blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) (10/16/88)
There's something about the A2090A that I haven't seen mentioned
anywhere, but is very important to anyone considering buying one.
According to the A2090A addendum sheet, Seagate SCSI drives will not
autoboot with the A2090A "because of the long initialization process in
the Seagate power-up sequence".
I've seen the Seagate SCSI drives getting quite a bit of attention here,
and figured that this little detail deserves a little notice so people
don't buy incompatible parts when putting together a hard drive system.
On another subject, has the 8 head ST506 limit been fixed on the A2090A?
I saw several postings that implied that it had been fixed, but nothing
definite. This is of some importance to me since I just found a great
deal on 9 head 80 meg drive. The Prep command didn't complain when I
tried a vaule of 9 for the number of heads. Is this a good sign, or is
Prep a fairly dumb program? (I didn't actually carry through with the
prep since I don't have the drive yet.)
The A2090A does come with two autoboot ROMs, so as soon as my 1.3 ROM
shows up, I'll be in autoboot heaven. The manual says NOT to install
them unless you have 1.3. That's perfectly understandable, and its nice
to have the boot ROMs sitting right here ready to go, instead of the
RSN promises that are shipping with several other controllers.
Other trivial details I haven't seen mentioned anywhere: There's a
pair of pins on the board that the A2000's Hard Disk LED can be attached
to, so that any drive activity will be shown, even if you have multiple
drives. Also the 2 possible ST506 drives are DH0: and DH1:. If you have
a SCSI drive it is DH2: even if it's the only drive in the system. If
you're trying to store the Library of Congress, and need lots of drives,
you can have DH0: to DH8: on the first card, DI0: to DI8: on the second,
and on up through DJ and so on.
--
Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland 580 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108
Here: utah-cs!esunix!blgardne {ucbvax,allegra,decvax}!decwrl!esunix!blgardne
There: uunet!iconsys!caeco!pedro!worsel!blaine
"Nobody will ever need more than 64K." "Nobody needs multitasking on a PC."papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (10/17/88)
In article <1009@esunix.UUCP> blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) writes: >There's something about the A2090A that I haven't seen mentioned >anywhere, but is very important to anyone considering buying one. For us still stuck with the non-autoboot A2090, I got the following information from a local CBM representative that was present at a User Group meeting today. He stated that "A2090 owners will be able to have autoboot since CBM is planning to release a "daughterboard" that will include the autoboot ROMs and that will be socketed onto the A2090". He did not give any details on price and availability of such a daughterboard. So don't give away your 'old A2090 for an A2090A. Any comment/denial/flame from CBM representatives is welcome :-) -- Marco Papa 'Doc' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Diga!" -- Leo Schwab [quoting Rick Unland] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
hedley@cbmvax.UUCP (Hedley Davis) (10/17/88)
In article <12851@oberon.USC.EDU> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: > >For us still stuck with the non-autoboot A2090, I got the following >information from a local CBM representative that was present at a User >Group meeting today. He stated that "A2090 owners will be able to have >autoboot since CBM is planning to release a "daughterboard" that will include >the autoboot ROMs and that will be socketed onto the A2090". He did not >give any details on price and availability of such a daughterboard. >So don't give away your 'old A2090 for an A2090A. Any comment/denial/flame >from CBM representatives is welcome :-) > >-- Marco Papa 'Doc' That's interesting. Seems to me, the easier way to do this would be a little ROM only board with drivers that would look for the A2090. Such a board would take a whole expansion slot. Daughter boards are always nasty and you wouldm't want users attaching them anyway. This is, of course, entirely hypothetical. :-) Hedley
tope@enea.se (Tommy Petersson) (10/19/88)
In article <5007@cbmvax.UUCP> hedley@cbmvax.UUCP (Hedley Davis) writes: -In article <12851@oberon.USC.EDU> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: -> ->For us still stuck with the non-autoboot A2090, I got the following ->information from a local CBM representative that was present at a User ->Group meeting today. He stated that "A2090 owners will be able to have ->autoboot since CBM is planning to release a "daughterboard" that will include ->the autoboot ROMs and that will be socketed onto the A2090". He did not ->give any details on price and availability of such a daughterboard. ->So don't give away your 'old A2090 for an A2090A. Any comment/denial/flame ->from CBM representatives is welcome :-) -> ->-- Marco Papa 'Doc' - -That's interesting. - -Seems to me, the easier way to do this would be a little ROM only board -with drivers that would look for the A2090. Such a board would take a -whole expansion slot. Daughter boards are always nasty and you wouldm't -want users attaching them anyway. - -This is, of course, entirely hypothetical. :-) - -Hedley Wouldn't it be interesting for not to few people with a board with auto-boot ROM's, an extra serial port and a parallell one and perhaps some other niceties ? Is it any problem in AmigaDOS to have a lot of serial and parallell ports ? Perhaps a modem on above mentioned card ?
space@sns.UUCP (Lars Soltau) (10/20/88)
In article <12851@oberon.USC.EDU> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: >For us still stuck with the non-autoboot A2090, I got the following >information from a local CBM representative that was present at a User >Group meeting today. He stated that "A2090 owners will be able to have >autoboot since CBM is planning to release a "daughterboard" that will include >the autoboot ROMs and that will be socketed onto the A2090". Here I am, again trusting a promise by Commodore. If that be true, I will publicly apologize to everyone feeling hurt by my previous posting. --- Lars Soltau UUCP: ...uunet!unido!sns!space BIX: -- no bucks --
steveb@cbmvax.UUCP (Steve Beats) (10/24/88)
In article <23@sns.UUCP> space@sns.UUCP (Lars Soltau) writes: >In article <12851@oberon.USC.EDU> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: >>For us still stuck with the non-autoboot A2090, I got the following >>information from a local CBM representative that was present at a User >>Group meeting today. He stated that "A2090 owners will be able to have >>autoboot since CBM is planning to release a "daughterboard" that will include >>the autoboot ROMs and that will be socketed onto the A2090". > >Here I am, again trusting a promise by Commodore. If that be true, I will >publicly apologize to everyone feeling hurt by my previous posting. >--- Since no-one else has responded, I guess I will. There WILL be a daughter board available for the 2090 to make it function like a 2090a. It means that you will have to waste an extra slot, but you will get full autoboot capability. This thing hasn't gone through QA yet (as far as I know anyway) so I can't make any guesses as to availability date, but it's coming.... Steve