Centennial PCMCIA SRAM in an a600?

[SuperTurbo]

Howdy peeps... I just got myself an old 4mb Centennial PCMCIA card to use in my a600 with no expansions. I want to prepare it as RAM but PrepCard tells me it´s corrupt and that I should prepare the card first.

I assume that it means I should prepare it as a disk but when I do the screen just goes black after a while. After I reboot WB finds the card as a NDOS disk, but when trying to format it it complains over some bad sectors. Probably due to being unable to prepare the card properly.

My questions: Does it take a long time to prepare an SRAM card? Is this card just broken or is it the A600?

[AmiDude]

PCMCIA SRam cards usualy get automaticly recognized
by the system as Fast Ram. No need for drivers or
the PrepCard program.
Probably your SRam card is defective.

[SuperTurbo]

Yeah, you´re probably right..  :-( but will it automatically use it as ram even if there are some data saved on it?

I don´t get why there are only 1mb chip expansions for the a600 availble. Isn´t there a card with both chipmem and fastmem somewhere?

[AmiDude]

There are no such cards with both Chip & Fast Ram for
the A600. But you can trie to find one of these very
hard to find accelerator cards, wich will provide you
with a faster CPU/FPU and FastRam:

A600 Accelerators

[Velcro_SP]

It should configure right away without Prepcard or anything like that. Are you sure it is SRAM? My impression was that SRAM cards would work, it is all the other hundreds of cards that won't work. You are going to make me dust off my old A600 PCMCIA RAM card page:

http://linux.tc3net.com/daclmi/a_pcmcia.html

If you provide a little more description of the card I will add it to the "DO NOT WORK" group.

[SuperTurbo]

Well, it says "SRAM" on the card itself and Prepcard actually detects it so I assume it should work. I also think I read a post somewhere at Amigaworld.net that the centennial SRAM card should work with the Amiga.

I suppose the only conclusion is that the card really is broken :-(  . Btw, does it need drivers when used on a PC laptop? I have an old one on which I could try it before I scrap it.

[alexh]

I dont think you guys are right about not needing "prepcard".

The Amiga needs to know whether to use as RAM or as a hard drive.

If the card had previously been used as an Amiga Hard drive then it wouldn't automatically get used as RAM. But a drive Icon should come up in Workbench.

What comes up on the early startup menu?

Dont scrap it, bung it in the post to me and if I get it working I'll send it back.

[Velcro_SP]

The fact that Prepcard detects a card doesn't necessarily mean that the card should work. I think each card has identification code that Prepcard can read, but there is still the question of drivers. Then again, some cards don't seem to need drivers, they just autoconfigure as RAM right away. Perhaps you can find a driver for your card on Aminet, but I kinda doubt it. There are not a whole lot of PCMCIA card drivers on Aminet, though there are a few.

[Xanxi]

Those Centennial cards can't be used on an A600/A1200, they are made for some Novell servers only.
I have bought once a 32MB one and it can work neither on a miggy or a Windows based PC.
Useless.

[adolescent]

I found prepcard from OS2.1 couldn't properly initialize the card.  I had to stick it in my A1200/OS3.9 and do it there.  Once it was prepared I used it in the A600 just fine.

[Chain]

http://linux.tc3net.com/daclmi/a_pcmcia.html

If you provide a little more description of the card I will add it to the "DO NOT WORK" group.

add to list:
Kingston KTC-LTE 386/4MB - not working  :madashell:

[ozkano]

@ Velcro_SP

also Contennial PCMCIA works with my A600 use as 0.5 MB Fast RAM

[som99]

Sorry for gravedigging, but I recently put a bid on a 2MB Centennial SRAM recharge PC Card, on the auction the seller says that he have used it as ram on his a1200 and it works so I thought ill buy it for my a600 and it should work on it also, but now I saw someone here write that centennial cards do not work  :S

My bid will win in a day or 2 im sure, but I have bidded 70$ for it so I realy hope it works on my a600.

Should it not work on the a600 when it works on the a1200?

I got a a600 with a CF adapter and 4GB CF card so I wanted more memory for WHDload.

anoyone her have a centennial Sram card on their amigas?

[Matt_H]

If it works on the 1200, there's no reason it shouldn't work on the 600.

[Cammy]

It will work on your A600. Most of the posters in this old thread had no clue, except AlexH who offered the best advice and seemed to be ignored.

If your bid is $70, I don't think you'll be out-bid! But just in case you want another 2MB SRAM card, you can buy them any time for $39.98 here - http://www.memoryx.net/bgz.html