cdavis@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU (Charles Davis) (04/12/91)
Hi! (Sorry if I posted this in the wrong newsgroup the first time :^)) I am considering purchacing an MSDOS (yuk! :^( ) emulator for my Amiga. Does anyone out there have experience with the following? ATonce XT Bridgeboard (w/286 or 386 add on, perhaps?) AT Bridgeboard (Any others out there?) Questions: 1. What are the pros and cons of each? 2. Compatability problems? 3. Upgrading possabilities (specifically, 386, 486, VGA)? 4. Speed, ease of use, mouse, etc. I have an Amiga 2000 w/5 MB and a 42MB Quantum hard drive. I have a couple of versions of the old "Transformer" AT emulator program, but they refuse to work with my machine :^((, although the very same disk will run on my friends' A500s! I need to have MSDOS capability at home, unfortunately, and I don't have room (or the cash, for that matter!) for buying a cheap clone. I'm just a poor grad student! Does anyone have any input on this? I really don't want to have a PC clone sitting next to my nice Amiga, bringing down property values in the neiborhood, etc :^). Charles Michael Davis cdavis@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (no cute signature yet! :^(
drysdale@cbmvax.commodore.com (Scott Drysdale) (04/16/91)
In article <3194@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU> cdavis@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU (Charles Davis) writes: > >Hi! (Sorry if I posted this in the wrong newsgroup the first time :^)) > >I am considering purchacing an MSDOS (yuk! :^( ) emulator for my Amiga. >Does anyone out there have experience with the following? > > ATonce > XT Bridgeboard (w/286 or 386 add on, perhaps?) > AT Bridgeboard > (Any others out there?) > >Questions: > > 1. What are the pros and cons of each? > 2. Compatability problems? > 3. Upgrading possabilities (specifically, 386, 486, VGA)? > 4. Speed, ease of use, mouse, etc. > >I have an Amiga 2000 w/5 MB and a 42MB Quantum hard drive. I have a >couple of versions of the old "Transformer" AT emulator program, but they >refuse to work with my machine :^((, although the very same disk will run >on my friends' A500s! > >I need to have MSDOS capability at home, unfortunately, and I don't have >room (or the cash, for that matter!) for buying a cheap clone. I'm just >a poor grad student! > >Does anyone have any input on this? I really don't want to have a PC clone >sitting next to my nice Amiga, bringing down property values in the >neiborhood, etc :^). XT and AT bridgeboards provide: - MDA (text) display emulation - CGA (text/graphics) display emulation - keyboard emulation - parallel port emulation (intended for use with a printer, not a protection dongle) - mouse drivers for DOS, windows 2.0, and (soon) windows 3.0 - bridgeboard can use part of amiga's hard drive - amiga can use part of bridgeboard's hard drive - plugs into a bridge slot in the 2000 or 3000 or suitable expansion bus for 500/1000 - 8 and 16 bit ibm compatible cards (memory, hard drive controllers, graphics cards, etc) can be plugged into 2000 or 3000 XT/AT slots - the bridgeboard doesn't use any amiga resources (memory, cpu time) except when actually performing i/o through any of the emulation interfaces (keyboard, display, disk, mouse) XT bridgeboard provides: - low density floppy drive controller (360K/720K drives) - a connector for attaching an internally mounted 3.5" or 5.25" drive - a connector for attaching an externally mounted A1010 (3.5") or A1020 (5.25") external floppy drive - 4.77Mhz 8088 - 512K RAM AT bridgeboard provides: - high/low density floppy drive controller (360K/720K/1.2M/1.4M drives) - a connector for attaching two internally mounted floppy drives - 8Mhz 80286 - 1M RAM problems with both bridgeboards: - printer port emulation isn't exactly right, but should work with most software - the COM2 port addresses and interrupt line are reserved for use by the bridgeboard problems with the AT bridgeboard: - running windows 3.0 in standard mode causes problems with keyboard emulation - some hardcards/hard drive controllers have trouble with the current BIOS. we're fixing this problem. as to using 286/386 accelerators, some work and some don't. if you have a particular one in mind, i could check to see if it's known to work. the ATONCE is sort of a mixed bag. it's very cheap, and in addition to the same graphics modes the bridgeboards have and also provides 720x348 and 640x400 monochrome graphics modes. in my opinion, it's drawbacks are: - it is presently available only in a 68000-socket plugin version (no using real ibm pc compatible hardware, no using accelerator cards while the ATONCE is in use) - it allocates it's memory from the amiga's memory pool - it interleaves memory cycles with the 68000 (if the amiga and the ATONCE are both running, each will run at half speed) - the way it shares the amiga's floppy drive is a bit clumsy > Charles Michael Davis --Scotty -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Scott Drysdale Software Engineer Commodore Amiga Inc. UUCP {allegra|burdvax|rutgers|ihnp4}!cbmvax!drysdale PHONE - yes. "Have you hugged your hog today?" =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=