A2286D Bridgeboard intermittent problems
Jim GEOS Collette
I'm having a lot of intermittent crashes with my A2286D PC/AT Bridgeboard.
Sometimes it will work fine, but more often than not it crashes when booting
up - sometimes the PC drive light comes on and just stays there as soon as
Binddrivers is run (and trying to use any of the Amiga-side software (i.e
AMOUSE, PCWindow, etc.) says the Janus Library isn't installed properly) -
and sometimes the drive light never comes on and opening PCWindow gives a
totally black screen and the colors are all set to black for the PCWindow
display (only way to close it is to remember where the Project menu is and
hope you pick the Close option... or you can double-click in on the screen
to make it a small window and then click it's close gadget (again, have to
remember the location since the screen is still totally black)) - and
sometimes it will open the display OK but give any number of errors on the
PC side - Memory Parity error, DMA error, sometimes it will only find 128K
of RAM or so, etc... and sometimes it will display the Janus Library/Handler
message and then either freeze there, or start to boot and fail - and if it
makes it to booting from the HD (I'm using an AutoBoot volume in DH2:) it
will often come up with stuff like "Bad or missing CONFIG.SYS", etc.
And then when it finally does boot OK, often it will crash at some point later
in the session.
This is REALLY a pain in the rear - I don't know if there's a connection, but
often it will work again for a little bit after I run A-Max II! And powering
down usually has no effect; sometimes it is worse the next time! The only
thing that really seems to fix it temporarily is to remove the board from its
slot (I've tried it in both slots, same results) and reinstall it. This will
get it working fine for anywhere from a few days to a week, and then it starts
to act up again.
I've heard there are problems with the 286 Bridgeboard and I'm curious if
anyone knows anything. I bought this used back in February from a guy who
bought it back over summer '90 but couldn't use it because he's got the full
9 megs installed... so supposedly the board is like new. It is even newer
than the manual, apparently - when the PC side comes up, it says Commodore
A2286 BIOS Rev 3.6 (the screen shot in the manual is rev 3.5). And the other
major difference is that this board seems to have the lithium battery onboard.
No battery came with it, and the J13 connector mentioned in the manual to hook
up the battery isn't even present on my board. From looking at the pictures
in the manual (in the front in the installation tutorial, and in the back in
the coprocessor installation instructions) the board looks similar to the
one shown but not exactly the same - the jumpers aren't all in the same spot
as shown in the diagram either.
In case the info is relevant to anyone, I've got an A2000 (from Feb '90) -
it has the 1 Meg Chip RAM. The motherboard is rev 6.7 and the serial number
is CA1063251. The Bridgeboard says "A2286 Assy.# 380690 Rev. A" and its
serial number is 006216 (per the sticker on the middle of the board). As I
said, I've tried it in both bridge slots with the same results. The only
other thing I've got installed is a Commodore A2091 HD controller with a
105 Meg Quantum and 2 Megs of RAM in the A2091 slots. (Note... if it matters,
the A2091 is one of the very early ones... the ROM is v5.92 and it seems to
have problems with multiple SCSI devices - but that's another matter!)
That's about it I guess... sorry this is was so long, wanted to cover all the
bases. If anyone can help it would be much appreciated... THANK you!!! :)
-Jim :) (Ji...@cup.portal.com)
Richard Vermaas
In article <44...@cup.portal.com> Ji...@cup.portal.com (Jim GEOS Collette)
writes:
>(Hope this is all OK... first time posting here)
Ditto :-)
This message is very long but PLEASE read it if you have any idea what might
cause the problems mentioned below. I have tried for a week to solve it and
I am not even close. Thank you for your time...
>I'm having a lot of intermittent crashes with my A2286D PC/AT Bridgeboard.
So, I am not the only one who is astounded by the difficulties of getting
this particular Bridgeboard to run.
I'll try to summarize all the problems that I had with the Bridgeboard this
week (I just bought it last week). A lot of my problems are the same.
>Sometimes it will work fine, but more often than not it crashes when
>booting up..
More specifically (at least in my case): sometimes it will work fine when
booting from a cold start. That is, Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga will ALWAYS fail.
