Amiga.org

Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Sandman on February 18, 2009, 07:02:28 PM

Title: I thought A1200 PCMCIA wouldn't work with 8meg Ram Expansion?
Post by: Sandman on February 18, 2009, 07:02:28 PM

Hi,

I just plopped in a DKB 1202 ram card in my A1200 w/ the full 8mb on it figuring I would loose the PCMCIA until pulling out the extra 4mb sim.  To my suprise all works fine.

Is it just network cards, etc that don't work on the PCMCIA with 8mb ram expansion.

I am not complaining, just curious and pleasantly suprised.;-)

Thanks,
Tim

Title: Re: I thought A1200 PCMCIA wouldn't work with 8meg Ram Expansion?
Post by: amigadave on February 18, 2009, 07:19:02 PM

You did not say what was still working in your PCMCIA slot after installing the 8mb RAM card.  Are you sure the full 8mb is being recognized, or did the previous owner have it jumpered to only use 4mb or 6mb?

Title: Re: I thought A1200 PCMCIA wouldn't work with 8meg Ram Expansion?
Post by: meega on February 18, 2009, 07:20:11 PM

*Some* ram expansion cards have extra logic to deal with the presence/absence of a pcmcia device, most do not.

Title: Re: I thought A1200 PCMCIA wouldn't work with 8meg Ram Expansion?
Post by: Sandman on February 18, 2009, 07:39:29 PM

No, it is showing 2mb chip and 8mb fast.  I've only tried the PCMCIA slot with a 2gb SD card so maybe if I use other types of devices I'll run into trouble.  So far, so good.

Title: Re: I thought A1200 PCMCIA wouldn't work with 8meg Ram Expansion?
Post by: ddniUK on February 18, 2009, 08:18:25 PM

From BBOAH

The card allows you to use up to 5.5MB of RAM without affecting the PCMCIA port but above this the PCMCIA port is unusable. The card was also supplied with a program called MagicMem.

Using the MagicMem Program

The "MagicMem" program operates automatically, and does not require any input from the user. If there is a 1-meg SIMM installed in te DKB 1202 card (and the jumper settings correctly reflect this configuration), the program will add this memory to the computer. If there are two 4-meg SIMMs installed (and the jumpers are set for 4 megabytes), the program will check the existence of a PCMCIA card. If none are present, the entire 4megabytes of memory will be added in its normal address space. If such a card is present, however, 1.5 megabytes out of the second 4 megabytes will be added at the $C00000 address space for a total of 5.5 megabytes, the maximum amount of expansion RAM that can be added when a PCMCIA card is in use.

For advanced users, there are two ToolType options which may be set by selecting the "MagicMem" program icon, and selecting the "Information" menu item from the "Icons" menu of the Workbench screen. The NO4MEG ToolType will always add the second bank of memory at the $C00000 address space, so that you can never have more than 5.5 megabytes of expansion RAM. The NOC00000 ToolType will never add the second bank of memory at the $C00000 address. If you use both ToolTypes, the second bank of memory will never be added.


http://www.amiga-resistance.info/bboahfaq/index.php?action=artikel&cat=69&id=3056&artlang=en&highlight=%20DKB%201202

Title: Re: I thought A1200 PCMCIA wouldn't work with 8meg Ram Expansion?
Post by: Sandman on February 18, 2009, 09:43:56 PM

I was going to look into using this MagicMem programs but alas it seems I will not need to... accessing PCMCIA just fine with all 8mb fastmem showing...

I dunno, go figure..... :roll: