lord_zar@ucrmath.ucr.edu (wayne wallace) (06/17/91)
lapeyre@oasys.dt.navy.mil (J P Lapeyre) writes: >why my system doesn't show 4 megs of fast RAM? The 3.5 worth all checks >out fine. That's my dilemma, the other 0.5 meg doesn't even show up >so, how can I test it? >J.P. Ahem. (Geez, I don't even have access to an A3000, and I know the answer. ;) Q: What has Commodore NOT produced yet? A: Kickstart & co. in ROMS. Q: Where is kickstart located, if not in ROM? A: In RAM. Q: Could that be why 0.5 meg is "missing" in my system? A: Of course, and in fact, that is the reason. AmigaOS 2.0 isn't really finalized for ROM yet, although it should be fairly soon. Wayne
rblewitt@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (Richard Blewitt) (06/17/91)
In article <8476@oasys.dt.navy.mil> lapeyre@oasys.dt.navy.mil (J P Lapeyre) writes: >Hi, I recently installed 8 1Megabit x 4 bit Zips into my 16/50 A3000 >why my system doesn't show 4 megs of fast RAM? The 3.5 worth all checks >out fine. That's my dilemma, the other 0.5 meg doesn't even show up >so, how can I test it? For the 10 zilionth time, thats where your kickstart is. If the ram was bad, the machine wouldn't work. Will somebody please start a FAQ list for all of these questions that keep getting re-asked. (I would, but my time and disk space are very limited right now.) Rick _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________.sig____________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ The generic .sig Rick Blewitt rblewitt@ucsd.edu
burkert1@platon.fmi.uni-passau.de (Klaus Burkert) (06/17/91)
In article <8476@oasys.dt.navy.mil> lapeyre@oasys.dt.navy.mil (J P Lapeyre) writes: >Hi, I recently installed 8 1Megabit x 4 bit Zips into my 16/50 A3000 >and moved the 256Kx4 dips into chip memory. I installed the zips into >bank 0 and when I rebooted my A3000 shows 2 meg chip memory and 3.5 meg >fast RAM. I've checked and rechecked all pins but can't see any probs. >I removed one chip and the machine wouldn't even boot. Anyone know >why my system doesn't show 4 megs of fast RAM? The 3.5 worth all checks >out fine. That's my dilemma, the other 0.5 meg doesn't even show up >so, how can I test it? > You forgot one important thing: Because Kickstart is not in ROM yet, it is being loaded from disk. And because it must be loaded to RAM and its size is 512KB, 0.5 Meg of your FastRAM is being eaten up! Klaus. ------------------------------------------------------------- Klaus Burkert email: burkert1@platon.fmi.uni-passau.de Brandweg 11 voice: +49-851/83993 D-W-8390 Passau / Federal Republic of Germany
mks@cbmvax.commodore.com (Michael Sinz) (06/17/91)
In article <8476@oasys.dt.navy.mil> lapeyre@oasys.dt.navy.mil (J P Lapeyre) writes: >Hi, I recently installed 8 1Megabit x 4 bit Zips into my 16/50 A3000 >and moved the 256Kx4 dips into chip memory. I installed the zips into >bank 0 and when I rebooted my A3000 shows 2 meg chip memory and 3.5 meg >fast RAM. I've checked and rechecked all pins but can't see any probs. >I removed one chip and the machine wouldn't even boot. Anyone know >why my system doesn't show 4 megs of fast RAM? The 3.5 worth all checks >out fine. That's my dilemma, the other 0.5 meg doesn't even show up >so, how can I test it? The other 512K is currently being used by the system to load KickStart. Kickstart on the A3000 is loaded into RAM via some magic in the current A3000 ROM. This magic removes 512K of RAM from the system and places Kickstart there. When/if you ever upgrade to ROMs you will get the 512K back but you may also wish to used it again with CPU FASTROM since the RAM chips (and SCRAMs even more so) are much faster than the ROM chips. -- Mike /----------------------------------------------------------------------\ | /// Michael Sinz - Amiga Software Engineer | | /// Operating System Development Group | | /// BIX: msinz UUNET: rutgers!cbmvax!mks | |\\\/// | | \XX/ "I don't think so" said Ren'e Descartes, then he vanished. | \----------------------------------------------------------------------/
