A3000UX up and running AMIX again!

[Dalamar]

Regarding the AMIX tapes, I've read the descriptions of all the problems people were having there as well.  But it seems that the people who were trying to make tapes were doing so from another UNIX?  The install script is very simple, so if the cpio files are on the tape in any order it seems like it should work, the problem may be that the Amiga simply can't read the tape written on another system.  It's a stretch but once I get ethernet on the thing, I will try copying the files over and making an install tape from AMIX.  If that works I'd be happy to provide copies.

If I get my tape drive up and running, I will try to make it again as well and would be happy to help with copies also.  I've been making them from NetBSD running on my 4000D.  Aside from the hardware issue, I think the creation process is working.  I think the drive will be disassembled this weekend Amiwest permitting.

[Matt_H]

I believe it's looking for icon.library or font.library or something to that effect... I got that once too.  I don't think Kickstart 1.4 has all the necessary libraries and device to actually load Amiga OS

"This disk requires Kickstart 2.0 or later"? That's what I get if I quit out of the boot menu.

I was reading over the 3000 schematics today, and the Shipping parts list actually indicates a Workbench 1.4, Extras 1.4 and Workbench 1.4 Manual were to be packed in. Must be a very early version of the schematics... or Commodore never updated them. I wonder if any 1.4 sets were ever produced/are still around?

[Oli_hd]

Hi,

I wonder if any 1.4 sets were ever produced/are still around?

 Well you can downlaod the 1.4 workbench from Workbench Nostalgia (as well as read a lot of cool info and see some screen shots) and the full 1.4 sets were distributed at the Amiga San Francisco developer conference on the 7th of June 1989 (SF-Devcon 89.2)

[Failure]

Just for kicks (haha, get it?  we were talking about kickstart!  haha...ha...*cough*) I tried putting the AMIX HD into my 3000 with 3.1 ROMs.  It failed to boot, but it did try to boot _something_.  I got one of those pretty flashing red boxes as a result.

I'm a little sad that it didn't Just Work, but the fact that it boots ok from the AMIX 2.03 install floppies seems to indicate it's not an insurmountable problem.  The version on the HD is 1.1, which is the first release AFAIK, and very buggy if Usenet is to be believed.

--
Failure

[gregthecanuck]

Just for kicks (haha, get it? we were talking about kickstart! haha...ha...*cough*) I tried putting the AMIX HD into my 3000 with 3.1 ROMs. It failed to boot, but it did try to boot _something_. I got one of those pretty flashing red boxes as a result.

Any chance you are running > 68030?  It doesn't work with 68040.  AMIX doesn't work with the A3640 (for example)...

[jeffimix]

@Matt_H

legal problems?

Like logging into the business network of a large power company?

[Iggy_Drougge]

Failure wrote:

Matt_H wrote:
I think Commodore used to sell 3000UX packages with a 2065 and 2410 graphics board. I see you've already got a 2065 on the way, but if you could get a 2410, you'd probably have a killer AMIX rig. I've never seen one for sale, though. Ever. :-(

Yes.  I don't expect of find one of those, although I am looking for one.  Probably what I will do is just redirect the Amiga's display to another X server on the network, so that I am not stuck with 1-bit(!) color.  But I can't do that until I get the ethernet card :-/

Actually, there are AMIX drivers for third-party cards, too, thanks to some nice people at Villagetronic. For ethernet, there is an Ariadne driver, and there is at least an X server for Picasso, possibly other cards, too. So if a better X is all you want, and won't mind settling for third-party, that's the way to go. Have a look at the original Gateway UNIX CD.

[Failure]

Hey, thanks for that info!  I had the understanding that only the Ariadne driver was available.  I wonder where I can find those CDs, though :-/

I was able to repair a broken, spare Amiga mouse (2-button only) and actually use X.  Despite being 1-bit color, it's actually not that bad.  Predictably, the X server is much, much faster than when I tried it in Linux on another 3000 some years ago now.  I ran good ol' xeyes, xcalc, and a GUI file browsing utility.

[Matt_H]

I actually have the Gateway CDs, although I don't know nearly enough about UNIX to figure out what everything on them is. I *think* I've found the Picasso drivers, but since they seem to be compiled for NetBSD, I don't know how to get them working under AMIX. If there is source code, I haven't found it yet.

[Failure]

I was finally about to get the machine online yesterday, with the receipt of an A2065.  It was easy to get the NIC to work...it "just worked".  It was harder to get it to actually get outside the local network.  For example, to get DNS lookups to work at all, I had to change a link from libsocket.so from libsockhost.so to libsockdns.so...which I only found after trawling in Usenet archives for about twenty minutes.  Also for some reason, it's not setting the default route so I stuck a little hack startup script (S99hack ;-p) to do it at the end of the boot process.  But it works now.  And, yes, I put it on the internet:

http://bfe.homelinux.net/

Note that is on a flaky ADSL line and dynamic IP, so it's not unusual for it to be down periodically.  I chose NCSA as the webserver since I figured it would be likely to compile without trouble.  I was mostly right.

Now that it's on the network, it will be much easier to get new software on it, and to try to make the install tape mentioned earlier.  Good ol' rcp.