[comp.sys.amiga] A2090A HD controller

papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (12/01/87)

Now that Dan Schein has broken the news, it is no longer a "rumor".  C= has
in production the A2090A HD controller that will allow booting from the HD
(unlike the old A2090 HD controller).  For some of the people that have ordered
(and paid) for the "old" A2090, it would be nice if C= would respond to the
following questions:

1. Is the "old" A2090 still in production or not?
2. Are any of the old "A2090" available? [I doubt that, since we ordered our
early Sept., DIRECTLY from Comoodore, and never saw it].
3. Has the "old" A2090 been recalled [I mean not sent to dealers] waiting for
the "new" A2090A to get into production?
4. Is the "new" A2090A in production or not?
5. When can developers and dealers [users] expect deliveries od the new A2090A?

Maybe Paul at Sales has this data.  Since he is no longer on the net, pass
it on. Thanks.

-- Marco

P.S.:
This is NOT a flame.  I myself would love to have an A2090A instead of the
A2090. 

grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) (12/03/87)

In article <5474@oberon.USC.EDU> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
> Now that Dan Schein has broken the news, it is no longer a "rumor".  C= has
> in production the A2090A HD controller that will allow booting from the HD
> (unlike the old A2090 HD controller).  For some of the people that have
> ordered > (and paid) for the "old" A2090, it would be nice if C= would
> respond to the following questions:

Alas, poor Dan was only speaking in the "everybody knows Commodore will have
to come out with a disk controller that supports the autoboot protocol" mode
and there has been no product announcement.  As such, your questions remain
unanswerable, at least by those of us at the Peon level.

Part of the A2090 problems is that the European were apprarently convinced
that almost every A2000 would be sold with a Bridgecard, and once you had
a Bridgecard it's cheaper to just use a standard PC hard disk controller
and drive.  This means that unlike the memory and Bridgecards, the A2090
wasn't already in volume production and probably warped sales estimates to boot.

-- 
George Robbins - now working for,	uucp: {uunet|ihnp4|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr
but no way officially representing	arpa: cbmvax!grr@uunet.uu.net
Commodore, Engineering Department	fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)

tdwest@lion.waterloo.edu (Terry D. West) (12/04/87)

In article <5474@oberon.USC.EDU> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
>2. Are any of the old "A2090" available? [I doubt that, since we ordered our
>early Sept., DIRECTLY from Comoodore, and never saw it].
>3. Has the "old" A2090 been recalled [I mean not sent to dealers] waiting for
>the "new" A2090A to get into production?

Hrumphf.

I just bought one less than 2 weeks ago with my new A2000 (the owner is
now in,oh, 42nd heaven).  The dealer had picked it up from C= the 
day before.  Perhaps this is just another example of C= having
better stock and faster availability in Canada than south of the border.

YOU are the lucky one.  YOU get a 2090A.  I'm stuck with a 2 week
old card that's obsolete. :-(

I can't help feeling pissed off.
My dealer's good, but even HE didn't know.

I just hope the upgrade is free.  It's only fair, I mean 2 WEEKS!


--

Terry D. West
University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
{backbone}!watmath!lion!tdwest

harald@ccicpg.UUCP ( Harald Milne) (12/04/87)

In article <5474@oberon.USC.EDU>, papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
> Now that Dan Schein has broken the news, it is no longer a "rumor".  C= has
> in production the A2090A HD controller.
> -- Marco

	I just got my January issue of Amiga/World. In the section on the
AmiExpo in New York, October 10-12, there was talk of the 2090 card not being
able to function while the Amiga is in overscan. That disturbs me a bit.
I don't have a 2090 to verify this, but a simple test would be to try to make
animations with VideoScape 3d to the hard disk.

	Also mentioned was ASDG's super whiz bang HD controller that didn't
have this problem. If anyone is interested in more I can post details.

	Im surprised that I saw this in Amiga/World first. BTW, this issue is
really worth picking up. Lots of new products like the Hurricane (Yet Another
Coprocessor), MAX - The Hard Disk System Hackers Package construction project
that allows MFM or RLL encoded hard disks for $199.00 (including all software,
even backup utilities).

	I guess no Amiga owners in New York went to the AmiExpo 8^).

	I'm not going to miss the one in LA in January. Looks like January is
going to be a very interesting month for a lot of reasons.

	Just how does the 2090A fit into all of this?

