rick@clark.edu (Rick Randall) (01/11/91)
I have an Amiga2000HD and I have a 286 Bridgeboard installed. I have been told that it is possible to use the standard 3.5" Amiga drive with the Bridgeboard but everyone that I talk to doesn't know how to do it. I have been able to configure the Bridgeboard to accept the hard drive but not the floppy disk. It is a real waste to have the drive and not be able to use it. I also have several friends in the same predicament. We all hope to get an answer soon.
cleland@sdbio2.ucsd.edu (Thomas Cleland) (01/14/91)
There is a product advertised, the "Bridge Drive Commander"
by:
MJ Systems
Dept 10A, 1222 Brookwood Road
Madison, WI 53711
1-800-448-4564
that is supposed to do just that: allow the Bridgeboard
to access 3.5" Amiga drives. The alternative is to rig up
some pain-in-the-ass system along the lines of pushing your
data through the Bridge to the Amiga side and saving it to
MSDOS disk with CrossDOS.
I agree--major flaw in the original product. More bad news:
I worked at a retailer who was having trouble actually getting
Bridge Drive Commanders out of MJ Systems. But they keep
advertising in Amazing Computing (and AW?). BDC claims
to be compatible with both Bridgeboards, all Amigas and
Motorola chips, all hard disks, automatic Amiga/IBM dual
configuration of the drives. Alas, it only does up to 720K
MSDOS disks, but that's a drive limitation.
The ATOnce AT emulator for the 500 is supposed to be coming
out with a 2000/3000 series AT card which will run the
ISA bus and have access to all the Amiga ports and peripherals,
unlike the Bridgeboard. Still vaporware, but sounds good.
Personally, I think that although it is CBM's responsibility
to market an ISA solution (the Bridgeboards) to match the
ISA bus in high-end Amigas, the cutting edge of that market
is best left to third parties. CBM: please keep the ISA bus
in Amigas, and continue your Bridgeboard series, but devote
your efforts to those projects that only you can do: the
maximization of Amiga power and flexibility. It's about
time the Bridgeboard had a competitor, and I hope it's out soon.
--
// / Thom Cleland / It is easier /
// / tcleland@ucsd.edu / to get forgiveness /
\X/ / ASOCC * Amiga Users' Group at UCSD / than permission... /
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