Finally got my A3000 upto speed!

[tonyyeb]

I have dual input on my monitor (HDMI to my PC and VGA to my A3000). Whats the difference between the two cards in relation to the monitor?

Whats the cost of the two cards?

[amigadave]

@alexh,

Thanks for the info about IDE-Fix Express and the A4000.  I think I read that somewhere a long time ago, but had half forgotten it.  

What about the IDE controller on a Buddah Flash Zorro card?  Does it compare to the FastATA from Elbox, or the Deneb?  I already have a Buddah card, but have never installed or used it, as I just recently acquired it (few months ago) used from someone with a pile of other items.

[alexh]

tonyyeb wrote:
Whats the difference between the two cards in relation to the monitor?

One of them has a built in monitor switcher so you plug the VGA out of the A3000 into the gfx card and then the gfx card into the monitor and when there is nothing on one of the screens it automatically switches to the other. Basically it switches between workbench (which will come from the gfx card) and games (which will come from the A3000 motherboard) automatically. Very similar to the old Voodoo cards if you remember those?

tonyyeb wrote:
Whats the cost of the two cards?

The CV64/3D is usually about £65-85 and the CV64 is £120-150. But they can both go for much more if there are two people who want one. Over £150 you are entering PicassoIV prices.

[tonyyeb]

alexh wrote:
Very similar to the old Voodoo cards if you remember those?

Certainly do.

The CV64/3D is usually about £65-85 and the CV64 is £120-150. But they can both go for much more if there are two people who want one. Over £150 you are entering PicassoIV prices.

Hmmm, reality check. Bought a 8800GTS for my PC three weeks ago for £45 inc P&P second hand!

[tonyyeb]

Just a quick question about changing the kickstart file. If when I do it and I reboot, what do I do if it doesn't boot? How do i restore the old one?

[alexh]

tonyyeb wrote:
Hmmm, reality check. Bought a 8800GTS for my PC three weeks ago for £45 inc P&P second hand!

Amiga hardware is roughly 2x the price of PC stuff. So £45 becomes £90!

But like I said, a gfx card is an extravagance if all you want to do is play WHDload games.

How much RAM you got? 2+16?

[quenthal]

alexh wrote:
If you want fast IDE on Amiga you have to get either a FastATA from Elbox or a Deneb and USB->IDE adapter.

Or use SCSI to IDE bridge (has the potential of being the fastest IDE on amiga especially when used with SCSI on turbo cards).

However Deneb would give you also hotswapping card readers and cheap networking too.

[alexh]

tonyyeb wrote:
Just a quick question about changing the kickstart file. If when I do it and I reboot, what do I do if it doesn't boot? How do i restore the old one?

You are using a PC and UAE to transfer the file? Back up the old one to devs/kickstart_old during the copy process and if it doesn't boot (it will!) you just put the drive back in the PC and rename the old file back?

Once you've confirmed that the kickstart file works, put it back in the PC and install Workbench 3.1 (or 3.9) :-)

[tonyyeb]

alexh wrote:
You are using a PC and UAE to transfer the file? Back up the old one to devs/kickstart_old during the copy process and if it doesn't boot (it will!) you just put the drive back in the PC and rename the old file back?

Once you've confirmed that the kickstart file works, put it back in the PC and install Workbench 3.1 (or 3.9) :-)

But I have workbench installed on the existing SCSI 100mb drive not my 2.5" drive.

EDIT: I can sort it by booting WB2.05 to the AmigaDOS screen and loadwb from the HD.

[alexh]

D'oh of course. KS1.4 probably doesn't support loading via anything other than the internal SCSI anyhow.

Make a SuperKickstart floppy disk using this tool?

http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/MakeSuperDisk

With this emergency disk.. if anything goes wrong you'll be able to recover.

[tonyyeb]

All done! Kickstart 40.70 reported by version.

Now I guess installing Workbench 3.1 is a matter of putting in the install 3.1 disk and double clicking install?

Is there a way to virtually mount ADF's so they look like real disks to the Amiga? The reason I ask is that I only have a few floppies to write the ADFs too and I've had quite a few failures writing ADFs to them.

EDIT: To answer my own second question I found ADF Device. Going to try it now.

[alexh]

tonyyeb wrote:
Now I guess installing Workbench 3.1 is a matter of putting in the install 3.1 disk and double clicking install?

You will need to insert the other (5?) disks when prompted : Workbench, Locale, Storage, Fonts, Extras

Workbench 3.9 is of course a CD (ISO)

I still recommend making a SuperKickstart disk in case of emergency until you KS3.1 ROM's arrive. If the hard disk gets wiped you'll be screwed without one. (Although you might be able to use the secret 1.4 widget in the top corner of the KS selection screen to get a floppy disk to partially boot)

[Kin-Hell]

tonyyeb wrote:
Is there a way to virtually mount ADF's so they look like real disks to the Amiga? The reason I ask is that I only have a few floppies to write the ADFs too and I've had quite a few failures writing ADFs to them.

EDIT: To answer my own second question I found ADF Device. Going to try it now.

Another option is to mount a couple of RAD drives & extract to them instead of floppies. Much much faster too, but non-DOS disks will still be unreadable!  ;-)

[alexh]

@Kin-Hell
You'd have to screw around with ASSIGN if you did that??

[Kin-Hell]

yeah alexh, possibly! ..Depending on the software he`s extracting to the RAD drives.
He`d also have to edit RAD in storage DEVS: & save them as their own Logical devices too.

Perhaps I`m showing meh age again, but then I am old School when it comes to Amigas!  ;-)

[tonyyeb]

Kin-Hell wrote:

Another option is to mount a couple of RAD drives & extract to them instead of floppies. Much much faster too, but non-DOS disks will still be unreadable!  ;-)

ADF Device worked like a charm. Now got Workbench 3.1 installed on my HD. Just wish the partition for system2.0 was slightly bigger than 10mb.

Also got all the buddha stuff installed now.

Thanks alexh for all the help and tips. Now off to order a IDE-CF for my Amiga and a Front panel CF reader for my PC... and a CF card of course  ;-)