WB 1.3- Same floppy for A3000 and earlier models?

[HolySamosa]

Hi guys--

Will the Workbench 1.3 floppy that came with an A3000 work with the earlier Amigas?  Trying to get an A2500 up and running and it throws a #00000004 error when loading Workbench 1.3 as supplied by my A3000.  Just want to rule out an incompatible Workbench version...

Thanks!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

What version does it say on the disk?  Didn't some very early A3000's ship with a beta version of 1.4?  Does the disk check out okay in the A3000?  Are you able to boot any game disks as a test (if you have any)?

[HolySamosa]

Howdy, Mike!  Thanks for answering so many of my questions lately.  Out of these three Amigas I am working on, I'm really looking forward to getting at least one totally operational.  Slow progress is being made!

The Workbench floppy is version 1.3.3 (Rev 34.34).  

The Amiga 2500 ROM isn't labeled with a version number, but it asks for Workbench 1.3 at start up.

Thanks!

[HolySamosa]

And I forgot to mention:

The WB disk works properly on the A3000.  I also don't have any other software for the machines yet, except for the system disks with the A3000 (includes system versions 1.3.3 and 2.0).

[Ilwrath]

Hi guys--

Will the Workbench 1.3 floppy that came with an A3000 work with the earlier Amigas?  Trying to get an A2500 up and running and it throws a #00000004 error when loading Workbench 1.3 as supplied by my A3000.  Just want to rule out an incompatible Workbench version...

Thanks!

Oh boy... my memory is hazy here.  But I don't think the Amiga 3000 Workbench 1.3.3 will load on any other machine without modifications.  The version of SetPatch on that disk may be expecting to find the early A3000's Super Kickstart.  Those earliest A3000's were strange animals.

You might be able to get away with making a copy of that 1.3.3 disk and removing SetPatch from it...?

[HolySamosa]

Thanks, guys.  

The A3000 seems to now be close to functional (just need a replacement coin cell battery, then hopefully it will again recognize the hard disk), so I think my nest strategy is to get it running then use it to make disks for the A1000 and A2500.

I'll let you know how it goes!

[TjLaZer]

Yes the A3000 WB 1.3 disk works on all Amigas.

[danbeaver]

Thanks, guys.  

The A3000 seems to now be close to functional (just need a replacement coin cell battery, then hopefully it will again recognize the hard disk), so I think my nest strategy is to get it running then use it to make disks for the A1000 and A2500.

I'll let you know how it goes!

:pint:(The battery has nothing to do with the hard drive being recognized):pint:

[Andeda]

It would be nice if you could buy these older versions of WB, but if i have understand right, these versions are still owned by Amiga inc. Im sure there are many here that would be ready to buy these for a decent price..

[HolySamosa]

Hi Dan:
I thought the battery on the A3000 was used to persist hard disk configuration?

[danbeaver]

As you can see, the NVRAM only manages options; there is nothing that has to be set for the controller to work:
NVRAM ~~~~~     The A3000 also has a NVRAM configuration which is powered by the same battery which the clock is.  It supports the setup of the following:      
SCSI Controller ID:    This places the onboard SCSI controller  at a specific ID location, 7 by default.  You can change this to something else,  to get a device at 7.
Long SCSI Timeout:    This slows the boot process for SCSI drives, for those units which take longer to spin up and be ready.          
Synchronous SCSI:    This enables Synchronous SCSI mode, which can speed access on some drives.  This is fully operational on Kickstart 3.1.      
Multiple LUNs Mode:    This enables multiple LUN's, which allows  for multiple drives at each address.

[HolySamosa]

Thanks for the info, Dan.  Perhaps this means that the hard disk just gave up the ghost.  i recently powered up the 3000 after it had been in storage for close to 20 years-- the hard disk worked fine for the first day, then the second it was no longer visible to the system-- I also noticed that the battery was hosed about this time.


On a positive note, the A2500 is alive!  Moving the accelerator board to a different slot seemed to do the trick.  All seems to be well except for the SCSI card or disks, but that's a story for a different thread...

I conclusion, I can confirm TjLaZer that the 1.3.3 disks with the 3000 work with the 2500.:-)

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

On a positive note, the A2500 is alive! Moving the accelerator board to a different slot seemed to do the trick.

Um, the A2500 only has one slot for an accelerator board, the other slots are Zorro II (hard drives, ram expansion, video cards, network cards, etc.).  I assume you mean a different board.  Troubleshooting 101: remove all expansion cards and try with a bare system.  The re-add the boards one by one, until it stops working.  Now I feel bad that one of us should've suggested that to you sooner.  D'oh!  
 
 http://amiga.resource.cx/mod/a2000.html

[olsen]

Hi guys--

Will the Workbench 1.3 floppy that came with an A3000 work with the earlier Amigas?  Trying to get an A2500 up and running and it throws a #00000004 error when loading Workbench 1.3 as supplied by my A3000.  Just want to rule out an incompatible Workbench version...

Thanks!

The A3000 does not use the same battery backed up clock hardware as previous models (A500, A2000) did. The Workbench 1.3 disk therefore includes a special "SetClock" command which *may* not work well with on an A2000 type of machine.

I wrote *may* because there have been various compatibility issues with the SetClock command versions that shipped between 1987-1994, which could result in crashes (the SetClock version intended for A500/A2000 crashes instantly on the A3000) and stalled system startup (some SetClock versions intended for the A500/A2000 will drop into an infinite loop for years beyond 1999).

Unless you have already found a different solution, I would recommend that you edit the S:Startup-Sequence file and comment out the line which invokes the "SetClock" command. Alternatively, you could replace SetClock with the updated version which came with the Y2K article yours truly wrote back in 1998: http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/amiga_bogue_an2000_en.php

[HolySamosa]

@Oldsmobile_Mike: Whoops...  Yes, I meant to say I moved the RAM expansion board-- not the accelerator board.  

@olsen:  Thanks for the information about the clock!