So, if I switch my computer off for say 1 to 2 hours and then switch it on
then it will work fine. That is, the PC boots o.k. and I get PC windows in
which I can work with MSDOS. However, if I fail to type something for say
1 minute (keyboard 1 minute idle) then the board hangs. Only solution: boot
with Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga or closing the window. If I close the window then a
restart will reopen the PC window on exactly the same spot (and hangs).
If I boot with Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga and then try to start the bridgeboard I get
the most annoying message of all:
Couldn't find library
and believe me, I have been dumping all libraries I could find in the libs
directory.
>..sometimes the PC drive light comes on and just stays there as soon as
>Binddrivers is run (and trying to use any of the Amiga-side software (i.e
>AMOUSE, PCWindow, etc.) says the Janus Library isn't installed properly)
Hmm, haven't had trouble with the light (yet), however, having the lines:
BindDrivers
run >nil: sys:PC/PCDisk
run >nil: sys:PC/Amouse
always caused a problem with Janus/Amouse. And this ONLY happened when
booting with Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga, not when booting from cold start.
I "solved" it by removing the the line 'run >nil: sys:PC/Amouse'. However,
this is a temporary solution because that line is needed (sigh).
>..and sometimes the drive light never comes on and opening PCWindow gives a
>totally black screen and the colors are all set to black for the PCWindow
>display (only way to close it is to remember where the Project menu is and
>hope you pick the Close option... or you can double-click in on the screen
>to make it a small window and then click it's close gadget (again, have to
>remember the location since the screen is still totally black))...
Again, no trouble with the light, but the rest happens over here too.
>..sometimes it will open the display OK but give any number of errors on
>the PC side - Memory Parity error, DMA error, sometimes it will only find
>128K of RAM or so, etc...
Nope, hasn't happened to me.
>..and sometimes it will display the Janus Library/Handler message and then
>either freeze there, or start to boot and fail..
Oh, my this gets worse every minute. This happens to me too.
>(I'm using an AutoBoot volume in DH2:)
Et tu, Brute? I also have an AutoBoot. But mine is in DH1 (reserved for PC)
while DH0 contains the Amiga stuff. Have you tried working with virtual drives?
Appendix C of the Bridgeboard manual. I didn't even copy what they were talking
about. However, booting from the harddisk works fine now.
>..it will often come up with stuff like "Bad or missing CONFIG.SYS", etc.
No, it reads the CONFIG.SYS fine.
>And then when it finally does boot OK, often it will crash at some point later
>in the session.
See above, it crashes on my side after some minutes idle time.
>This is REALLY a pain in the rear.
You can say that again, I just bought my whole set last week so I have no real
experience with an A2000 either so this causes a mayor problem for me.
>I don't know if there's a connection, but often it will work again for a
>little bit after I run A-Max II!
BTW What is Amax II? I have seen references to this all over the newsgroups,
but since I am pretty new to all this I did not copy all this yet.
>And powering down usually has no effect; sometimes it is worse the next time!
Try switching off, wait for some time (preferably an hour or so) and then try
again, amazingly this will work. It is just a speculation on my side but could
it be that after that time ALL memory is completely gone (including the D000
part of the Bridgeboard windows)? Because if I switch off for say 30 seconds
and then switch it on again it won't e]pk, only after a long period of time
switched off (in the order of one hour or longer) will it work again.
>The only thing that really seems to fix it temporarily is to remove the board
>from its slot (I've tried it in both slots, same results) and reinstall it.
Yes, I had to switch some jumpers on my Bridgeboard so I had to remove it. And
indeed, after reinstalling the Bridgeboard all worked fine again.
>This will get it working fine for anywhere from a few days to a week, and
>then it starts to act up again.
No, not in my case, in my case it will only work till the next boot (sigh).
>I've heard there are problems with the 286 Bridgeboard and I'm curious if
>anyone knows anything. I bought this used back in February from a guy who
>bought it back over summer '90 but couldn't use it because he's got the full
>9 megs installed... so supposedly the board is like new.
Huh? Say again? Is the slot used for the Bridgeboard also used for memory
expansion then?
>It is even newer than the manual, apparently - when the PC side comes up, it
>says Commodore A2286 BIOS Rev 3.6 (the screen shot in the manual is rev 3.5).
