dave@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (David A Rasmussen) (10/12/87)
Looked at the inside of my 2000 over the weekend. This revealed a screw
missing from the 5.25" bezel which rolled out from somewhere after I
tilted the unit around a few times. The other problem is that the disk
led never lights, unless I ground it. I don't want to send my machine back
to the store. Oh well....
Looks like a nice job of work on the inside though.
My main board also lists B2000, but I don't remember which revision at
the moment. I notice the schematic in the manual looks like a 512k
motherboard, and the picture of the mouse ("push the door forward to
remove the ball") doesn't work on my mouse, which rotates off. Do I
have the wrong book, and if so, how can I get the right one?
Finally, I'm interested in hearing more about sharing resources
between the bridge card/pc side and the amiga side. For instance,
if I only want to use the pc stuff moderately, can I access an
amiga-side disk from the bridgecard, or am I better off with an
amiga partition on a pc disk?
Dave Rasmussen c/o Computing Services Division @ U of WI - Milwaukee
Internet: dave@csd1.milw.wisc.edu Uucp: uwvax!uwmcsd1!dave {o,o}
Csnet: dave%uwmcsd1@uwm Bellnet: +1 (414) 229-5133 \u/
ICBM: 43 4 58 N/ 87 55 52 W Usnail: 3200 N Cramer #E380, Milw WI 53211kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) (10/13/87)
In article <3149@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, dave@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (David A Rasmussen) writes: > > Looked at the inside of my 2000 over the weekend. This revealed a screw > missing from the 5.25" bezel which rolled out from somewhere after I > tilted the unit around a few times. The other problem is that the disk > led never lights, unless I ground it. I don't want to send my machine back > to the store. Oh well.... Picked up my 2000 on Saturday afternoon ... *very* nice machine, but there is one manufacturing defect that really ought to get fixed: While setting the machine up to burn-in for awhile, I noticed that the *plastic* front panel of the box is loose on the left-hand side. OK I sez, a screw is loose ... I was gonna pull the cover off anyway ... A screw was NOT loose! *** FLAME ON *** The front panel mounting system is one of the biggest kludged mechanical design snafu's I've seen in a long time! The designer of this piece of junk should be forced to replace every one of them personally! Where did they get their M.E. degree, out of a box of Cracker Jack's (tm ?), or did they get on the job training at El Cheapo Plastic Novelty Company instead? A screw was NOT loose ... but 3 of the 5 plastic standoffs were busted loose from the back of the vertical part of the panel. Two were broken at the standoff/panel interface; the other about a quarter of an inch from the end that is screwed to the metal case ... just about where the end of the too-fat-for-the-diameter-of-the-standoff-used's self-tapping sheet-metal screw ends. Whiteish "stress marks" on the two remaining standoffs were clearly visible at this location, also. The standoff's themselves have NO reinforcing ribs, and don't appear to be molded as part of the panel, but look more like they were tacked on as an afterthought instead, using cheap glue, no less. Sheesh! After fuming over this for awhile, I decide to try an fix it ... if I returned it to the dealer, they'd probably just order a new front panel from CBM (assuming they *can* order one), and it would have the same miserable mounting hardware that had already failed. First attempt ... get out the Krazy Glue ... naturally what I had on hand, had dried out. So off to the drugstore I go; it is about 8:30 PM. About a block from the store, a dog jumps out in front of my car (a Sheltie, I think). I swerve, and avoid the dog, but manage to just clip the center divider with my front left wheel. Result: a flat tire, a bent alloy wheel, and I learn how to change a tire on my 6-year-old car. No, I am not kidding (and a replacement wheel is $478). This is called "consequential damage", I believe. Argggggh! Back home (10:00 PM), we find that cyanoacrylic glue seems to attack the type of plastic used. No damage done, but this approcah is doomed. Spent Sunday thinking about the problem (and watching the S.F. Giants whip the S.L. Cards ... Humm Baby!). I didn't want to drill holes in the front panel of my brand new $1995 (retail) machine. Finally hit on the solution I used. Find something to use as standoffs, run a narrow width of vector board between the standoffs (and attached to them with small flat-head screws), and cover the vector board with double-sided foam adhesive tape. The other ends of the new standoffs are attached to the metal box with screws as before. The above sounds like as much of a kludge as the original, but it is quite strong, and works well. Finding something on a Sunday afternoon to use as standoffs was a little "challanging", but was solved when I spotted a set of cheap wooden spoons at the drugstore! Wooden dowels about 3/8" in diameter would work well also :-). BTW, the the two bottom standoffs are a little bit longer (~ 1/16") than the upper three, which need to be about 1" long, less the thickness of the vector board and tape ... your milage may vary. Also, I needed to double the tape layers in some places. The reason for going into such detail over this, is that I expect several of you will need to do something like this before too long! It is really beyond me why a company would do such a cheap, shoddy job of attaching such a visible part of the machine. Especially a $2000 machine with which they hope to penetrate the business and professional markets. Shooting yourself in the foot must really feel good ... CBM seems to be a master of the art! Bear in mind that this was a machine that was fresh out of the box, which had not been damaged in any way ... just a rotten mechanical design oversight that should have been caught before it went into production. And the front panel should have been made out of metal ... remember that this machine is (supposed to be) dedigned to be opened up for board installation every so often ... One other gripe ... the little plastic bracket that holds the power and hard disk LEDs was not attached any better. The four feet that fit into holes in the metal back plate are (supposed to be) "heat flattened" against the back of the plate, leaving little squashed plastic rings. Cheap, but OK ... except that I found the residue of said plastic rings in various corners of the machine, and none holding the little plastic bracket in place! The residue was extremely brittle ... dunno how it could've held *anything* in place. A little Elmer's glue fixes this right up. *** FLAME OFF *** > Looks like a nice job of work on the inside though. A very nice job! The board (r4.2) is a nice piece of work ... Haynie/ Fisher can be proud of it, and the internal space utilization seems well thought out (all except the inside of the cover ... plenty of room there for everyone's name). Good job, y'all! > I notice the schematic in the manual looks like a 512k > motherboard, and the picture of the mouse ("push the door forward to > remove the ball") doesn't work on my mouse, which rotates off. Do I > have the wrong book, and if so, how can I get the right one? Aside from being the "wrong" manual (presumably for the European version), there are a couple of items that should be right up front in the setup and installation section. First, how to set the real-time clock ... took me several minutes to find the page, after using the index on "clock" and "time" proved usless. Then I only found it because I *kenw* it was in the machine, and just *had* to be documented somewhere. Had I been unfamilier with the 2000's features, I might have doomed mayself to setting the time by hand forever and ever ... Secondly, a picture shopwing how to open the box up to add expansion h/w would be nice ... it isn't obvious that there is a 5th screw in back that needs to be removed, nor which one. Given the fragility with which the front panel is attached, it becomes more important to tell folks what to do (no, that is NOT how my front panel got busted loose ... mine came out of the box that way). Finally, I'd just like to mention that the drive is very quiet, both in operation, and in klick, klick, klicking. I can bearly hear the klicking above the fan (which is louder than the 1000, but not too terrible). I would like to know what the specs are on the fan though (CFM, power, etc), as I'd like to see if I can find a "whisper quiet" unit that still delivers what's needed. George/Dave ... do you know? Enough verbosity for one day ... /kim -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,uunet,oliveb,cbosgd,ames}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25
lachac@topaz.rutgers.edu (Gerard Lachac) (10/14/87)
