whorfin@pixar.uucp (Beware of programmers wearing grounding straps.) (08/10/89)
During a recent art installation opening, a clumsy cheesehead plugged the
serial cable into the disk port. It didn't fit, but it fit well enough
to bust things.
The symptoms:
The amiga wouldn't boot. It would only play the first 4 notes of its "happy
melody". Some time later, I took it home to operate. First 4 notes.
Swapped the 8520's. Last five notes only, no boot. I didn't remember the
significance of the notes, having long since forgotten both that and
the significance of boot-failure colored screens, but figured an 8520 must've
been fried. "They're always the first to go." So, I bought a new 8520.
Some weeks later, the 8520 arrives. I turn on the Amiga to confirm the
previous behavior, only now it plays the whole melody, but refuses to
accept Kickstart. By ejecting and reinserting kickstart, rebooting and
power cycling, I get it running long enough to check the disk drive
speed. Seems OK. But, now it won't boot at all. It either goes to
a yellow screen, or continually refuses to accept kickstart. If it manages
to read kickstart, I get as far as loading workbench, at which point it
gurus back to kickstart.
Replacing either of the two 8520's does nothing to change this
behavior. What's up? Suggestions?
---
Rick Sayre "Use more honey;
ucbvax!pixar!whorfin find out what she knows"