Yes indeed, but then again, this is a Commodore manual and I have been making
jokes about Commodore manuals since my C64 :-). But seriously, this manual is
worse than no manual at all.
>And the other major difference is that this board seems to have the lithium
>battery onboard. No battery came with it, and the J13 connector mentioned in
>the manual to hook up the battery isn't even present on my board.
Don't worry about that on (at least I can tell you something useful). I also
wondered about that (the manual said I should have a battery while I did not
have one) so I called the supplier. He checked it and told me that I would not
need one. Apparantly Commodore had some trouble with the damn battery so they
removed it (it was only used for the clock anyway).
>From looking at the pictures in the manual (in the front in the installation
>tutorial, and in the back in the coprocessor installation instructions) the
>board looks similar to the one shown but not exactly the same - the jumpers
>aren't all in the same spot as shown in the diagram either.
Yeah! Did you manage to find jumper 1 at all? I did not and I checked the
silly Bridgeboard centimeter by centimeter. I was looking for jumper 1 to
switch from mono to color (and the manual said I would have to reset jumper 1)
so naive person I am (not really) I started looking for the damn thing but I
did NOT succeed in finding it (maybe it is below the upper print (sigh)). Oh,
I did manage to switch to color by switching jumper 14.
>That's about it I guess... sorry this is was so long, wanted to cover all the
>bases. If anyone can help it would be much appreciated... THANK you!!!
And I made it even longer (I wonder if anyone will read it at all :-).
I would REALLY, REALLY appreciate any replies. Followups would be fine. I have
spend a whole week on this problem and I am not even near a solution.
I will forward all solutions that I get to you Jim. I would appreciate to hear
about progress on your side.
Furthermore, Tim Nicholas replied to Jim's message with:
>One year back I had the AT 2286 Bridgeboard with the onboard lithium battery
>which caused my computer to crash like mad. I brought it back under warranty
>and the tech's removed the onboard battery and replaced it with the old style
>battery. They said that the onboard battery interfered with something ..
>forgot .. So that will most likly solve your problem a good way to test to
>see if it is, is take the cover off your computer and leave it off.. it should
>work..it did for me..when I put the cover back on..it locked up like mad...
(Are you kidding? You mean I have to remove the battery or do I have to remove
the cover of the A2000?
Thanks in advance
Richard Vermaas
rich...@maestro.htsa.aha.nl
__________(Richard Vermaas)__________(rich...@solist.htsa.aha.nl)___________
"I have never understood why it should be necessary to become irrational in
order to prove that you care, or indeed why it should be necessary to prove
it at all." [Avon]
Kriston J. Rehberg
Vermaas) writes:
|>>I'm having a lot of intermittent crashes with my A2286D PC/AT Bridgeboard.
I have had some with my A2088. Read on.
|>>Sometimes it will work fine, but more often than not it crashes when
|>>booting up..
|>
|>More specifically (at least in my case): sometimes it will work fine when
|>[...]
|>If I boot with Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga and then try to start the bridgeboard I get
|>the most annoying message of all:
|>
|> Couldn't find library
That's a hardware problem. Try reseating chips and cleaning contacts on
the edge connector of the BB. Could also be a binddrivers position
problem (see below).
|>>..sometimes the PC drive light comes on and just stays there as soon as
|>>Binddrivers is run (and trying to use any of the Amiga-side software (i.e
|>>AMOUSE, PCWindow, etc.) says the Janus Library isn't installed properly)
|>Hmm, haven't had trouble with the light (yet), however, having the lines:
|>
|>BindDrivers
|>run >nil: sys:PC/PCDisk
|>run >nil: sys:PC/Amouse
Here is part of the problem. You should put BindDrivers as far away
from the PCDISK and AMOUSE programs as possible. I suggest do a
binddrivers at the start of your startup-sequence, and put these two BB
ones at the end. Or, write a script to start these two up when you're
ready to use your BB (like I do). Saves me memory, and I don't have the
BB fighting over the hard disk with other programs. Note that I usually
leave my floppy drive turned off, anyway.
|>>..sometimes it will open the display OK but give any number of errors on
|>>the PC side - Memory Parity error, DMA error, sometimes it will only find
|>>128K of RAM or so, etc...
