romwa@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Royal Ontario Museum) (04/09/90)
After some fanangling I have PC-DITTO working. There is still the odd
glitch, but overall I am pleased with it.
THE SETUP:
1040ST (circa 1987) with no mods + mono monitor.
When I first installed PC-DITTO it complained a lot about things not
being setup up correctly. This turned out to be the now infamous
connector which clips onto the CPU. You have to bend in all the pins
to give it a snug fit. I also ran into the PAL problem which
Avant-Garde fixed quickly with a couple of new PAL's.
This weekend I was reviewing IBM's Current and Richmond Technologies'
Maximizer for a Canadian rag, both of which ran without a hitch.
Current is painful to use not because of speed but rather because of
PC-DITTO's limitation to CGA video. I hope they can come out with at
least an EGA version quickly. I also run Harvard Project Manager
regularly on PC-DITTO. Text based applications should not have too
many problems. I also had to use Procomm to do a dial out session
(which was torturous hell after having used Uniterm for so many
years).
This weekend I happened to notice a new phenomenon: During the first 15
minutes of use I can sometimes hang PC-DITTO. I suspect that this has to
do with the connector/cpu heating up and expanding. I am not thrilled
about this precarious set up, but I am also not keen on soldering the
connector on. Any suggestions on how to fix this would be
appreciated.
Oh and another thing I would advise you not to try to stuff everything
back into your case. I did (minus the RF shield) and ended up putting
a crack in my keyboard PC board. Thanks to Peter Hiscocks for fixing
this for me. (Don't every let a software person try to do something
mechanical!) Now I just leave everything open with PC-DITTO hangin
off the back end of the system.
Bottom line is that it seems to be stable barring the cpu connector.
I'd like to be able to turn on the machine and start working with it
immediately rather than wait for heat expansion to take its course.
Cheers!
Pavneet Arora
...!utgpu!rom!pavneet
or
rom!pavneet@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen's Park
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 2C6
(416) 586-5626lawrence@isc-br.ISC-BR.COM (Lawrence Kelley) (04/11/90)
In article <1990Apr9.125813.635@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> romwa@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Royal Ontario Museum) writes: >This weekend I happened to notice a new phenomenon: During the first 15 >minutes of use I can sometimes hang PC-DITTO. I suspect that this has to >do with the connector/cpu heating up and expanding. I have had similar experiences that seems to go away or diminish after the system's been on for 15 to 30 minutes. By any chance, do you also experience distortion and jitter on the video. I have experienced severe problems that I have not been able to track down, but they seem to go away after a period of time. However, these problems did not occur the first week I had PCD II. It does seem like a heat problem, but I have trouble beleiving the 68000 generates enough heat to put much stress on those connector pins. You mentioned Procomm. I have been running the last shareware version (2.4.2, I think) and it will occasionally hang and force me to reboot. However, I had the same problem with PC Ditto I. Does anyone on the net have any thoughts? BTW, I'm *still* looking for a screen saver that works with PCD II. shalom, lawrence
logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) (04/11/90)
lawrence@isc-br.ISC-BR.COM (Lawrence Kelley) writes: >It does seem like a heat problem, but I have trouble beleiving the 68000 >generates enough heat to put much stress on those connector pins. Logic circuits (poorly designed) ARE subject to heat. The propogation delays get worse and the logic voltage levels degrade. This can put poorly designed circuits over the edge. Since PC-DITTO-II supposedly had timing problems initially, perhaps this is just a borderline symptom. Then again, it could be something completely different. -- - John Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 - logajan@ns.network.com, john@logajan.mn.org, 612-424-4888, Fax 424-2853
hcj@lzsc.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) (04/11/90)
In article <2823@isc-br.ISC-BR.COM>, lawrence@isc-br.ISC-BR.COM (Lawrence Kelley) writes: > In article <1990Apr9.125813.635@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> romwa@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Royal Ontario Museum) > writes: > > > >This weekend I happened to notice a new phenomenon: During the first 15 > >minutes of use I can sometimes hang PC-DITTO. I suspect that this has to > >do with the connector/cpu heating up and expanding. > > I have had similar experiences that seems to go away or diminish after the > system's been on for 15 to 30 minutes. By any chance, do you also experience > distortion and jitter on the video. I have experienced severe problems that When things are failing, you cannot define the failure mode. The PC-Ditto II m68000 connector is so flackey by design that any and all screwey results are possible. A row of ribbon connector pins is not stable enough to make a reliable pressure joint. And the shoulders of a M68000 are absolutely not designed to be a conatact point. SOLDER the SOB on and your problems will go away. I did this, and two things happened: 1. PC-Ditto II now works great. 2. Half of my memory is now bad. Howard C. Johnson Two things happen when you touch a soldering iron ATT Bell Labs to a ST. One of them is bad! att!lzsc!hcj hcj@lzsc.att.com