michael@stb.UUCP (02/06/87)
Well, my ASDG memory board came today. At last. <Rip> <tear> <break> <pop> Packaging was well done. Not only was there two boxes inside the shipping box (and a well-stuffed newspaper substitue), but the box with the memory board was also well padded. The board itself came in a 3M conductive black wrapper. The other box had the card cage itself. <Rip> <tear> <rip again> <rip somemore> Inside was a big, huge mound of popping bubbles. Actually, they were wrapped around something. 2 minutes later, I realized that there was no start to unwrap from, so I just tore it off <tear> <pop> <pop> <pop> <pop> The cage is a big, black, solid thing. It won't break. Has a led in front to tell you its on, a fuse, plug, and switch in back, and a connector on the side. Unfortunately, there is no manual for the card cage. But there are about thirteen screws that come off. One screw driver later, I realized that those screws don't come off. But the four at the top (two of which were on the other side) do. Inside, it was black. Plus a green board at the bottom to plug into, and two plastic guide rails along the side. <snap> The cage looks like it could hold 4 boards, and has 4 DB-25 shapped covered holes in the back. Looks like the 4 slot cage will simply be a 2 slot cage with a bigger power supply and 2 more slots and guide rails. Now, I had to move the amiga to make it fit. <Push> <shove> <shove> <push> Hmm, get that edge cover off <pull> <yank> <pull again> <pop> <push> <shove> <clank> (oh well, I wasn't using that other computer anyways) :-) <push> <fit> <move second drive> <push some more> <squeeze> <align> <push> <shove> <align> <push> <snap> Hmm, now where do I put the second drive? <place> The cage is just wide enough (and about 50% longer than it needs to be) to be a perfect place to put the external drive. Fits perfectly. Ok, only about 2 inches longer. Now, the test With the cage off, I booted up. First 1.2 kick Eject workbench, and try kick. Now, workbench. Everything works great, same normal memory. Shortly there after, I managed to unplug something and plug the cage in. Turning it on, it wasn't recognized. Thats ok, I hadn't rebooted. But I then tried the memory tests. Nope, couldn't find the board. Looking at the README file, I found a few inconsistencies. In particular, at one point it talks about a 1.4 meg max size, elsewhere a 2 meg max size. Aha! Yet another file shows this to be version 2.2 (public dist. was 2.0), with full 8meg support. Now, if I only had 8... Some poking around revealed the following in mountlist: 16 sectors per track, not 11 Unit # 1 A notice saying "Don't change anything". And a user saying, "Lets get two of these running and see what happens" First, reboot. Memory recognized, auto config'd. Haven't seem that big of a number since some interesting program crashes under 1.1 Get sysmon running, and notice that the memory used was about the same. 2K of fast was being used, 395K of chip was free, or about the same as a normal boot up. Second, run through my full startup-sequence. This takes a minute and a half normally, and gives me 300K free. Sysmon tells me 356K free chip, and 45K free fast. Ok, so its still using more chip than I thought, but thats ok. Thats still big enough to get all of aztec onto my system disk. (So, when does 1.2 kickbench come out? I finally have a use for it) Discovered that the memory test software is idiot proof. Wouldn't let me try it out on active memory. Good work ASDG. <Sigh> Guess what .device file would not fit onto a workbench with 0 free blocks? I had that one comming. Well, the keymaps look jucy. Only need usa0 and usa2. First, mountlist. Put in three entries: vd0, Dv0, and Dv1. now, mount Dv0. Very compatible. Key 1024 checksum error. One disk clean, followed by a reboot, and -- same problem. Ok, so you can't change the name of the disk. Reboot, and try again. Good, vd0 works fine. Too bad dv0 doesn't--some programs (disked, probably diskcopy) assume that valid things begin with D, not V. Things are looking up. You can change the disk unit number, and then VD0 and VD1 are two seperate things. Only one is displayed by workbench. So, I try 'copy vd1:#? vd0:' to try to put all those things from vd1 into vd0. Requester asking for "ASDG-RAM" in any drive. Well, they warned me. A few more attempts actually got a guru. #87 00 08, address of 265f48f1. Looks like 'HELP' was changed to something else. So, it can only be one v-disk, only unit #1, only named vd0. Only good enough. Michael Gersten p.s. Startup time goes from 1.5 minutes to .5 minutes. 10 seconds of that is simply kickstart checking itself before looking at workbench. p.p.s. Discovered an odd bug while using it, in workbench. With about .7 meg of fast and .3 meg of chip free, open a window that contains some unfixed icons. Move one of them out of its place, and then move another into the other one's old place. Watch the hangup. Doesn't repeat, oh well. -- Michael Gersten ihnp4!ucla-cs!cepu!ucla-an!remsit!stb!michael "Hey, you look a lot better since you got her back" "Yea, and now I'm going to take her out and shoot her"