cactus@zardoz.club.cc.cmu.edu (Todd Masco) (06/17/91)
In article <8476@oasys.dt.navy.mil> lapeyre@oasys.dt.navy.mil (J P Lapeyre) writes: > Anyone know > why my system doesn't show 4 megs of fast RAM? The 3.5 worth all checks > out fine. That's my dilemma, the other 0.5 meg doesn't even show up > so, how can I test it? Worry not. This is a "problem" that I found with my 3000 when I got it, but after putting a little thought into it, it seemed clear what was going on. Firstly, before you put the 4 more megs in, your system should have been showing 1 Meg Chip/ .5 Meg Fast. Secondly, we all know that the 2.0 ROMs are not yet available -- and they will be 512K. When you boot up, the screen flashes that it's loading Kickstart 2.x. It's got to go somewhere in memory. So, it kind of makes sense that the "missing" memory is being used for what would normally be in the Kickstart ROM. It's partitioned off from the rest of your memory. After coming to this conclusion, I asked a friend what was going on -- and I was right. In the place of the ROMs there are some EEPROMs telling the 3000 to load from a partition on the harddrive in the partitioned memory. I couldn't find any mention of this anywhere in the docs, by the way. I didn't look *awefully* hard, but it would have been nice to see it somewhere in bold, friendly letters. -- Todd L. Masco - CMU Physics | "Free speech is the right to shout cactus@zardoz.club.cc.cmu.edu | 'theatre' in a crowded fire."
dfisk@level10.UUCP (David Fisk) (06/18/91)
In article <8476@oasys.dt.navy.mil>, J P Lapeyre writes: > Hi, I recently installed 8 1Megabit x 4 bit Zips into my 16/50 A3000 > and moved the 256Kx4 dips into chip memory. I installed the zips into > bank 0 and when I rebooted my A3000 shows 2 meg chip memory and 3.5 meg > fast RAM. I've checked and rechecked all pins but can't see any probs. There's no problem. The missing 512K is being used to load kickstart 2.0. The very first 3000's showed all the memory there, with 512K in use, but soon switched to only showing the memory you can use. I would assume that once the real ROMs are out you will get your memory back. Dave... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Fisk - level10%dfisk@merk.com ...uunet!merk!level10!dfisk
billsey@nesbbx.UUCP (Bill Seymour) (06/19/91)
In article <8476@oasys.dt.navy.mil>, J P Lapeyre writes: > Hi, I recently installed 8 1Megabit x 4 bit Zips into my 16/50 A3000 > and moved the 256Kx4 dips into chip memory. I installed the zips into > bank 0 and when I rebooted my A3000 shows 2 meg chip memory and 3.5 meg > fast RAM. I've checked and rechecked all pins but can't see any probs. > I removed one chip and the machine wouldn't even boot. Anyone know > why my system doesn't show 4 megs of fast RAM? The 3.5 worth all checks > out fine. That's my dilemma, the other 0.5 meg doesn't even show up > so, how can I test it? It's you kickstart that's fooling you. Remember that until the 2.04 ROMs are released, you use 512K of fast memory for the 2.0 kickstart image. Boot under 1.3 and only 256K sjhould be 'missing'. -Bill Seymour nesbbx!billsey@agora.uucp or nesbbx!billsey@agora.rain.com ***** American People/Link Amiga Zone Hardware Specialist NES*BILL ***** Bejed, Inc. NES, Inc. NAG BBS NES BBX BBS Home Sometimes (503)281-8153 (503)246-9311 (503)656-7393 (503)640-9337 (503) 640-0842