That's a hardware problem, probably, but then the binddrivers problem
can cause it, too.
Hope some of this helps.
|> Richard Vermaas
-Kris
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Kriston J. Rehberg, Consultant, SUNY-Binghamton Computer Services |
| <con...@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu> or <con...@BINGVAXA.BITnet> |
| #include <stddiscl.h> "Hackito ergo sum" - old Latin proverb |
+-------------------------------------------------------------- ;-b --+
Jim GEOS Collette
connector contacts a REAL good cleaning and made sure all the chips were seate
firmly in the sockets... plugged it back in and it ran OK for an hour or so an
then poof, it's dead again. Now I'm back to the problem where it will start to
boot from the HD, but gives a bunch of crazy MS-DOS errors (errors in the
ANSI.SYS, JDISK.SYS, COUNTRY.SYS, etc..) - my guess is that the data transfer
is unreliable and the PC is crapping out because it's getting bogus data. Sinc
it IS a pseudo-HD emulated off the Amiga's drive, it would definitely be subje
to problems in the Janus gateway between the two sides. I'll have to see if I
can maybe get it to boot off a floppy (in which case it wouldn't have to bothe
with the Amiga's drive). BTW, what version of the Janus Handler/Library do you
all have? Mine says Janus Handler v2.63 and Janus Library v33.0.
> More specifically (at least in my case): sometimes it will work fine when
> booting from a cold start. That is, Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga will ALWAYS fail.
> So, if I switch my computer of for say 1 to 2 hours and then switch it on
> then it will work fine. That is, the PC boots o.k. and I get PC windows in
> which I can work with MSDOS. However, if I fail to type something for say
> 1 minute (keyboard 1 minute idle) then the board hangs. Only solution: boot
> with Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga or closing the window. If I close the window then a
> restart will reopen the PC window on exactly the same spot (and hangs).
> If I boot with Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga and then try to start the bridgeboard I get
> the most annoying message of all:
>
> Couldn't find library
>
> and believe me, I have been dumping all libraries I could find in the libs
> directory.
I've had the same problem where if you let the PC sit there and don't type
anything for a while it will hang up. Sometimes it works OK if I just close
and re-open the PC window - but usually it makes no difference. Usually if
I can't get it to work upon powering up, I can wait a little bit and keep
resetting the Amiga until it starts to work - Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga doesn't
totally kill mine like it seems to kill yours. I've never had the "Couldn't
find library" message, believe it or not! Guess that's about the only thing
that HASN'T gone wrong so far! :(
> >(I'm using an AutoBoot volume in DH2:)
> Et tu, Brute? I also have an AutoBoot. But mine is in DH1 (reserved for PC)
> while DH0 contains the Amiga stuff. Have you tried working with virtual driv
> Appendix C of the Bridgeboard manual. I didn't even copy what they were talk
> about. However, booting from the harddisk works fine now.
Yep, my AutoBoot volume used to be in DH1: along with all my other files (DH0:
was Workbench, and DH1: was everything else) - then I realized that my HD
backup program (DoubleBack from the Disk Mechanic) bombed like crazy when it
came to the pseudo-HD file. So I repartitioned the HD and stuck it in DH2: all
by itself. Yep I have tried using the JLINK virtual drives, they seemed to wor
but I stuck to the AutoBoot volume so I could boot from it. :)
> >I don't know if there's a connection, but often it will work again for a
> >little bit after I run A-Max II!
> BTW What is Amax II? I have seen references to this all over the newsgroups,
> but since I am pretty new to all this I did not copy all this yet.
A-Max II is the Mac emulator from ReadySoft. I'm not sure it really does do
anything for the Bridgeboard, but I swear that on a few occasions it has
booted flawlessly after running A-Max - but it is probably just a coincidence.
> >And powering down usually has no effect; sometimes it is worse the next tim
> Try switching off, wait for some time (preferably an hour or so) and then tr
> again, amazingly this will work. It is just a speculation on my side but cou
> it be that after that time ALL memory is completely gone (including the D000
> part of the Bridgeboard windows)? Because if I switch off for say 30 seconds
> and then switch it on again it won't e]pk, only after a long period of time
> switched off (in the order of one hour or longer) will it work again.
