a218@mindlink.UUCP (Charlie Gibbs) (06/01/90)
In article <3558@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> consp13@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu (Marcus Cannava) writes: >Can I then buy *any* IBM compatible drive, and just plug it in >to the board, or does this render me without a drive? Does >the A1010 work with the board? I replaced the 1.2-megabyte drive that came with my 2286 with a 360K drive (I do most of my file exchanges with 360K machines and wanted to avoid the possibility of trouble), and added a 3 1/2-inch drive as well. It works well, with a couple of quirks. First of all, whenever I shut the power off for more than a few hours, the system configuration seems to forget about the new drives and reverts to a single 1.2-megabyte drive; I get the message "Drive 0 configuration error" (sometimes drive 1 as well) during startup. I think this is caused my my hard card; it seems to remember things OK when I remove the hard card, but I haven't done a lot of extensive tests on this. Second, the first time I try to access either floppy drive after power-up or any re-boot, the bridge board will hang and require a re-boot. The only way around this is to leave the disk out of the drive when I first try to access it. Once I get the "not ready" message I can pop the disk in and retry, and all is well. (If I time it right, I can pop the disk in while the drive is trying to read it and it'll wake up too, but that's trickier.) Again, this might be caused by the hard card but I'm not sure - the 1.2-megabyte drive never did this. Given these caveats, I'd say go for it. Of course, if anyone has any idea what's causing these weird things, I'd appreciate hearing about it. Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.UUCP My Amiga *is* a PC! It says "Personal Computer" right on the box!
a218@mindlink.UUCP (Charlie Gibbs) (06/01/90)
In article <3916@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> zupke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Brian Zupke) writes: >Howdy! Has anyone successfully installed a hardcard inside an A2000 with >AT bridge board? I would like to do this, but would like to hear a success >story first. I got tired of the slowness of the Amiga's autoboot partition for the bridge board (c'mon, admit it, you did too :-) so I dropped in a 30-megabyte RLL hard card (Seagate ST-138R). Talk about compatible - the first time I powered up it booted straight into the low-level format routine. It works well, and it's nice and fast. There are a couple of quirks, though. First of all, whenever I boot, the minutes and seconds of the system time are set to zero. The battery-backed-up clock is correct (easily verified by entering the configuration screen with control-alt-escape). If I pull the hard card, the time comes up OK. It's a bit of a pain, but I'd rather set the time whenever I boot than lose the hard card. If anyone knows what's causing this, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Another problem which may be caused by the hard card is my floppy drive configuration. I've replaced the 1.2-megabyte drive with a 360K 5 1/4-inch drive and a 720K 3 1/2-inch drive. If I've had the power off for more than a few hours, the configuration forgets about them - I get "Drive 0 configuration error" (possibly drive 1 as well) and the configuration reverts to a single 1.2- megabyte drive. Again, a minor problem as I have to reset the configuration when I first power the system up. I encountered one more problem when I swapped the floppy drives: the first time I try to access either one after booting, the bridge board will hang and must be re-booted. The work-around here is to leave the disk out of the drive and wait for the "not ready" message. I can then pop the disk in and retry, and all is well. I'm not sure whether the above two problems are caused by the hard card or not. In any event, I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who has found out a solution. Basically, I'm happy with my hard card. I use it to do MS-DOS software development without having to contaminate my environment with one of those IBM-type boxes. :-) >Thanks. > >-Brian You're welcome. Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.UUCP "I'm cursed with hair from HELL!" -- Night Court
consp13@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu (Marcus Cannava) (06/01/90)
I posted this question to c.s.a, as well, sorry for the repeat.. I'm buying the A3000 thru the Edu. Discount, and I also ordered the A2286 AT Bridgeboard. I know the board comes with a 1.2 meg 5 1/4" drive. Here's the question: Since the A3000 has no 5 1/4" opening, can the drive be used externally in any way, shape or form? Or is the drive, essentially, going to be scrapped? Can I then buy *any* IBM compatible drive, and just plug it in to the board, or does this render me without a drive? Does the A1010 work with the board? Any info would be appreciated. Email/post/whatever. \marc ======= 'I do not fear computers.. I fear the lack of them' -- I. Asimov RNM
zupke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Brian Zupke) (06/01/90)
Howdy! Has anyone successfully installed a hardcard inside an A2000 with AT bridge board? I would like to do this, but would like to hear a success story first. Thanks. -Brian
