Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: murple on July 27, 2007, 07:09:42 PM
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I bought the bridgeboard countzero was selling, see:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=30396
I've been trying to get this damn thing to work... maybe countzero or someone else can help.
I put the board into my Amiga 2000. It was in there for about 2 days, I hadnt had time to install the software yet. Then last night, my computer began spontaneously crashing. Instead of booting, it gave me a red flashing screen, or sometimes it would boot and give me errors telling me that various system programs in C/ were not executable (!?!?). I was able to power it up and get to the boot menu (holding down both mouse buttons) and when I went into expansion board diagnostics and it said the bridgeboard was defective. I took it out and the Amiga is back to its normal working state, thank god.
Looking at the board, the lithium hack seems to have made the battery useless. Only one end of the battery (the side with the diode) is actually connected to anything. The other end has popped out and theres a cold solder joint where the battery should be connected. I dont see any tracings on the board there, so I hope the circuit board is intact. I'll have to see if I can find my soldering iron and try to repair that, although the lead on the battery doesnt seem like its quite long enough to go through the board. I dont think that this should be causing the problems though, because (in a normal full PC at least) the lack of a battery just means BIOS settings are reset to default every time power is turned off. Its something that needs fixing, but it shouldn't make the board nonfunctional.
I've pressed down on all the chips to make sure none are loose in their sockets. They all seem OK.
Does anyone know what kinds of things might cause the flashing red behavior and Amiga crashes this board seems to be related to? What are some useful diagnostics? I'm going to try testing it on my second A2000 because I dont want to risk it killing my main Amiga. I'd really like to get this thing working. Ive never had a bridgeboard before though and I'm not sure what kind of debugging steps give useful information.
I did some forum searches and I found a few posts where countzero said he thought this board was defective. I wish that had been mentioned in the post where he was selling it, as I probably wouldn't have dropped $160 on it then. However the listing of it for sale had some photos of it supposedly working, and he claims it worked for him after he ripped out some RAM (???).
Anyone have any ideas, or did I get ripped off?
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Hello, you are not ripped off. I stand by my board and if you think it's defective you can always send it back to me and I'll refund your money whenever you like.
now we've set this clear, I tested the board on an A3000. You might be experiencing zorro2 space problems. Do you have other cards installed ? The battery definitely won't kill the board, it was fine before I sent it your way.
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What do you mean "Zorro 2 space problems"? I have 2 Zorro cards installed, so that means I have PLENTY of free slots. This card needs to be in one of the Zorro slots which are in line with the ISA slots, which is where I put it. I have nothing else using the ISA or Zorro+ISA slots. I will try it in my other Amiga with no other cards installed, but I'm not sure why that would make much difference.
Maybe the battery was fine when you sent it, but when I got it, there is only one end connected. The hole where the other end should go has some solder on it, but it is a cold joint and the battery is not connected to it. That should be easy to fix though.
Why did your old posts say it was defective? Just because of the RAM that you took out?
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It never said it was defective. This board ALWAYS showed up in the early config menu as working. However, I couldn't get it to work 1st due to incompatible driver disk I got off amiga hardware database (the download is for A2286 disk which has an incompatible janus.library), 2nd I insisted on using 4mb ZIP ram I was sure to be working, which turned out be defective (I verified this on my octagon board). Even with the faulty ram, it showed up as WORKING on the config menu. Though the janus.library didn't load properly, giving one long three short beeps. So I switched to 1mb ram, and everything was fine.
Now, I think you should learn some facts about the machine you're trying to use before you accuse people with ripping off ppl. Zorro2 bus has a limited memory space (8mb). All cards you install occupy a portion of this memory space, and anything over 8mb is unusable because of 68000 addressing limitations (Even if you have a 68020+ Zorro2 has this limitation). The faulty board notification in the early startup shows the bridgeboard is conflicting with some of your boards. Take your boards out and try again.