I've thought of that too, but it doesn't seem to work any better for me after
it's been off a while. I even was thinking some of the RAM might be screwed
up too, so I wrote a little program to zap the entire 512K space the board
occupies on the Amiga side (the 128K dual-port RAM which holds the Janus
fake PC ROM, the memory for the screens, etc. is in there - actually there's
no need to write to the whole 512K since half of that is just shadows of the
RAM mapped in different ways to make it easy for the Amiga to communicate with
the PC (128K of it is normal, another 128K has every other byte pair reversed
(because Intel and Motorola are opposite in terms of word layout... Intel is
LB/HB and Motorola is HB/LB) and another 128K is layed out somehow so that
it emulates bitplane data for the CGA graphics display... that's all out of
my head though so don't quote me on it :). Anyway even after zapping the RAM
it didn't do a bit of good.
> >This will get it working fine for anywhere from a few days to a week, and
> >then it starts to act up again.
> No, not in my case, in my case it will only work till the next boot (sigh).
Actually it's getting to be like that for me now too.. I swear, it's like
this board is a dying old man. Back just a few months ago it would work for
maybe 2 weeks or so after taking it out... now it craps out in an hour or so.
> >bought it back over summer '90 but couldn't use it because he's got the ful
> >9 megs installed... so supposedly the board is like new.
> Huh? Say again? Is the slot used for the Bridgeboard also used for memory
> expansion then?
Not the physical slot... you can stick memory expansion anywhere. The problem
with the 9 meg configuration is that the Bridgeboard sits in the Amiga
addressing space in the same area where expansion RAM goes. No big deal,
unless you have it completely filled with 8 megs of expansion RAM - in
which case there isn't a free region for the Bridgeboard to sit. If you
had a 68030 and had RAM on a daughterboard off that or something it would
work OK - the only conflict is in the addressing space.
> One year back I had the AT 2286 Bridgeboard with the onboard lithium battery
> which caused my computer to crash like mad. I brought it back under warranty
> and the tech's removed the onboard battery and replaced it with the old styl
>battery. They said that the onboard battery interfered with
> something .. forgot .. So that will most likly solve your problem a good wa
> to test to see if it is, is take the cover off your computer and leave it
> off.. it should work..it did for me..when I put the cover back on..it locked
> up like mad...
Really? You do mean it was making the PC crash, not the Amiga, right? (Haven't
had any problems at all on the Amiga side of things!) I'll have to try that.
Gonna be a pain in the rear to find a place to put the monitor without the
cover to set it on but I'll try that and see if it makes a difference. This
could possibly be it... I forgot to mention it before, but I had an A2088D
XT Bridgeboard for a year before getting the AT one - and the XT worked fine.
It didn't have a battery.
Jim :)
Richard Vermaas
Hello folks,
In article <44...@cup.portal.com> Ji...@cup.portal.com (Jim GEOS Collette)
writes:
>Thanks all for your ideas... I took it out once again today and gave the edge
>connector contacts a REAL good cleaning and made sure all the chips were seate
>firmly in the sockets... plugged it back in and it ran OK for an hour or so an
>then poof, it's dead again.
Hmm, did you try the other idea from Kris? The one about putting the lines
BindDrivers
and
run >nil: sys:PC/PCDisk
run >nil: sys:PC/Amouse
as far apart in your startup-sequence as possible? And preferably the last two
in a script that executes upon startup of the PC? I put them apart in the
startup-sequence file and it seems to solve a lot of the problems (I did clean
my connectors too though (just to be sure :-)). The Bridgeboard almost works
100% now, so I am trying the solution with the script after this.
Furthermore, there is a posting on this newsgroup from (ehm, right forgot)
about the Bridgeboard. This person wants to make a FAQ about the trouble that
people have with it. Maybe we should send him a note?
>BTW, what version of the Janus Handler/Library do you all have? Mine says
>Janus Handler v2.63 and Janus Library v33.0.
Dito.
>> Huh? Say again? Is the slot used for the Bridgeboard also used for memory
>> expansion then?
>Not the physical slot... you can stick memory expansion anywhere. The problem
>with the 9 meg configuration is that the Bridgeboard sits in the Amiga
>addressing space in the same area where expansion RAM goes. No big deal,
>unless you have it completely filled with 8 megs of expansion RAM - in
>which case there isn't a free region for the Bridgeboard to sit. If you
>had a 68030 and had RAM on a daughterboard off that or something it would
>work OK - the only conflict is in the addressing space.
Thanks for the info Jim. Guess I still have to learn a lot about this nice
machine....
Hoping to get the trouble fixed,
Scott Drysdale
>connector contacts a REAL good cleaning and made sure all the chips were seate
>firmly in the sockets... plugged it back in and it ran OK for an hour or so an
>then poof, it's dead again. Now I'm back to the problem where it will start to
>boot from the HD, but gives a bunch of crazy MS-DOS errors (errors in the
>ANSI.SYS, JDISK.SYS, COUNTRY.SYS, etc..) - my guess is that the data transfer
>is unreliable and the PC is crapping out because it's getting bogus data.
well, i recently discovered the *SOFTWARE* bug which causes various and
sundry bizarre failures during booting. you can stop removing your
bridgeboards now.... just turn the system off for a while so the unitialized
variable has time to find a new value. (the bug is fixed for the next janus
release)
>> One year back I had the AT 2286 Bridgeboard with the onboard lithium battery
>> which caused my computer to crash like mad. I brought it back under warranty
>> and the tech's removed the onboard battery and replaced it with the old styl
>>battery. They said that the onboard battery interfered with
>> something .. forgot .. So that will most likly solve your problem a good wa
>> to test to see if it is, is take the cover off your computer and leave it
>> off.. it should work..it did for me..when I put the cover back on..it locked
>> up like mad...
>Really? You do mean it was making the PC crash, not the Amiga, right? (Haven't
>had any problems at all on the Amiga side of things!) I'll have to try that.
>Gonna be a pain in the rear to find a place to put the monitor without the
>cover to set it on but I'll try that and see if it makes a difference. This
>could possibly be it... I forgot to mention it before, but I had an A2088D
>XT Bridgeboard for a year before getting the AT one - and the XT worked fine.
>It didn't have a battery.
um, i don't think the new style clock chip (the large one with built in
battery) will cause any more crashes than the one with the external battery.
as to the cover being off, that one has a little bit of truth to it, but
i don't know exactly what the deal is. obviously a noise and/or temperature
problem, but...
> Jim :)
--Scotty
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Scott Drysdale Software Engineer
Commodore Amiga Inc. UUCP {allegra|burdvax|rutgers|ihnp4}!cbmvax!drysdale
PHONE - yes.
"Have you hugged your hog today?"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Richard Vermaas
(Scott Drysdale) writes:
>Well, i recently discovered the *SOFTWARE* bug which causes various and
>sundry bizarre failures during booting. You can stop removing your
>bridgeboards now.... just turn the system off for a while so the unitialized
>variable has time to find a new value. (the bug is fixed for the next janus
>release).
Aha, so it wasn't my imagination that the Bridgeboard only worked from a
cold start? Good to know.
While we are waiting for the next Janus release (BTW when will that be? And
where could we get it once it is there?):
Is it possible to set this 'unitialized variable' while booting with
ctrl-amiga-amiga? That would make life a lot easier while we wait...
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>Scott Drysdale Software Engineer
>Commodore Amiga Inc. UUCP {allegra|burdvax|rutgers|ihnp4}!cbmvax!drysdale
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Somewhere I get the impression that you work for Commodore?
Thanks for confirming that I am not crazy and awaiting then next Janus,
Greetings,
Howard Hull
to work in my A2000/A2620 system. But it is rather much a loaded system. In
addition to the A2620 accelerator and A2090A controller for the Quantum hard
disk, there is a DF2 from an old Amiga 1000, it has a Flicker Fixer, the
bridgeboard with a 80287 math coproc, a RenaissanceGRX VGA card and multi-
function IBM bus serial port card. I use a 25-wire AB switch to transfer a
Diamondscan monitor from/to Amiga Video or IBM VGA as needed. The only way
I could get the thing to boot at all was to put the VGA card on 8-bit mode,
and set the bridge Color 80 X 25 jumper by the manual (see Appendix 1, p114.).
