nygardm@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Michael T. Nygard) (04/01/91)
I haven't yet had a chance to play with a 3000UX, but I have got the Commodore brochure on it. (It's the one that says "Born to run Unix SVR4".) In the center, it has a picture of what is presumably the motherboard of the 3000UX. Well, it looks very familiar. Identical in fact. I looked at my stock 3000 and I can't see anything different (except the 8MB fast ram :-). Does anyone know if there is a hardware difference, or is it all in the software? If so, will 3000 owners be able to run Unix? (Maybe the difference is in those empty ROM sockets? Would a ROM switcher board work?) Thanks in advance for any info! Mike Nygard "I hate vi!" nygardm@coil.cco.caltech.edu
ford@amix.commodore.com (Mike "Ford" Ditto) (04/02/91)
In article <1991Apr1.090035.22477@nntp-server.caltech.edu> nygardm@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Michael T. Nygard) writes: > Does anyone know if there is a hardware difference, or is it all in the >software? The hardware is the same aside from configuration differences (i.e., how much RAM and hard disk, which boards are included, and what software gets packaged in). > (Maybe the difference is in those empty ROM sockets? Would a ROM switcher >board work?) The ROMs are the same. -=] Ford [=- "The term most often used in this (In Real Life: Mike Ditto) manual is `implementation-defined'." ford@amix.commodore.com - SVR4 Programmer's Guide: POSIX uunet!cbmvax!ditto ford@kenobi.commodore.com
daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (04/02/91)
In article <1991Apr1.090035.22477@nntp-server.caltech.edu> nygardm@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Michael T. Nygard) writes: >In the center, it has a picture of what is presumably the motherboard of the >3000UX. Well, it looks very familiar. Identical in fact. Imagine that. It's the same thing, only variations are the basic configurations and perhaps the faceplate. > Does anyone know if there is a hardware difference, or is it all in the >software? If so, will 3000 owners be able to run Unix? Yup, soon as they decide to sell it separately. You can even run UNIX on an A2500 (lots of beta testers, and even our UNIX group until last summer, ran on A2500s). > (Maybe the difference is in those empty ROM sockets? Would a ROM switcher >board work?) UNIX doesn't require any additional ROMs in the A3000. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" -R.E.M.
Tyler Sarna <tsarna@polar.bowdoin.edu> (04/04/91)
In <20261@cbmvax.commodore.com> of comp.sys.amiga.hardware, Dave Haynie <daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com> writes: > Yup, soon as they decide to sell it separately. You can even run UNIX on an > A2500 (lots of beta testers, and even our UNIX group until last summer, ran > on A2500s). I'm sure that this has been discussed in comp.unix.amiga, but some of us can't read that group (in spite of pleading with amiga-relay-request@udel.edu...) I (and I'm sure many others) are waiting for a separate release of Unix. The obvious questions are when and how much? (list, developer, and edu prices). I'd really appreciate information on this, and also on support for third-part HD controllers (specifically GVP Series II). Thanks. ------///------------------------------------------------------------ /// Tyler "Ty" Sarna E-Mail: tsarna@polar.bowdoin.edu \\\/// "Heisenberg may have slept here" - Unknown --\XX/---------------------------------------------------------------
ajbrouw@neabbs.UUCP (ALBERT-JAN BROUWER) (04/15/91)
John Veldthuis wrote: >>I have an A2620 in my Amiga and I have lockup troubles when DMA'ing to 32 >>bit memory with my HardFrame Harddisk and want to set the MASK so that the >>HardFrame only uses the 4 meg of Fast memory starting at $00600000 as >>buffers I've exactly the same problem John has. Config: Hardframe, 2630, Quantum. Lockups are only on _writes_ from 32bits RAM. Shuffling the boards to less optimal slot positions makes reads to 32bit RAM cause trouble as well. Dave Haynie wrote: > There are actually two potential problems. An unknown number of A2000 > motherboards prior to Revision 4.5 have a particular brand of buffer chip in > one location between local and expansion buses that causes a marginal condition > (...) > This is cured by adding a 1K resistor between pins 11 and 20 of U605 in the > A2000 I've a rev 6.0 2000 upgraded to 6.2. and tried the U605 patch. It didn't make a difference ofcourse (6.0 being > 4.5) > Early Hardframes also had a problem, essentially a marginal bit of timing on > their DMA handoff logic, nothing off enough to affect the slower 68000, but > trouble for any coprocessor board with fast onboard memory. Microbotics has > a fix for this, if you have one of the older boards. I've the latest HardFrame chips. Have sent it to MicroBotics to have this verified as well as getting the latest ROM. So that aint the problem either. So... Does anyone know about other conditions, in addition to those mentioned above, that cause DMA lockup notably FROM 32bits memory? As a temporary solution I've hacked up the FastFilingSystem to allocate buffers in 16 bit RAM, and write through the buffers instead of direct DMA, when writing from 32bit memory. However I feel little for repeating this procedure for every new FFS revision, and 32bit originating writes are horridly slow this way. -Albert (hp4nl!neabbs!ajbrouw) "After 5 days of debugging efforts, I decided to let it win a core-wars competition instead."