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The cards in my system are:
1 GVP G-Force 68030 accelerator/SCSI card, in the CPU slot. The manual specifically says it works fine with this bridgeboard.
1 OpalVision graphics card, in the video slot.
1 8MB RAM card. This is the only thing in the Zorro slots, until I added your card. I dont think that having 2 cards in there is going to max out the bus memory.
And I was referring to http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=30069 where it says "Commodore A2386SX Bridgeboard(this one may be defective)" and other posts where you say it just beeps.
If anybody has any idea how to try and troubleshoot this thing before I send it to the electronics recycler, I'd love to try and get it working.
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you definitely have to take out the 8mb ram card. That alone fills up the whole zorro2 space ! Or configure it to 4mb.
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When I bought this computer, it had the 8MB Zorro card installed as well as several other Zorro cards which were all working. I removed the other cards because I didnt need them (stuff like serial and parallel interfaces) and was thinking of selling them on ebay. That makes me kind of skeptical that the 8MB Zorro RAM card means you can't use any other Zorro cards.
Like I said, I will try this in my other Amiga 2000 with no other cards. If it works in there, I will try taking the RAM card out of my main computer and put the busboard in there. If it shows up as broken in the other computer too, I'm just going to give up on it.
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don't give up on it cause it's a good card. As I said before, I can refund your money whenever you like.
Serial and parallel interfaces take up only 64k on the zorro2 space, and they have a special location reserved for them. See amiga system memory map (http://www.ntrautanen.fi/computers/hardware/misc/amiga_memory.htm) here. Your 8mb ram board takes up all the auto config space (20000-9FFFFF). Your IO boards are placed in secondary auto config space (E90000-EFFFFF). The bridgeboard occupies 2mb from main autoconfig space.
amiga hardware database (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/a2386sx)
when installed, only 6 MB of the Zorro II address space is left for other expansion cards
you're definitely having a conflict with the ram card. Just take it off. It's slow as hell anyway when compared to fast ram on your GVP.
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I removed the other cards because I didnt need them (stuff like serial and parallel interfaces) and was thinking of selling them on ebay. That makes me kind of skeptical that the 8MB Zorro RAM card means you can't use any other Zorro cards.
Well, an interface card will probably only take 64kb address space and no additional RAM out of the memory map.
I think what countzero is aiming at is he is thinking that the Z2 RAM on the 2386 is conflicting with the Z2 RAM on your 8MB board. I'd say he's probably right, as there is only one 8MB RAM window on the Z2 bus. If you added another Z2 RAM card, you'd be in the same boat. (You can't just add 2 Z2 8MB RAM cards to get 16MB. doesn't work that way.)
Now, why the Amiga used to boot, and then later didn't that I'm not sure about... But a bus memory conflict could cause random reboots/crashes.
(HAH! and countzero edited his response and beat me to exactly what he was saying! :lol: that'll teach me for trying to speak on someone's behalf!)
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countzero's right: the A2386SX tries to allocate RAM space which is already used up by your 8 MB card. Different Z2 card not using RAM space but I/O space do not have that kind of problem (e.g. SCSI controllers w/o RAM).
Reduce the RAM on your Z2 RAM card to 6 or 4 MB to solve this problem. There's no other way to do it. Since you've got an accelerator card, you should populate and use its RAM instead - it's much faster anyway. ;-)
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Yeah the card was in there for at least 2 days with me using the Amiga normally, running all kinds of stuff. I was copying stuff from a different computer via disk to this Amiga last night, and in the middle of a copy, BOOM.
Come to think of it, I think the bridge board even showed up in the expansion board diagnostic as OK the other day.
Well, I'm still at work, so I'll see if it works tonight in a computer with no Zorro cards. If it works, cool. I'll see if I can repair the battery (I'm a bit worried because on the side where the battery clip isnt connected, the circuit board looks a little bit damaged/melted). If it doesn't work, I don't need a refund. I'll just throw it in the closet and consider it a lesson not to buy stuff from people on forums that I dont know. Hopefully it is just a RAM conflict and it'll work though.
