Perry Kivolowitz, ASDG Inc.
ARPA: madnix!perry@cs.wisc.edu {uunet|ncoast}!marque!
UUCP: {harvard|rutgers|ucbvax}!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!perry
CIS: 76004,1765 (what was that about ``giggling teenagers''?) Sullivan@cup.portal.com (sullivan - segall) (02/14/89)
>> I talked to PACIFIC PERIPHS. INC and found out why I was >> having problems. The deal is that my 8 MB ASDG board isn't >> compatible with the P.P. controller and the Fuji disk. > >That is probably correct. > What Ryan didn't point out is that the same problem was happenning with his A2090 and the memory board. My theory is that there is a little too much noise on the bus with 8Mb of very fast ram installed. I doubt that the ASDG is more at fault than most other boards would be. Another signature of the problem is that it gets worse as the two boards are moved closer together. But that's the nice thing about opinions, they're cheap. >> I'm pretty sure it's something that the ASDG board is doing, >> but I'm no expert on hardware. My moniter flickers a lot >> too (this is the third moniter, and the best of the three) >> I think this is also some low level interrupts being sent >> out onto the buss by the memory board. My understanding > >Does that monitor only flicker in INTERLACE? I'm sorry, but that's just one >of those things which goes along with the amiga's being NTSC compatible. Nothing so simple unfortunately. The flicker that he is referring to causes the entire screen to collapse for about one frame and then reappear. It may have been caused by internal arcing, but testing the monitor on my machine, the problem went away. So the machine or its configuration is definitely involved. On the other hand, the problem seems to get worse as the monitor gets older. That would tend to point to the monitor. It is also possible that there are spikes that his power filter (not a UPS, just a filter) isn't catching. But since I lived with him for over a year and didn't experience the same problems at all, it would have to be a rather localized problem. >There are more expensive monitors which will flicker less in interlace, but >will smear some with animation. They're called 'long persistance phosphor' On that subject, you wouldn't happen to know where I could find one? >This has nothing to do with your hardware problem. au` contraire. (maybe) > >-- >Aaron Avery, ASDG Inc. "A mime is a terrible thing to waste." > -- Robin Williams >ARPA: madnix!aaron@cs.wisc.edu {uunet|ncoast}!marque! >UUCP: {harvard|rutgers|ucbvax}!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!aaron -Sullivan Segall _____________________________________________________________ /V\ Sully set the example: to fly without moving. We shall ' learn to soar on wings of thought. And the student will surpass the teacher. To Quote the immortal Socrates: "I drank what?" -Sullivan _____________________________________________________________ Mail to: ...sun!portal!cup.portal.com!Sullivan or Sullivan@cup.portal.com
jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) (02/19/89)
In article <14632@cup.portal.com> Sullivan@cup.portal.com (sullivan - segall) writes: >Nothing so simple unfortunately. The flicker that he is referring to causes >the entire screen to collapse for about one frame and then reappear. It may >have been caused by internal arcing, but testing the monitor on my machine, the >problem went away. So the machine or its configuration is definitely involved. >On the other hand, the problem seems to get worse as the monitor gets older. >That would tend to point to the monitor. You might want to check the grounds on both the power lines and the video connector. -- Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup