What can I do with an A2286

[thanos]

Hello.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on an A2000.
I opened it up to have a look inside, and found it contains an A2286 bridgeboard.

Please, no laughing...

The question is...What can I do with the bridgeboard?  I have looked around a bit for a manual but haven't located one yet.

OK, laugh a little...

Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to offer.

[vk3heg]

Drop it off a two story building to make it go faster  :-D :devildance:

[tokyoracer]

Afraid to say that most C= PC emulatiors are poo. A total waste of a Zorro slot and airspace.

[spirantho]

I disagree. My A2286 works just fine. Not as good as my Goldengate 486 of course, but nonetheless....

You can use it for playing old PC games if you like... stuff like the early Wizardry and Ultima games are worth playing and will work perfectly I should think.

Best thing to do is to go search PC Abandonware sites. Oh, and stick an SVGA card in it too. You'll need a monitor switcher of course, but you can't do much with CGA, so it's a very worthwhile purchase. And if you can get an original 8-bit Soundblaster II that'd help if you like sound.

There's stuff out there, but to find the good stuff you have to be a bit more imaginitive than finding good stuff on old Amigas.

[amiga_3k]

If you're a really talented programmer you could also try and find a suitable network card and program a solution to use the PC-side of the Amiga to access a local network ;-).

[spirantho]

You could indeed. Or if you were really clever you'd just download etherbridge12.lha off the aminet instead.

[darksun9210]

dammit! got there before me! :lol:
it seems a bridgeboard and an ISA network card is the cheapest ethernet solution for zorro slot miggys :-)

[thanos]

Excellent, I think...

OK, thanks for the useful information.

What kind of card might I be able to use?

Another question...

Does the bridgeboard prevent me from being able to access the 'early start up menu'?


Did I get that right?  I should hold down both mouse button when I start it up, then see some type of menu?

Hmmm, questions, questions.

[MrZammler]

Had the same questions before I got mine.

The bridgeboard actually boots along side with the Amiga, in parallel, but you never see that. This is done by the janus.library which is in the Expansions drawer. When the ss hits Binddrivers, the bridgeboard starts to boot. You still see the amiga booting as normal.

Then, when on WB, you just click on the "PC" icon (from the janus distribution) which opens a screen to the bridgeboard. Both machines work at the same time, and you can switch between pc and amiga screens on the fly.