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You don't understand. You can't just bin it. I want it BACK I can't let you waste a good card !
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Well, lets see what happens when I test it out tonight. Hopefully you are right and I will get on here and post that I am stupid and the card works fine.
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I know that bridgeboards can sometimes be a pain in the ass to get working..
But countzero is a good guy and sells top rate stuff (bought many things from him)
If you can't get it to work, do send it back to him, then I can see if I can afford to buy it.. heh... it'd go nicely in one of my 2000s :D
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Tell you what, if I can't get it working I'll give it to you for $15 plus shipping and packaging... lets say $20 if you're in the US, $25 if you're overseas.
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Well, I took out the RAM card, and I guess I'm an idiot because it no longer says "Defective"... but I'm pretty sure it said that when I put it in there a few days ago too. I'd want to have it in the computer for a week with no further crashes before I'm willing to say its fully working. It probably is good, since as was pointed out, the symptoms of having the Zorro bus maxxed out might be random crashes rather than an instant failure. And of course, the battery is still all screwed up too.
But I'm not leaving it in my computer yet. The main reason I wanted this thing was to make use of the fact that there's a program to let you use an ISA ethernet card with the bridgeboard that AmigaOS can see, and maybe throw on a PC floppy drive. I only have 1 SIMM on my G-Force accelerator, and I'm not going to sacrifice 8MB RAM just for an inefficient ethernet setup.
I'm going to have to get a real battery on there as well. Now that I'm home and looking at it, the side with the diode isn't even soldered in, and the other side (that was hanging loose) has a lump of cold solder on the back. I think I might have a spare NiMH barrel battery that I can use to replace the floppy little clip thing. I'll probably do that this weekend.
After I fix the battery, I'll try installing the software and putting the bridgeboard through some tests. If it doesnt work, my offer of $20-25 will remain. If it does work, I'll put it in a box until I can find some GVP SIMM. If I can't find memory in a couple months, or if I find a reasonably priced Zorro II ethernet card... I'll sell it for $50 and write off the $110 as "I'm a retard" costs. (This offer is directed at BinoX.)
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I'm looking at the battery on this thing now...
What's on there is a little watch battery clip containing a CR2032 battery. There's a diode of some sort connected to the + lead of the battery clip.
This photo of a board however has a 3.6V barrel NiCad battery on it:
http://amigahardware.mariomisic.de/download_photos/a2386sx_1_big.jpg
Is the 3V+diode equivalent to a 3.6V battery somehow? I'm trying to decide how to repair this. The way the battery clip was added doesn't seem like the best approach. The leads are too short to get a real good solder joint. I could solder long wires to the board, and connect them to the battery clip (perhaps on a small board of its own). If I do that, is the 3V sufficient, or should I look for a 3.6V lithium disc battery? Alternatively, I think I have a 3.6V NiMH barrel battery I could use directly on the board.
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the diode is to prevent the board from recharging the lithium coin, which is not rechargable. I'm not sure if there exists a 3.6 lithium coin battery (I couldn't find). So fitting a proper 3.6 NiMH may be the best approach .
If the board doesn't work for you somehow, I'ld like to have it back for what you paid to me. You don't need to give it away for $20 or something. I'm not sure what kind of performance you'll get by using an ISA board through the bridgeboard. Using a proper Zorro card is the best approach. You're in luck, cause soon X Surf 3 (http://www.vesalia.de/?V02b0f1454544410715d5655520b514e01101f0954414752050140090a1e31115579633a223c6373744e03263f2a2a7661053963686226687c2e347d40190a63754c5a1f74420965545f5b01614a4e5d53432e72103767780a235e7b1457534177676f766d266274742430416d687b355470746b3668777e35602907406b3) boards will be in stock, which give you much better performance you can ever have from an ISA card. The price is just right too. you can buy it with my refund and probably have some change back.