In article <16077@amdahl.amdahl.com> kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) writes: > >Finally, I'd just like to mention that the drive is very quiet, both in >operation, and in klick, klick, klicking. I can bearly hear the klicking >above the fan (which is louder than the 1000, but not too terrible). I >would like to know what the specs are on the fan though (CFM, power, etc), >as I'd like to see if I can find a "whisper quiet" unit that still delivers >what's needed. George/Dave ... do you know? That's funny, cause my drive is LOUDER than my A1000 ever was. Really annoying too. I know it's a Chinon, saw the label myself when installing the hard drive (still now controller though, back ordered ). Maybe I need a little oil? -- "Truth is false and logic lost..." - Neil Peart (who at the time didn't realize he was talking about RU) lachac@topaz.rutgers.edu <--------OR--------> {seismo|ames}!rutgers!topaz!lachac
higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom SALES) (10/14/87)
in <3149@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, dave@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (David A Rasmussen) says: > Finally, I'm interested in hearing more about sharing resources > between the bridge card/pc side and the amiga side. For instance, > if I only want to use the pc stuff moderately, can I access an > amiga-side disk from the bridgecard, or am I better off with an > amiga partition on a pc disk? This is explained in the Bridgeboard manual. MS-DOS 3.2 and beyond (we supply 3.3 I think) have the "virtual device" capability which allows it to access devices not physically connected to itself (the PC, or Bridgeboard in this case), and was created primarily for transparent networking. This feature is used with the JLINK command to establish a virtual device on an AMIGA DEVICE (3.5" floppy or hard drive). The device does NOT act like a normal device though, and cannot be booted off of because the link is established AFTER booting (i.e., it is not part of the ROM BIOS). The device just uses "space" on the virtual device for files and directories, and on the Amiga side, the PC virtual device will appear as one file. > Dave Rasmussen c/o Computing Services Division @ U of WI - Milwaukee Paul Higginbottom.
kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) (10/15/87)
In article <15564@topaz.rutgers.edu>, lachac@topaz.rutgers.edu (Gerard Lachac) writes: > > That's funny, cause my drive is LOUDER than my A1000 ever was. Really > annoying too. I know it's a Chinon, saw the label myself when installing > the hard drive (still now controller though, back ordered ). Maybe > I need a little oil? I recently described the sound of my A1000 drives as "a cement mixer full of rocks". Actually, that was a bit kind ... they really sound like one of those industrial leaf/grass blowers that the Grounds & Facilities crew like to start using at 7:00 AM :-)! Until I happened across the StepRate program, I could literally watch TV in the living room, and hear when a diskcopy or long compile had finished on the Amy in the spare bedroom ... and I don't listen to TV at a low volume! Now, with StepRate, the 1000's drives sound almost as soothing as that dentist's drill ... very pleasing (see, all things *are* relative)! I guess the 2000's are "sleeping around" as much as the 1000's did ... the single floppy in mine is from a Japanese M-word company (Matsushita, as I recall). Very quiet. One wonders if someone at CBM makes sure that machines leave the plant with matched sets of drives ... wouldn't do to have one LOUD drive, and one quiet one, now would it ...? /kim -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,uunet,oliveb,cbosgd,ames}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25
bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt) (10/15/87)
In article <16196@> kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) writes: } >I recently described the sound of my A1000 drives as "a cement mixer full >of rocks". Actually, that was a bit kind ... > >...Now, with StepRate, the 1000's drives sound almost as soothing as that >dentist's drill ... The Amiga 1000 at least comes with a pattented "drive noise amplification and dispersion unit". Ie. the case. The bare drive unit makes about half the noise. Adding foam shock mounts drops the noise by about 10%. I have not tried full acoustical lining... afraid of the heat. You can gently spread a thin coating of light machine oil on the rails of some drives to drop the noise by another 15% or so. Or just get lots of RAM and don't use the physical drives :-). |\ /| . Ack! (NAK, ENQ, SYN) {o O} . bryce@hoser.berkeley.EDU -or- ucbvax!hoser!bryce (") U "It [the Amiga] is the machine the home market has been waiting for. It's a computer without flaws." - David Seuss, President Spinnaker Software