daemon@rutgers.UUCP (03/12/87)
From: Thomka.OsbuSouth@Xerox.COM Well, I had bought the CMI KickStart Eliminator. ---------- That's the KickStart 1.2 in four 27512 ROMs (total = 256k bytes), to be installed on the already alloted space on the motherboard. Which then frees up the 256K bytes of KickRAM so that you can AddMem that and expand your Amiga to a total of 768K. ---------- I had a few problems, but the only significant one, that you might run up against, was that my internal disk drive was made by NEC. The problem is that two of the ROMs are best installed on sockets (two are already there for the boot ROMs, and this kit gives you two more sockets for the additional ROMs). The NEC drive is built a bit too low to allow for sockets. You can solder the ROMs down onto the motherboard but I didn't want to do that because that keeps me from easily upgrading to any new KickStart (1.3?, 2.0?) when and if it becomes available. The solution to my problem was provided by a person out there in netland (sorry, I lost his name, else I'd give credit). He suggested that maybe my external drive was not NEC, and maybe by swapping them I could get the desired space. Well the external drive was made by Mitsubishi and sure enough, it would allow for the sockets! I swapped the drives and had one problem there. The 34pin data cable as plugged into the Mitsubishi drive is backwards from the way it is plugged ito the NEC. But a simple twist of the cable solved that problem. The 4pin power cable was identical, no problem there. So now, in less than 4 seconds after I turn power on, the WorkBench disk is starting to be read. No more swapping of disks to get the machine running. Plus, if I want to, I can add the otherwise unused 256k RAM by a simple line in the StartUp-Sequence (or I could just type in any CLI window): AddMem 0f80000 0fbffff Then I'll see the message "262144 bytes added to free memory" and also see the memory space increase a corresponding amount. There may be times I wouldn't want to add the addition 256k. Some early programs (I've found some Commodore demos - Boing! and Robo City - are like this) were written by unsighted individuals, that did not think anybody would have more than a 512k Amiga. Hence, they did not provide for internal Chip memory (the first 512k) allocation. They are written, assuming that they would always run from within that Chip memory. (CMI also provides two other possible solutions; a FixHunk program that will modify your program, and another that is called RamOn\Off which will allocate all that KickRAM area, so that a program would not be placed there.) But any of those badly behaved programs would have problems with any "larger than 512k" Amiga. This is not a problem exclusive to the CMI KickStart Eliminator. If you want additional info about the ROM kit you can call the company (of which I am not connected in ANY way): Creative Microsystems Inc. 10110 Southwest Nimbus Tigard, OR; 97223 Talk to Mark. Chuck
page@ulowell.UUCP (03/12/87)
>From: Thomka.OsbuSouth@Xerox.COM >(I've found some Commodore demos - Boing! and Robo City - are >like this) were written by unsighted individuals Woah! The people who wrote those *designed* the Amiga. Can you call that unsighted? They were written a long time ago, in the heat and confusion of a major trade show. Have you ever written code in demo mode? When you're in demo mode, software engineering is a crock. It doesn't sell computers. Be thankful you *have* those demos, and the Amiga. Cooling off - ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. ulowell!page, page@ulowell.CSNET
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (03/13/87)
In article <1133@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu> page@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) writes: >>From: Thomka.OsbuSouth@Xerox.COM >>(I've found some Commodore demos - Boing! and Robo City - are >>like this) were written by unsighted individuals > >Woah! The people who wrote those *designed* the Amiga. Can you call >that unsighted? > >They were written a long time ago... Amen - boing and robo city were written before there was even much of an operating system, let alone expansion hardware. Demo are usually tossed off in a hurry and only minimally maintained. There's also an enhanced 1.1 dealer demo disk around that has updated versions of some of the demos. It's the one where boing has a speed control via the right button instead of just on/off. Also has a thing called Amiga 3-d that you can fly with a joystick. -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)