-- 
Work: Computer Consoles Inc. (CCI), Advanced Development Group (ADG)
      Irvine, CA (RISCy business! Home of the CCI POWER 6/32)
UUCP: uunet!ccicpg!harald

andy@cbmvax.UUCP (12/05/87)

In article <6575@ccicpg.UUCP> harald@ccicpg.UUCP ( Harald Milne) writes:
>In article <5474@oberon.USC.EDU>, papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
>> Now that Dan Schein has broken the news, it is no longer a "rumor".  C= has
>> in production the A2090A HD controller.
>> -- Marco
>
>	I just got my January issue of Amiga/World. In the section on the
>AmiExpo in New York, October 10-12, there was talk of the 2090 card not being
>able to function while the Amiga is in overscan. That disturbs me a bit.
>I don't have a 2090 to verify this, but a simple test would be to try to make
>animations with VideoScape 3d to the hard disk.

This is one of the things that the updated hddisk device I announced
awhile ago (and will mail to people over usenet) fixes.  If you don't
have have a 2090 card, the software that comes with your 2090 is
the new driver, so it will work fine in overscan.
-- 
andy finkel		{ihnp4|seismo|allegra}!cbmvax!andy 
Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
 a rigged demo."

Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share.
I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.

kjws@eagle.ukc.ac.uk (K.J.W.Smithers) (12/06/87)

Expires:

Sender:

Followup-To:


In article <2903@cbmvax.UUCP> you write:
>
>This is one of the things that the updated hddisk device I announced
>awhile ago (and will mail to people over usenet) fixes.  If you don't
>have have a 2090 card, the software that comes with your 2090 is
>the new driver, so it will work fine in overscan.
>-- 
>andy finkel		{ihnp4|seismo|allegra}!cbmvax!andy 
>Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
>

I have an A2090 card and a CSA68020/68881 board with no 32 bit ram.
 
 They will Not work together. (but both work seperately)

I think the driver (hddisk) is dated  1986 , is this the latest driver?
(If not could you please e-mail me the latest version)

The problem is when I run binddrivers that task stops, (binddrivers
never exits). It seems to fallover on a particular call to execbase.
The last instruction (displayed by MetaScope) is  mov a2,(a0)

If i move the hddisk from expansion draw , to hddisk.device in the
devs draw, i can mount the harddisk (dh0:) , but when i do a
cd dh0: , the cd command displays 'Cant find dh0:'

I am running morerows, 672*266 on a B2000 rev 4.0 board (pal) with
2Mbytes expansion ram , 2*3.5inch drives, and (hopefully) A2090 +
20 Mbyte hard disk, and a CSA 68020/68881 board.

I have also done the wire-link modification to the main B2000 board,
as required by CSA for the 68020 board on Rev4.0 and later boards.

Slots are as follows :-

     I  I  E  E  E  M  H     6
     B  B  M  M  M  E  A     8
     M  M  P  P  P  M  R     0
           T  T  T  O  D     2
	   Y  Y  Y  R  D     0
                    Y  I     C
                       S     P
                       K     U

   Thanks in advance for any help
		
	Kit Smithers

____________________________________________________________________________
   Kit Smithers			kjws@ukc.ac.uk
				kjws@ukc.UUCP
				!mcvax!ukc!kjws

The man who can not stay fast and hard at the same time !
Live for ever, or die in the attempt.
______________________________________________________________________________

daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (12/18/87)

in article <4038@eagle.ukc.ac.uk>, kjws@eagle.ukc.ac.uk (K.J.W.Smithers) says:

> I have an A2090 card and a CSA68020/68881 board with no 32 bit ram.
>  
>  They will Not work together. (but both work seperately)  ...
> 
> The problem is when I run binddrivers that task stops, (binddrivers
> never exits). It seems to fallover on a particular call to execbase.
> The last instruction (displayed by MetaScope) is  mov a2,(a0)

Is it possible that it's dying near a DMA; this may be hard to catch on the
monitor.  During Binddrivers, the A2090's driver code is loaded in from
the Expansion directory.  The initialization routines in this driver code 
set up the A2090 for a DMA.  What you see running when the DMA actually
happens is probably not related to this driver code, since the driver code
will probably set the controller up for a DMA and then wait for an interrupt
indicating the transfer has taken place.  It sounds like something may be
going wrong in the DMA arbitration between the A2090 and the CSA card.  The
A2090 is know to work with other 68020 cards, but I haven't seen it run
with the CSA card specifically.

> I am running morerows, 672*266 on a B2000 rev 4.0 board (pal) with
> 2Mbytes expansion ram , 2*3.5inch drives, and (hopefully) A2090 +
> 20 Mbyte hard disk, and a CSA 68020/68881 board.

Especially with morerows running, you'll get much better performance out of
the A2090 if you "RUN SlowMemLast" before "Binddrivers".  I doubt that 
has any bearing on the problem you've got, but it's certainly a good thing
to do anyway.

>    Kit Smithers			kjws@ukc.ac.uk
-- 
Dave Haynie     Commodore-Amiga    Usenet: {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh
   "The B2000 Guy"              PLINK : D-DAVE H             BIX   : hazy
		"I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"