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murple wrote:
I'm looking at the battery on this thing now...
What's on there is a little watch battery clip containing a CR2032 battery. There's a diode of some sort connected to the + lead of the battery clip.
---zip---
Is the 3V+diode equivalent to a 3.6V battery somehow? -zip-The leads are too short to get a real good solder joint. I could solder long wires to the board, and connect them to the battery clip (perhaps on a small board of its own). If I do that, is the 3V sufficient, or should I look for a 3.6V lithium disc battery? Alternatively, I think I have a 3.6V NiMH barrel battery I could use directly on the board.
The "lithium hack" (CR2025,3032,etc + a diode) is sufficient to provide "almost" 3V to the board. And coin batteries don't leak (barrel batts do!). :madashell:
I've lost an A1200 acelerator, thanks to a barrel battery. :pissed:
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The NiMH batteries supposedly don't leak, the older NiCad ones are the ones that start leaking.
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countzero wrote:
You're in luck, cause soon X Surf 3boards will be in stock, which give you much better performance you can ever have from an ISA card.
Don't want to confuse you, but the XSurf (http://amigahardware.mariomisic.de/download_photos/xsurf_front_big.jpg) is an ISA (http://www.google.com/search?hl=com&q=kingston+kne20bt&btnG=Suche&meta=) card - adapted to Z2, of course.
@murple
NiMH batteries do leak if they're old enough.
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Zac67 wrote:
Don't want to confuse you, but the XSurf (http://amigahardware.mariomisic.de/download_photos/xsurf_front_big.jpg) is an ISA (http://www.google.com/search?hl=com&q=kingston+kne20bt&btnG=Suche&meta=) card - adapted to Z2, of course.
Yes but it runs natively under amigaOS. What the bridgeboard does is run some kind of server on the pc side to transfer packets from the ISA network card to amigaOS through the bridgeboard interface. Which one do you think will work better ?
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Hmmm $50 aint bad...
If you do decide that you wanna sell it, drop me a PM :)
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Hi there,
I reopen this old thread, not because about RAM problem, but floppy problems.
I didn"t successed to use External drive...
What is the trick ? Something to do with the jumpers ?
I took a stock A1010 drive and plug it, nothing.
I exchange the drive in the A1010 for a standard PC 1.44, nothing.
Can you help ?
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The 1010 drive should work as an external 720k drive. Make sure you have the jumpers on the Bridgeboard set properly, the Bios configured correctly, and take a look in the PC Setup program on the Amiga side. Bridgeboards aren't the easiest thing to setup but they are cool. Keep with it and you'll probably get it working. Then, don't touch it:-). BTW the A1011 will NOT work as a Bridgeboard drive.
-Jeff
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So balance the bazaar:
I have gotten the 2 "images" of Janus2.1 for Amiga and PC side. But with WB3.1 and OS3.5 freshly installed with very little addition, installation is not working at all !
So I "deleted" installer (v1.xx) to take the "system"'s one (v4x.xx).
Here, it starts to work.
It ask a sympathetic question about the disc "boot" if it'is different from the application one.
I replied no, and it is continuing its sweet way ...
Then it shows me a beautiful script error just after Flipper.info install ... I like dolphins ...
I shall not lose courage, I look at the floppy content, I took him janus Lib in extension then I reset the machine. I heard the card made a little beep, which seems to be initalisation OK.
Well, then, I still was not avaible to create a "HardFile", but that should not prevent me from being able to work on diskettes !
So I count again on my luck.
I had to play with the jumpers, because I believe that the former owner had put an IDE or SCSI controller (though if it is possible with some cards Adaptec with floppy controler).
As my machine lacks of internal space, I tried hard on the external connector to be successfull.
I used my A1010 box and put the drive in DS1 mode, it "works" (understand he wanted to take a floppy).
As I told myself, on PC since a long time everything is in "HD"... So I have to replace the 880 Kb drive with a HD one.
I took the kit Teac RealHD+, but no luck this tiem, he did not like it at all. I tried to change the "jumper" RealHD... unsuccessful too (does someone know something about it?).
Good to this point, I reopened the machine to put a real HD PC drive and plug it in 503 port with a normaly twisted pc cable.
Here, I say to myself ok, BANZAÏ!
Close to my hand, I had a floppy of Msdos 7.1 (that the one of W95 v1, which makes it possibles to launch Win3.x) and .... No, it is trying to load but it freese (on pc side) without explanation....
It will be necessary that I try to find a version 3.3 or 6.22 in my archives ...
I keep you informed soon, but if you've trick, please explain ! This drive me crasy as Britney's song... :-P
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evening Tests : Hopes!
Yeps! It's alive.
I first made the try with MSDOS 3.3 for Amstrad 3386sx and it's booted.
That's Cool, I continued.
DrDOS 5 or 6 ... Yeah! Boot !
Win95 OSR2 Boot disks ... Yeah! Boot !
WinNT 4.0 SP1 Boot disks ! It also booted, but it displayed to me a beautiful message "required a 486 ..."
Then the Floppy test for IBM Thinkpad-310 (PC-DOS 7.1), it booted ! And the main tests were OK.
And yes only the main ones, because we need a VGA card with VESA bios for the portion of the tests Video ... an installed hdd, cdrom, plugged mouse and so on...
Then, I try to create a partition as described physical here http://home.arcor.de/kickstart/TKA/Tutorials/bridgeboard/amigajanus.html
Note : due to the install script error I didn't get the message of screenshoot 1/2/3/4...
I changed Dosserv ... , an created partition (i used MSD and MSH type as they use the same DOStype), I edited the aboot.ctrl with eMacs.
But no luck again, I also try to use the mode 41 for an auto detect, no more luck
Any tip, any hint?
Thank you all,
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Congrats on your success.
Makes me want to get back to work on my own A3000T w/Vortex 486slc bridgeboard project. I have the Floppy Drive controller chip installed and have a Cyrix Cx486SRxsquared 25/50 1P upgrade chip that fits over the 486slc (or on other bridgeboards it fits over the 386sx chip) that I have not installed yet, and I still have to find a 387 math coprocessor for it. Hopefully it won't be difficult to find the math coprocessor.
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So, now, one step beyond !!!
I regenerated once again the Janus2_1.dms, and this time I leave the original installer v1.1 in its place, and tried to boot and install from a little wb3.1 partition (500Mb).
And that worked !!! (It HATES size highier than 1.9 Gb).
There is something incompatible with newer release of Installer. Maybe someone skilled enought would find what to adapt ?
I successfully made a 10Mb "virtual" partition on an Amiga.
The last and failed step :
http://home.arcor.de/kickstart/TKA/Tutorials/bridgeboard/amigajanus.html
As it is explained, it's possible with the updated Dosserv to use and create a pure "PC" partition.
I took my chances one more time.
But no luck.
1 - Hdtoolbox automativcly change the partition type from CUSTOM to MSH\00 (but i suppose this is normal due to the fact that they've got the same Identifier, and MSD\00 too !).
2 - So I made 2 "PC" partition :
One of 202 Mb 'Dos1' -> MSH\00 Identifier
One of 2002 Mb 'Dos2'-> MSD\00 Identifier
None of them are visible on the workbench.
No luck with any of them.
Each time i try to start PcColor, a requester ask me to put device Dos1: or Dos2:
I pushed "RETRY", no luck. I pushed "CANCEL" it passed.
Now with FDISK, the same requester appeared again and same sad thing... so Fdisk finished by telling me that there is no harddisk present.
Any trick or advice ? Must I install FAT95 and try to initialize these volume ? (if yes how ??)
