eephdma@prism.gatech.EDU (mark shewmaker) (04/17/91)
In article <20543@cbmvax.commodore.com> drysdale@cbmvax.commodore.com (Scott Drysdale) writes: >In article <1991Apr10.002547.18565@sbcs.sunysb.edu> dtiberio@eeserv1.ic.sunysb.edu (David Tiberio) writes: >> I know that people have used the Bridgeboard in a3000's by removing the >>back plate. Is this true, and are there any other incompatibilities? How >"removing the back plate?" that's the toaster, not the bridgeboard. [Explanations of slot placement differences and consequences deleted.] >once more, here's what you have to do if you run a bridgeboard under ks/wb >2.0 on a machine with a data cache (a 3000, for example): [Definition of data cache problem and solutions deleted.] Does the data cache 'problem', and the difference in slot orientations, account for all the known difficulties in getting a bridgeboard to work properly in a 3000? (When it would otherwise have worked just fine in a vanilla 2000.) And now for a completely different bridgeboard question: I have only a fuzzy idea about just what exactly the Janus library is responsible for, or rather, how far its responsibility extends. I know that it lets the two sides of the resultant machine's brain communicate, so to speak. (With the Amiga of course being the fun and creative side, and the PC clone being the boring and unimaginative side. :) ) Anyway, as I understand it, the janus.library is responsible for the fact that the Amiga and clone sides of the machine can (unscrupulously) share each others hard drives. Ok, now I have seen an ad for something called "Bridgecard Commander +", or something along those lines, that is a hardware device which allows the Amiga and clone sides of the machine to share each other's disk drives. The fact that this ad exists, and from recent discussion net discussions, and in fact dealer discussions, (Amiga dealers, not drug dealers :) ), leads me to realize that the Amiga and clone floppy drives are in fact exclusively Amiga or clone floppy drives! So the first question is "Does this device work well?" (My local dealer <smirk> knew nothing of this device.) The second question is "Why in the world is such a device even necessary." I mean I'm not expecting the amiga side to read/write IBM disks, Crossdoss/MSH style, nor am I expecting the clone side to access AmigaDos formatted disks. I would simply expect, as a matter of course, that if Janus lets a HD partition on an Amiga side of the machine be accessed as C: by the clone side of the machine, and lets the Amiga side of the machine access a partion on the clone HD as, say, TheDarkSide:, then it would be easy for a floppy drive on the Amiga side to be accessable by the clone, too. It just seems that a driver could pass all the required "step the head to here..." info from the bridgeboard to the Amiga hardware and its drive, and be a very simple driver at that. (Two things: One: I know next to nothing about drivers, so I am likely to be very wrong as to the difficulty. Two: No, I do _not_ expect to be able to stick an Amiga disk into a drive connected to the bridgeboard, just the other way around.) Any explanations would be appreciated. (These are probably very naive questions. I am trying to persuade a friend, who would otherwise buy a PS/2, to buy an Amiga and a Bridgeboard instead. I guess I really haven't been keeping up with Bridgeboard stuff--It just never occured to me that I might have any reason whatsoever to have done so. Sorta embarrassing, really, seeing as most people's first question about a computer is: "Is it IBM compatable?" Anyway, I'm sorry if I'm bringing up already fully discussed questions. Also, please forgive my 2 AM attempts at humor.) >> David Tiberio SUNY Stony Brook 2-3481 AMIGA DDD-MEN Tomas Arce > --Scotty >-- >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= >Scott Drysdale Software Engineer >Commodore Amiga Inc. UUCP {allegra|burdvax|rutgers|ihnp4}!cbmvax!drysdale > PHONE - yes. >"Have you hugged your hog today?" >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= --- -- mark shewmaker Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!eephdma ARPA: eephdma@prism.gatech.edu