mnu@INEL.GOV (Rick Morneau) (12/20/90)
I currently own an Amiga 2000 with a Microbotics 8-UP memory board and a Microbotics HardFrame HD controller, controlling a Quantum 80S drive. Unfortunately, the motherboard for the 2000 is Rev 6, and does not allow simultaneous operation of the memory board and the HD controller. I understand that this is a design flaw which was corrected in later versions of the mother- board. Unfortunately, I discovered this after the warranty ran out. Currently, I am running with only the HD, and letting the memory board collect dust. Recently, I've been considering purchase of the more powerful Amiga 3000. My question is: will I be able to use my memory board and disk controller on the 3000? If anyone out there can provide an answer to this, I would appreciate very much hearing from you. Many thanks in advance! Rick *=*=* A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. (T.J.) *=*=* = Rick Morneau Idaho National Engineering Laboratory = * mnu@nairobi.inel.gov Idaho Falls, Idaho 83415 * =*=*=*=*=*=* All kings is mostly rapscallions. (M.T.) =*=*=*=*=*=*=
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (12/21/90)
In article <9012191933.AA00620@.nairobi.inel.gov.inel.gov.> mnu@INEL.GOV (Rick Morneau) writes: >Recently, I've been considering purchase of the more >powerful Amiga 3000. My question is: will I be able to >use my memory board and disk controller on the 3000? The memory board will work fine, though of course, much slower than normal A3000 memory. There's some kind of a problem with the HardFrame, which appears to be a data hold time problem, that makes it fail with DMA to Chip RAM on the A3000. It'll work fine with DMA into any expansion bus memory, and can't reach the A3000's motherboard memory. So yes, it will work OK on the A3000 as long as you specify Fast Memory in the board's mountlist. However, there is a software problem with the Hardframe (and most Zorro II DMA controllers), in that they never considered that there might be non-24 bit Fast memory in the system. So they often allocate buffers in A3000 memory, that they can't reach. All of which is moot, of course, because the A3000 has a much faster SCSI controller built in. Microbotics follows the Rigid Disk Block standard, so you should be able to take any drives you have off that controller, perhaps adjust a SCSI address jumper if necessary, and them plug them right into the A3000. >= Rick Morneau Idaho National Engineering Laboratory = -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "I can't drive 55" -Sammy Hagar