mjv@iris.brown.edu (Marshall Vale) (11/28/89)
I have several questions about chips in my Mega2.
I've been thinking about upgrading to TOS 1.4 and have read the messages
about the weak power chips. I looked in my Mega2 and here are the chip
numbers in order of 1-4 going from top to bottom on the board:
Rev. 5.0 Mega2 (made in/just before April 89)
1 - GD74LS244
2 - T74LS373B1
3 - GB74LS244
4 - T74LS373B1
My Mega is running on a two rom set. I'm wondering if I should have these
replaced when I get rainbow TOS. The LS373's have a chip name of _ST_ .
David Small mentions in the GCR manual that ones made by SCS are
definitely bad, so are these LS chips also bad?
My current chips power the GCR just fine and even for extended periods of
time too.
Should I try to wait for the two ROM set which Ken B. said has been made
or get the 6 rom set now?
I also noticed that there was a very tiny board on top of the 68000 with a
_SCST74LS74B1_ in it and a wire running to an unlabeled spot on the
board just above and to the left of the 68000. Anyone know what its for?
It seems like it was a rather last minute change and the glue job was
very sloppy.
And a note to anyone who maybe interested; there are tracings on my board
to the unused memory slots so it appears that I can upgrade to 4 meg. I
compared my motherboard to the picture of the early Mega4 in STart a
while back and they looked the same (except for the board on the 68000).
I was not able to look at the MMU chip to check its ending letters (to see
if it was one of the 2meg only kind) because I wasn't confindent about
getting the bindings off. I'm not much of a hardware guy :-)
Has anyone else had problems getting the internal drive on Megas to work
with the GCR? What exactly did you do to fix it. I just would like a
better description of proceedures that D. Small gave in the read me file. I
sure am glad I have external SF314 to read those Mac disks, loud as it may be.
Thanks in advance!
-- mjv@iris.brown.edu
"And, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,
Bring me a big, red india-rubber ball."
A.A. Milne "Now We are Six"Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) (11/29/89)
Here is what I've done to my machine: Mega 2, upgraded to 4 megs, with a six chip EPROM TOS 1.4 set (dealer installed - honest.) When I got the TOS 1.4 installed - all hell broke loose - bus errors, random bombs, etc. Spectre GCR was unuseable. When I had the 4 meg upgrade done they aslo replaced the two LS 373 chips with AS373 chips. Since then the machine has been 100% without a bus error to be seen and Spectre GCR is 100%. Peter Szymonik Xorg@cup.portal.com
kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher) (11/29/89)
Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes: | Spectre GCR was unuseable. When I had the 4 meg upgrade done they aslo | replaced the two LS 373 chips with AS373 chips. Since then the machine has | been 100% without a bus error to be seen and Spectre GCR is 100%. The hardware guys at Atari are looking into this problem. It looks like it may be a bus loading problem caused by the GCR. I wonder, has anyone noticed this problem occurring _without_ a cartridge plugged in? The Atari hardware guys I've talked to say that the cart port is on the hairy edge - basically, if you hang anything but ROM's out there, you're asking for trouble. It was _designed_ this way, the intent of the cart port is to provide ROM space, nothing else. One other thing, there were some Mega 2's which were produced that are NOT upgradable to 4 megs because of the parts used in manufacture. I don't know the details, but just thought I'd let people know, in case you're thinking of dropping an extra 2 megs of RAM in, it may not be that easy. Atari dealers should be able to get the scoop on this from the dealer support folks at Atari. -- ||| Ken Badertscher (ames!atari!kbad) ||| Atari R&D System Software Engine / | \ #include <disclaimer>
andyc@hplsla.HP.COM (Andy Cassino) (11/30/89)
