lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (06/07/90)
Just a couple of corrections... In <5712@hub.ucsb.edu>, dz@papaya.ucsb.edu (Daniel James Zerkle) writes: >Earlier, I posted a whole lot of questions. I was asked to summarize >some of the answers, so here they are: > >General: A3000 has 4 Zorro 3 slots. 2 are inline with AT slots, 1 with >video slot, 1 with CPU slot. Putting a card in a slot may cover the >inline slot, rendering it useless. The CPU slot is not anywhere near the Zorro III slots. It is a separate, 200 pin slot under the drive/power tray. >RAM: Can take up to 4 ZIPS, each holding 1 or 4 megs of 32-bit RAM. A ZIP is a single chip, and holds either 1meg * 4 or 256K * 4. There are sockets for 32 ZIPs, allowing either 4 or 16 megs of FAST memory on the motherboard. -larry -- The raytracer of justice recurses slowly, but it renders exceedingly fine. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
dz@papaya.ucsb.edu (Daniel James Zerkle) (06/07/90)
Earlier, I posted a whole lot of questions. I was asked to summarize some of the answers, so here they are: General: A3000 has 4 Zorro 3 slots. 2 are inline with AT slots, 1 with video slot, 1 with CPU slot. Putting a card in a slot may cover the inline slot, rendering it useless. Bridgeboard: The two bridgeboards out now will work with the A3000, but cover slots. They can drive a VGA card in the other slot. They can control thier own hard drive. Amiga side and bridgeboard side can use partitions on each other's hard disks, but it is slow. Software will let you read MS-DOS disks with the Amiga drives. Bridgeboard can not use Amiga serial port (like modem), and modems in the AT slots are not usable by the Amiga side. Display modes supported by the bridgeboard are text and CGA (editorial: and EGA mode would be a big improvement, and the Amiga hardware could handle it easily). UNIX: These are all rumors, and should be treated as such. Port of Sys V.4 expected for Fall including tape drive and lots of 4.3BSD stuff. Cost totally unknown, but I expect $1500 - $2000. RAM: Can take up to 4 ZIPS, each holding 1 or 4 megs of 32-bit RAM. Normal Amiga RAM cards can be used, but will be 16-bit. ZIPs available through computer shopper for < $100/meg. Can probably do ok with the 2 megs, but compiling with optimization should take a lot more. I expect to use at least 6 megs, and go up. General rule: get as much as you can. I think I would not worry once I got up to 7 megs. 1950: Normal multisync, but supposedly high quality. The .31 dot pitch is not the greatest (.28 is best), but supposedly handles certain video modes better than others. One person said it is "mushy", whatever that means. SCSI: Plug & play, controller included in box. Got conflicting reports about termination. My guess is that it would be safest to terminate any new devices. Note: the 3000 has only 1 available drive bay after the hard disk and floppy disk are installed. Might be best to make second floppy external, so new hard drive can be internal. Graphics modes with > 4096 colors: 12 bit graphics are built into the data paths on the motherboard, so new modes would have to come from a card. These will be non-standard, most likely. Commodore says (in Byte) "We are working on both short term and long term solutions." In other words: "Don't hold your breath." OS updates: OS currently loads into RAM, so updates will be on floppy. Will eventually be put into ROMs. | Dan Zerkle home:(805) 968-4683 work:687-0110 | | dz@cornu.ucsb.edu dz%cornu@ucsbuxa.bitnet ...ucbvax!hub!cornu!dz | | Snailmail: 6681 Berkshire Terrace #5, Isla Vista, CA 93117 | | Disclaimer: My fish are stupid. |
mk59200@korppi.tut.fi (Kolkka Markku Olavi) (06/07/90)
In article <5712@hub.ucsb.edu> dz@cornu.ucsb.edu (Daniel James Zerkle) writes: >Earlier, I posted a whole lot of questions. I was asked to summarize >some of the answers, so here they are: >RAM: Can take up to 4 ZIPS, each holding 1 or 4 megs of 32-bit RAM. This should be 4 _banks_ of ZIPs, with 8 4-bit wide chips in each bank. The chips can be either 256x4 (1 Mbit) or 1Mx4 (4 Mbit) ones. >SCSI: Plug & play, controller included in box. Got conflicting reports >about termination. My guess is that it would be safest to terminate any >new devices. You are going to have major trouble with more than two terminator packs on a SCSI bus. The standard specifies _exactly_ two terminators, but you could manage with only one if the cables are short enough (internal drives only). -- Markku Kolkka mk59200@tut.fi
mks@cbmvax.commodore.com (Michael Sinz - CATS) (06/13/90)
In article <5712@hub.ucsb.edu> dz@cornu.ucsb.edu (Daniel James Zerkle) writes: >Earlier, I posted a whole lot of questions. I was asked to summarize >some of the answers, so here they are: > >General: A3000 has 4 Zorro 3 slots. 2 are inline with AT slots, 1 with >video slot, 1 with CPU slot. Putting a card in a slot may cover the >inline slot, rendering it useless. The CPU slot is *NOT* inline with any of the ZORRO slots. The thing looks like this 1 Video Slot Zorro II/III (4) | | \|/ \|/ ---- ---- -------------- ------- ---- -------------- ------- ---- -------------- -------------- /|\ | PC/AT Slots (2) The CPU slot is in a completely different place. It is located under the floppy drive assembly which is on the back of the backplane. +----------------------------+ This is a TOP View... | | | | B| | | a| | | c| | | k| | | P| | | l| | | a| | | n| ............ | | e| : : | | S| : CPU Card : | | l| : : | | o| : : | | t| : CPU Slot : | | | : ---------- : | +----------------------------+ Front of the machine >RAM: Can take up to 4 ZIPS, each holding 1 or 4 megs of 32-bit RAM. >Normal Amiga RAM cards can be used, but will be 16-bit. ZIPs available >through computer shopper for < $100/meg. Can probably do ok with the >2 megs, but compiling with optimization should take a lot more. I expect >to use at least 6 megs, and go up. General rule: get as much as you can. >I think I would not worry once I got up to 7 megs. If it took only 4 ZIPs things would be very bad. (Since it takes 8 of the 256Kx4 parts to make a Megabyte...) Anyway, the A3000 takes upto 32 ZIPs. You need to expand in 8-chip banks (since you will use either 256Kx4 or 1Mx4 chips and you need x32 for a bank) The cost of the chips depend on the type. They can be either PAGE MODE DRAM or STATIC COLUMN DRAM. (DRAM or SCRAM for short) Costs I have seen were on the range of $14/chip at 256Kx4 $58/chip at 1Mx4 Since you need 8 chips at a time (for either 1Meg or 4Meg of RAM) it will cost 8 times the cost of the chip. So, with these numbers you can get upto 4 meg of FAST RAM with 256Kx4 chips or 16 meg of FAST RAM with 1Mx4 chips. >| Dan Zerkle home:(805) 968-4683 work:687-0110 | >| dz@cornu.ucsb.edu dz%cornu@ucsbuxa.bitnet ...ucbvax!hub!cornu!dz | >| Snailmail: 6681 Berkshire Terrace #5, Isla Vista, CA 93117 | >| Disclaimer: My fish are stupid. | /----------------------------------------------------------------------\ | /// Michael Sinz -- CATS/Amiga Software Engineer | | /// PHONE 215-431-9422 UUCP ( uunet | rutgers ) !cbmvax!mks | | /// | |\\\/// When people are free to do as they please, | | \XX/ they usually imitate each other. | \----------------------------------------------------------------------/
ammrk@swbatl.sbc.com (Mike R. Kraml) (06/13/90)
In article <5712@hub.ucsb.edu> dz@cornu.ucsb.edu (Daniel James Zerkle) writes: >Earlier, I posted a whole lot of questions. I was asked to summarize >some of the answers, so here they are: > >General: A3000 has 4 Zorro 3 slots. 2 are inline with AT slots, 1 with >video slot, 1 with CPU slot. Putting a card in a slot may cover the >inline slot, rendering it useless. Nope: Actually the CPU slot is towards the front right side of the machine where the card runs parallel under the drive bay. > >1950: Normal multisync, but supposedly high quality. The .31 dot pitch >is not the greatest (.28 is best), but supposedly handles certain video Actually .21 (my SONY CDP1310 (OEM highend Mulitsync) would be considered better that .28, but I am sure there is better. >modes better than others. One person said it is "mushy", whatever that >means. > >SCSI: Plug & play, controller included in box. Got conflicting reports >about termination. My guess is that it would be safest to terminate any Its always safe to say terminate the last and only the last SCSI device in the chain. This goes for most daisy chained devices (including ST506). >new devices. Note: the 3000 has only 1 available drive bay after the >hard disk and floppy disk are installed. Might be best to make second >floppy external, so new hard drive can be internal. > >Graphics modes with > 4096 colors: 12 bit graphics are built into the >data paths on the motherboard, so new modes would have to come from a >card. These will be non-standard, most likely. Commodore says (in Byte) >"We are working on both short term and long term solutions." In other >words: "Don't hold your breath." > >OS updates: OS currently loads into RAM, so updates will be on floppy. >Will eventually be put into ROMs. > >| Dan Zerkle home:(805) 968-4683 work:687-0110 | >| dz@cornu.ucsb.edu dz%cornu@ucsbuxa.bitnet ...ucbvax!hub!cornu!dz | >| Snailmail: 6681 Berkshire Terrace #5, Isla Vista, CA 93117 | >| Disclaimer: My fish are stupid. | -- ============================================================================= Mike Kraml - Manager-Separations MECHANIZATION - SWBT - (The Techies) UUCP: {uunet, bellcore, texbell}...!swbatl.sbc.com!ammrk =============================================================================
ammrk@swbatl.sbc.com (Mike R. Kraml) (06/13/90)
In article <1990Jun12.213632.7738@swbatl.sbc.com> ammrk@swbatl.UUCP (Mike R. Kraml) writes: >In article <5712@hub.ucsb.edu> dz@cornu.ucsb.edu (Daniel James Zerkle) writes: >> >>1950: Normal multisync, but supposedly high quality. The .31 dot pitch >>is not the greatest (.28 is best), but supposedly handles certain video >Actually .21 (my SONY CDP1310 (OEM highend Mulitsync) would be considered Sorry Guys: My numbers were off: Actually the monitor is CDP1302A, and the dot pitch is actually .25mm, sorry for the inaccuracy, but the idea is the same..... Just wanted to clear things up. Mike... > >-- > ============================================================================= > Mike Kraml - Manager-Separations MECHANIZATION - SWBT - (The Techies) > UUCP: {uunet, bellcore, texbell}...!swbatl.sbc.com!ammrk > ============================================================================= -- ============================================================================= Mike Kraml - Manager-Separations MECHANIZATION - SWBT - (The Techies) UUCP: {uunet, bellcore, texbell}...!swbatl.sbc.com!ammrk =============================================================================