[comp.sys.amiga.tech] LUCAS Problems with expansion memory

kgschlueter@violet.waterloo.edu (Kevin Schlueter) (04/22/89)

Myself and a friend are having trouble getting our LUCAS boards to work
with expansion memory.  He owns a starboard, I own a "rambo 2" (an
autoconfig, external, 2 meg memory box made by a company no longer in
business).  We have tried various 74xxx74's for U9 and U8 (including 
the two chip hybrids) and have built bus terminators, but to no avail.
Both our systems freeze just prior to putting up the picture of the
hand holding the workbench disk.

I'm not an expert in amiga hardware, but I assume that something is 
screwing up (how's that for a technical term) in the autoconfig.  

I have the original A1000 hardware manual, and noticed that there is a
section on autoconfig.  I have not yet read it though.  Before I do,
could anyone tell me if it is accurate (or if the autoconfig spec has
changed?).  Since the problem might be something that happens right after
autoconfig (there'd be no way of telling), what happens immediately after
autoconfigging a memory board?

Any help, hints or wild ideas would be appreciated.

...Kevin Schlueter...
Dept. of Computer Science / Computer Graphics Lab
University of Waterloo

kgschlueter@cgl.waterloo.edu

crash@jc3b21.UUCP (Frank J. Edwards) (04/23/89)

From article <13417@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, by kgschlueter@violet.waterloo.edu (Kevin Schlueter):
> Myself and a friend are having trouble getting our LUCAS boards to work
> with expansion memory.  He owns a starboard, I own a "rambo 2" (an
> autoconfig, external, 2 meg memory box made by a company no longer in
> business).

Interesting.  The LUCAS board is designed for a 1000, but when a friend
of mine came visiting from Orlando he brought his board and we tried
to install it in a 500 (the 500's cover had to remain off).

The 500 has 1.5MB in an external box (I don't know the manufacturer's
name) and the same thing happened at boot-up, although the 500 got
a little bit further:  the WorkBench screen would come up, but when
we attempted to execute anything, the machine would bomb.  Obviously
it passed the auto-config stage (this is 1.3), AND was able to read/execute
the programs in the startup-sequence ... why would it wait until WB
time to hang-up??

I realize this doesn't help your problem at all, but perhaps it'll
lead someone to the cause...

----
Frank "Crash" Edwards
I don't have a cute .signature

bmacintyre@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Blair MacIntyre) (04/25/89)

In article <637@jc3b21.UUCP> crash@jc3b21.UUCP (Frank J. Edwards) writes:
>From article <13417@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, by kgschlueter@violet.waterloo.edu (Kevin Schlueter):
>> Myself and a friend are having trouble getting our LUCAS boards to work
>> with expansion memory.  He owns a starboard, I own a "rambo 2" (an
>> autoconfig, external, 2 meg memory box made by a company no longer in
>> business).
>
>The 500 has 1.5MB in an external box (I don't know the manufacturer's
>name) and the same thing happened at boot-up, although the 500 got
>a little bit further:  the WorkBench screen would come up, but when
>we attempted to execute anything, the machine would bomb.  Obviously
>it passed the auto-config stage (this is 1.3), AND was able to read/execute
>the programs in the startup-sequence ... why would it wait until WB
>time to hang-up??

Your two problems are not the same.  Kevin's is probably, as he points out,
happening at auto-config time, or thereabouts.  Actually, it's probably
dying when it tries to do something like enable the cache or check for
the '881 ( I remember reading that this happens right before the workbench
screen comes up ) ...

Your problem is something more like I had.  It is basically one of flakiness.
I built the bus terminator and it bacame quite solid.  As you say, mine
was dying: when I tried to loadwb, when it got a requestor, etc.
Anything that was CHIP-MEM related ( it seemed ).  And always with an
f-line instruction.

Now, it just hangs when I put my Supra on and try to "supramount".  If
I just let the Supra sit (no mount) it will die eventually, with very
wierd errors.

Sigh.

Blair
-- 
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= Blair MacIntyre, bmacintyre@watsol.{waterloo.edu, UWaterloo.ca}             =
= "Don't be mean ... remember, no matter where you go, there you are." BBanzai=
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