mjv@iris.brown.edu (Marshall Vale) writes: |I have several questions about chips in my Mega2. | |I've been thinking about upgrading to TOS 1.4 and have read the messages | about the weak power chips. Based on my experience with the 6 chip ROM set in my Mega 2 (of an older vintage), I heartily recommend changing those 74LS373's to 74AS373's if you install a 6 chip set of ROMs. You might get by with the existing chips, and you might not. It's cheaper to have them put in during the ROM upgrade while things are apart than to do it later if it proves necessary. | |I also noticed that there was a very tiny board on top of the 68000 with a |_SCST74LS74B1_ in it and a wire running to an unlabeled spot on the |board just above and to the left of the 68000. Anyone know what its for? | It seems like it was a rather last minute change and the glue job was | very sloppy. Hmmm, my Mega has a similar kludge except the extra chip is piggy-backed on another small TTL chip. It's pretty sloppy, too. I assumed the dealer did this in the ROM upgrade, maybe not, eh? Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are those solely of the author, who has no pecuniary interest in the companies, products, or publications mentioned above. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % Andy Cassino % % uucp: hplabs!hplsla!andyc domain: andyc%hplsla@hplabs.hp.com % % Hewlett-Packard Lake Stevens Instrument Division % % 8600 Soper Hill Road Everett, WA 98205-1298 % % (206) 335-2211 % %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) (11/30/89)
In article <5440088@hplsla.HP.COM>, andyc@hplsla.HP.COM (Andy Cassino) writes: > mjv@iris.brown.edu (Marshall Vale) writes: > > |I have several questions about chips in my Mega2. > | > |I also noticed that there was a very tiny board on top of the 68000 with a > |_SCST74LS74B1_ in it and a wire running to an unlabeled spot on the > |board just above and to the left of the 68000. Anyone know what its for? > | It seems like it was a rather last minute change and the glue job was > | very sloppy. > > Hmmm, my Mega has a similar kludge except the extra chip is piggy-backed on > another small TTL chip. It's pretty sloppy, too. I assumed the dealer did > this in the ROM upgrade, maybe not, eh? > There has been quite a discussion on GEnie in Jim Allen's Fast Technology Turbo16 Topic about just this subject. It seems that when Jim Allen came out with the T16 various Blitters would fail at the higher speed. so, for some Megas, you have to replace the Blitter. You should contact Jim Allen at Fast Technology, or d/l the T16 Topic from GEnie. Anyway, the tiny pc board attached to the 68000 cpu on SOME Megas to correct a timing problem with some Blitters. It seems that Atari has more than one source of the Blitters, and not all have the same timing characteristics. So, some Megas have the little board to correct this. Again, I got this info from Jim Allen of Fast Technology. I would recommend that you get a GEnie account and contact Jim Allen there. Jim is probably the most knowledgable hw hacker for the ST outside of the engineers at Atari Corp. I hope this helps someone out there. P.S. I am a happy T16 owner myself. Jim has been a great support getting my Mega ST working with his T16. Thanks Jim! Rich Covert
covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) (12/01/89)
In article <1833@atari.UUCP>, kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher) writes: > Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes: > > | Spectre GCR was unuseable. When I had the 4 meg upgrade done they aslo > | replaced the two LS 373 chips with AS373 chips. Since then the machine has > | been 100% without a bus error to be seen and Spectre GCR is 100%. > Ken, a friend of mine wanted to buy my SLM804 laser printer. So, as I was going on a 2 week vacation around Thanksgiving I loaned my SLiMe to him. And guess what, it wouldn't work on his system! He has a stock 1040ST ( a newer model where you can just yank the 1/2 meg of RAM and replace them with 1 meg chips to upgrade the ST to 2.5 megs). Anyway, there he is sitting with a 2.5 meg 1040ST, a SH205 megafile 30 and a SLM804, but the hard drive won't boot! So my friend scratches his head, re-addresses the DMA port on the SLM804, and still no go. The slm804 works fine w/o the sh205, the sh205 works fine w/o the slm. But add the slm804 and the sh205 won't boot. My friend's solution was to go to Computer Works (God Bless Henry Ahle at CW!) and Henry suggested replacing the Atari host adapter with an ICD host adapter. And