Many thank guys !
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A new stage passed !
This time, I installed Fat95 and MSD.
Then, I added in the Fat95 RDB using the identifier Custom FS instead of the normal Fat95's one.
I Reboot
I see that partition (DOS1) but appears as non-initialized.
I respected what was explained on the site and I started PcColor, who made come a different requester.
Again, the only solution was to press the button "CANCEL".
I continued anyway.
I start FDISK and ... Miracle
It saw a hard drive of 200 MB, I created a partition, then I rebooted the "PC part", I formated it with "FORMAT C: / S / Q" always in PC mode, it's super-fast! !
I put all files of the win95 rescue floppy, and then edited the autoexec.bat and config.sys to remove unneeded line.
I rebooted once again the PC side, took off the floppy, it booted well on the partition :-D
I begun installation of win3.1 for fun, and it seemed good. But I have not yet been able to generate the PC HD Janus disk for the PC side.
I left the emulator, and then I realized that the Workbench itself still see this as uninitialized partition ...
I'm currently formatting the 2nd partition DOS2 almost 2 GB but via the Workbench.
The result in a few hours.
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US$160 for a 286?!?!??! Wish I had that kind of money to throw away...
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Does the Vortex GoldenGate BB work under OS3.9?
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@amigadave
The GG works just fine under OS 3.9, yes, certainly on an '030 A1500 like mine!
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The sequel of yesterday test.
After dinner, I came back to see if all went rent (format 2gb in pc mode with WB).
I found a black screen...
I rebooted, and discovered that most of my FFS v40.x (wb3.1) partition where corrupted. Only the small first one that i use for wb3.1 was still alive and the big one 3Gb created with FFS v45.x. Both PC "partition" where still seen as uninitialised.
The DOS1 partition was still good...
I'm going to check the "new" DOS2 of 2Gb if it's well prepared or not.
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About the 2Gb "partition", it didn't work.
I had well changed in aboot.ctrl DOS1: by DOS2:
And the same story that happen with the DOS1 partition,
the requester -> cancel
boot on W95 floppy, FDISK, create partition, reboot PC, format partition and enjoy !
I tried some tricks in aboot.ctrl to use DOS1: and DOS2:, but no luck.
What is the reference of the ISA connector to put for the
2 missing 16 bits part in an A2000 ?
Tonight, i'll try to put an old Dfi VG-5000 ISA (ET4000 256 colors - 1Mb), and a sound blaster 1. And maybe some extra such as the CD sharing programm.
I'll keep you informed.
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next day, next step
OK
sharing CD OK (but small corruption of the video out amgia in mode PC)
adding isa card ok and even screen doubling in text mode
The tools d' exchange Awrite and Aread functions well (in binary mode)
KO
the " requester" is always on the Amiga video out
the mouse even with the pilot amouse under dos and Windows that does not want to work
the keyboard even with the pilot remains quite particular, and take a huge attention with certain keys which open a window of CBM helps but that on the output screen of the Amiga
ADisk does not support the large discs
i'm still needing help about the use of PC partition on Amiga side
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OK : I need to put a 2nd amiga mouse on the 2nd port ...
KO : The card sightly lack of external CPU cache. I had an Amstrad 3386sx in time, it had a 64 kb external and that make a huge difference...
I will try to find a 486 module to snap, but they are so rare. If I can't, I should send it to modify in germany to replace the 386sx by a 486slc2/50. But if you have a module to sell, let me know...
KO: I have added elements for having 2more 16-bit ISA slots, no short-circuits, they chekced all well inline.
I tried a lot of cards VGA 16-bit ISA bus, the only ones functioning are those with a retro-compatible 8-bit mode thus limiting thiers onboard ram to 256k !
And that whatever the slot chosen.
I wrestled with a Trident 8900CL supposed to be 16-bit and to have 1 mb (512kb I think) ... it display: Bios 8-bit and 256k ram ... sometimes these writing are in colours sometimes in B/W...