bjc@smunews.UUCP (Betty J. Clay) (06/02/90)
In article <3916@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> zupke@mars.UUCP (Brian Zupke) writes: >Howdy! Has anyone successfully installed a hardcard inside an A2000 with >AT bridge board? I would like to do this, but would like to hear a success >story first. > >Thanks. > >-Brian I use the BSM KardDisk with m6y AT bridgeboard. This sells for $299.95 at SoftWarehouse in Dallas, and is a 30M card, RLL. It works beautifully. Not fast, but dependable. it comes with installation software that makes it a snap to get it going, and the bridgeboard recognizes it automatically. Betty ========================================================================= Betty Clay 76702.337@compuserve.com ==========================================================================
mgh1@cbnewsl.att.com (matthew.g.hetman) (06/04/90)
In article <3916@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>, zupke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Brian Zupke) writes: > Howdy! Has anyone successfully installed a hardcard inside an A2000 with > AT bridge board? I would like to do this, but would like to hear a success > story first. > > Thanks. > > -Brian I have successfully installed two types of hardcards inside my 2000 with an AT Bridgecard. The first hardcard was a Seagate XT type with 30 meg RLL drive. It worked fine but was slow due to the XT type bus. It auto booted DOS fine but did require 1.5 valuable slots. I just recently replaced it with a Hardcard II 80 meg unit. The main reason for this was I needed the additional space and the Hardcard II took only 1 slot. In addition, the new unit used the 16 bit AT slot and I noticed a drastic improvement in Disk I/O with it. The only disadvantage I have with it, and this could be a major one for some folks, is that I have not been successful at creating an auto boot sector with it. The Hardcard II requires the use of its own fdisk utility, which for some reason on the AT Bridgeboard, causes it to create the boot sector at sector 1 instead of 0. On boot up, the system looks for the boot sector at 0 and fails. I tried using the std DOS Fdisk to format the disk but that is incompatiable with the Hardcard II. I've talked to the Hardcard II folks and they were of little help, all they said was that it may not be compatiable with Commadore PC's MS DOS or bios. (That was a lot of help...) I've heard nothing from Commadore about this supposed incompatiability so I guess I 'll have to live with it. I do like the high speed of this drive though. _______ ______ Matthew G. Hetman ( / ) / / / / ____ AT&T Bell Labs / / / __ / / /---/ / ____ __ __ (201) 386-7259 / / (___/-/__/ /____ / (___()__/____///__/-/__/ /_ attbl!whscad1!mgh or attbl!whuts!mgh1
zupke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Brian Zupke) (06/08/90)
In article <16322@smunews.UUCP> bjc@smunews.UUCP (Betty J. Clay) writes: >SoftWarehouse in Dallas, and is a 30M card, RLL. It works beautifully. >Not fast, but dependable. it comes with installation software that makes >it a snap to get it going, and the bridgeboard recognizes it automatically. > >Betty >========================================================================= >Betty Clay >76702.337@compuserve.com >========================================================================== Thanks for the tip! I do have a question though. You say that it's not fast. How does it compare to a bootable partition on the Amiga side of the system? My experience is that this kind of setup is extremely slow! For example, when I load WordPerfect 5.1, it takes a very long time to come up. Then, whenever I invoke a function that causes an overlay to load (I'm assuming this), the disk drive light flickers for a painstakingly long time before that function is available. It just about makes the program useless. Does this sound right as far as execution time goes for an Amiga partition used by MS-Dos or am I doing something wrong? -Brian
bjc@smunews.UUCP (Betty J. Clay) (06/08/90)
In article <3961@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> zupke@mars.UUCP (Brian Zupke) writes: >In article <16322@smunews.UUCP> bjc@smunews.UUCP (Betty J. Clay) writes: > >>SoftWarehouse in Dallas, and is a 30M card, RLL. It works beautifully. >>Not fast, but dependable. it comes with installation software that makes > >Thanks for the tip! I do have a question though. You say that it's not fast. >How does it compare to a bootable partition on the Amiga side of the system? >My experience is that this kind of setup is extremely slow! For example, when > >-Brian The hardcard is not THAT slow! It is a little slow about booting, but works just fine while I'm using the bridgeboard. I used one of these with an d XT bridgeboard before I got the AT, and it worked fine with it, too. The slow boot may be due to the way I set up the system, rather than the Quantum40 on the Amiga side ( something like 19ms) it seems painfully slow at times. Compared to a floppy or to using part of the Amiga drive, it is very fast indeed. Betty ======================================================================== Betty Clay 76702.337@compuserve.com ======================================================================== disk itself. I think it is rated at 65 ms, though, and compared to the