miracles of miracles, the system works fine now. My friend loves the SLM804 (unlike me who grew to *HATE* the beast). But, he couldn't get it to work in a stock Atari system. It took a third party vendor board (the ICD host adpater) to finally get the system working. So much for quality and good design at Atari! So, Ken, any ideas WHY my friend's system wouldn't boot with the Atari host adapter? Oh yes, he was using the 6 EPROM TOS 1.4 and the AS373. Henry did the new TOS installation and everything (includeing his Spectre cart) worked fine until the SLM804 was hooked up. > The hardware guys at Atari are looking into this problem. It looks like it > may be a bus loading problem caused by the GCR. I wonder, has anyone noticed > this problem occurring _without_ a cartridge plugged in? The Atari hardware > guys I've talked to say that the cart port is on the hairy edge - basically, > if you hang anything but ROM's out there, you're asking for trouble. It was > _designed_ this way, the intent of the cart port is to provide ROM space, > nothing else. Ken, WHY was the cart port designed that way?? Are you guys just too CHEAP to add a decent buffer chip to the cart port?? > > One other thing, there were some Mega 2's which were produced that are NOT > upgradable to 4 megs because of the parts used in manufacture. I don't know > the details, but just thought I'd let people know, in case you're thinking > of dropping an extra 2 megs of RAM in, it may not be that easy. Atari > dealers should be able to get the scoop on this from the dealer support folks > at Atari. > -- You know Ken, that is ONE reason why I refuse to buy the new TT. If you can't even upgrade a Mega ST2 to 4 megs because of some manufacturing decision to save 10 cents by using a MMU chip that can't address 4 megs, then what does that tell me about Atari?? It is INSANE to sell a Mega ST2 that is crippled so that it can't be upgraded to 4 megs. That is another example of Atari's No Upgrade Policy. Why do you folks do that?? And are you folks going to change this policy with regards to the TT/p? Or if I want to add more memory after I purchase a TT/P will I have to sell it and buy another TT/p with more memory?? > ||| Ken Badertscher (ames!atari!kbad) > ||| Atari R&D System Software Engine > / | \ #include <disclaimer> The sad thing is that I sold my SLM804 and am buying a Panasonic KX-P4450 laser printer. Much faster (11 ppm vs, 8 ppm for the SLM) and has builtin LaserJet+ and Epson emulation (and a whole host of other features). And the 4450 doesn't load the DMA port so I won't have problems with my 130 meg hard drives! I know that the slm804 is faster than any other printer, but the added features in the 4450 will allow me to use the 4450 with both Spectre/GCR and pc ditto/pc speed. And I couldn't do that with the slm. also, I will be able to use more ST software, programs which contain only printer drivers for Epson printers (such as Certificate Maker). I am staying with the ST, and will try to buy a TT/p as a Registered Developer simply because, even with all of the ST's warts, and with all of Atari's lack of support, the 680x0 cpus are my cpu of choice. And the ST is MUCH easier to program than the Mac!! But, I am buying as much non-Atari peripherals as possible in the future. I own two ST systems and NEVER has Atari brand hard drives. Oh well, life goes on.
rjk752@uxf.cso.uiuc.edu (12/14/89)
Is there any way to petition some sort of hierarchical notes guru or something, or some sort of moderator that can be mailed to in order to eject somebody from a notesfile. I'm not sure what the process is to get into newsgroups (my college account gives me automatic access), but it seems there could be some method by which a renewal of a subsctiption to notes could be refused. There seem to be some people out there who think this notesfile is a good place to throw tantrums and that the notesfile was created for their personal use (i.e. nobody else on the net matters, It's ME, ME, ME!). Is there no way to push these selfish, irritating, repetitive, boring, etc... people off of the net (I don't want to mention any names) ? Or can a heckler destroy the notesfile of his choice by posting it full of useless messages at will ? A curious notesfile reader