I tried to put an Adaptec 1512 (unconfigured) but the bridgeboard keep making bip when it's on ....
Is there any trick to do ? I even try without the VGA cache in bios, it does not change anything...
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I continued my tries with no luck. All informations i got relate to WB 1.3 & 2.0x, never with 3.x
I felt on this tutorial on aminet : http://aminet.net/package/misc/emu/CDJanusTools
But once again, it relates on WB2.xx old Mountlist system... Whatever i found there some good points.
I took my 2Gb "DOS2" partition and changed the type from 0x4d534800 to 0x4d534400 and attached "CrossDOSFileSystem" to it (may be i also changed the cluster size, i don't remember...).
It was still seen as uninitalized. I tried to initialise it with WB but it refused.
Then, when i chose to boot on this one, it didn't display any requester !
On pc side, the partition needed to be recreated.
I recreated it, and when i formated it un QUICK mode (so just a FAT erase) , it had more than 70% of bad blocks !! and no way to use it no even copying a 8k file....
I attached Fat95 to 0x4d534400 , then rebooted and .....
No nothing !!!
it didn't want to start my installed WB any more ...
I booted on the 3.1 install disk, and kicked the FS attachement , and set back type to 0x4d534800.
Then it reworked as usually...
I will try next week to change my 8 bits SB by a SB 32 Pnp to see what happen.
Are you aware of any usefull tricks ?
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I ran this model bridgeboard for several years in my A4000 and loved it.
I had the 8088 version before that in my A2000.
The Amiga was the most Amazing machine when I had it in the 80 being able to basically be two computers at the same time was awesome and got me through my CIS degree.
I remember I had a few minor problems getting it going but it was solid once it was running.
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Ok: I disabled in PCPref emulation COLOR / MONO in the amiga, I saw finally:
Trident - bios 32 bits - 1024kb Dram instead of 8 bits - 256kb ...
I took the opportunity to change the SB 1.5 by a SB 32 PnP with 32Mb of ram (and SPDIF output labelled under the Emu800 ?)
KO: I tried again to mount the DOS2 partition DOS2 under the WB ... still no success ....
Even worse using CrossDosFileSystem ! Even after the partition was deleted, recreated and then re-formated it was always KO and unusable.
But the strongest thing is that after I reassigned the custom FS to Fat95, I found my old partition and files!
No comment ...
KO: Win95 installation on a FAT32 partition of less than 2GB (2007 mb exactly).
I had the beautiful message SU-0013, I took Fdisk and responded do not care for large disks and Formated it (mode FAT16b) -> Ok it starts.
KO: Installing Win95 -> no mouse support, even with Amouse.com already launched ... only with navigation by keyboard (using TAB / SPACE / ENTRY). The keyboard will be recognized as a 82/84 keys PC AT.
Tips : Copy all files in the directory of the Win95 CD-ROM on the partition and launch SmartDrv (and add in the autoexec).
Ok: The total installation time is 2:15 before the 1st access to desktop and finished device recognisation.
That is quite correct speed for a SX-20 with no cache.
Everything is well recognized in PC / ISA. Still no mouse...
Ok: By copying the file amouse3.drv in win / system and then editing the system.ini to add mouse = amouse3.drv, my amiga mouse was well recognized
Ok: boot time is only around 2 min (reboot the PC party included).
KB: despite buffers 500, the data transfert rate appears to be 50-70 kb/s. Even the "system" sounds are discontinuous if they are long ... But it works...
KO: after installing Office Pro 95(around 1 hour), the time to display characters in M$-Word is around 4 to 6 seconds ...
But I think that more memory it would be better.
Ok: use of IDE port of SB32. I think I'll put a FAST compact flash on it, reinstall Office, move TEMP directories and temporary swap.
Et Voilà ...
Next step...