The PC Color icon option in the PC drawer works as per the manual, so for text
I don't have to mess with the VGA. At boot time I have to Ctrl-AA as soon as
the white screen comes up, switch the Diamondscan to VGA and wait for the
RenaissanceGRX to sync the monitor and (a fraction of a second later) print
its introduction ID stuff. After that I can put the AB switch back to the
Amiga video and, given that I use a Startup-Sequence that holds off the Amiga
boot for some 30 odd seconds while the bridgeboard accesses the AutoBoot volume
(DP2 on the Quantum - this is a 58 Meg FFS partition), it will boot ok.
If I let both of them fight over the disk, nobody wins. Once both CPUs have
finished their boot initialization everything is super reliable, and I can
switch back and forth on the AB switch without worry. There is some video
noise on the monitor associated with mouse movement (using the mouse on
either CPU), but that's probably due to the AB switch (and yes, the wires
are shielded, but the switch was manufactured with a plastic box). I have
come to the conclusion that doing a project involving integration of some
other company's computer for any computer company has just got to be a
really hairy deal because of all of the stuff that's simply beyond any
respectable engineering control. (I'll bet that'll make Scott Drysdale
smile a little anyway.) The RenaissancGRX VGA card, for instance is going
along doing whatever pleases its delightful little self, and will hang the
entire PC side if it gets confused by not finding the monitor connected,
or if it finds the bus a trifle noisy because of asynchronous noise that's
been introduced into the heavily loaded power supply by the things that
have to happen on the Amiga side.
I haven't much more to say about it, except that every now and then, a
CTRL-ALT-DEL reboot on the bridge side will hose the Amiga 8520 timers
in such a manner that the Amiga has to be given the three finger salute
and then hangs interminably on the first Wait encountered in the AmigaDOS
Startup-Sequence until I repeat the CTRL AA, holding down the keys for
15 or 20 seconds before letting go. But given Scott's posting about
finding a bug in the Janus software related to the AutoBoot stuff, it
is possible I'll someday get a reprieve. Unfortunately, though, I got
my bridgeboard second hand, and I have no idea how to get an update for
the software. I presently have A2286 BIOS Rev 3.6 and MS-DOS Rev 3.30
Janus Handler Version 2.63 and Janus Library Version 33.1 according to
the information in the bridge boot screen output. Last but not least,
as an example, following is the Startup-Sequence I am using; note that
I do have ATIME /W in the bridge AUTOEXEC.BAT file. I could as well
put AMOUSE in there and in the Startup-Sequence, except I prefer to
invoke it manually when I need to mouse around on the bridge side.
The arun commands are the ARP version of Run; the AmigaDOS version
works rather much the same with the I/O redirected to NIL, for the
event anyone may be concerned...
SetPatch >NIL: r ;patch system functions
Mount DP2:
BindDrivers
Echo "A500/A2000 Workbench disk. Release 1.3 version 34.20*N"
SetClock OPT Load
FF >NIL: -0 ;speed up Text
Echo "Executing PC TimeServer "
arun sys:PC/Services/TimeServ NOIO
Echo "Executing Memory Monitor "
arun Bar_Mon NOIO
CD c:
List >NIL: DP2:.info
Echo "Executing PCDisk "
arun sys:PC/PCdisk NOIO
Wait 35
Makedir ram:env
Assign ENV: ram:env
Makedir ram:tr
Assign T: ram:tr
Mount DPIPE:
Mount NULL:
Mount SPEAK:
Mount AUX:
Mount NEWCON:
CD sys:
System/SetMap usa1 ;Activate the ()/* on keypad
Path ram: c: sys:utilities sys:system s: add ;set path for Workbench
Echo "Loading Workbench in 3 seconds "
Wait 3
Copy Disk.info ram:
LoadWB delay ;wait for inhibit to end before continuing
Echo "Loading CShell in 3 seconds "
Wait 3
CShell c:.login
That's all folks... Howard Hull
hu...@ncar.ucar.edu
Jon Harding, RDCS, x75944, mc23302
>I also have had to do a lot of scratching around to get the 2286 bridgeboard
that's why the boot disk screws up. I have roughly the same setup but I don't
use ATIME since the A2286 has an internal clock. YES, YES, YES got to keep
them disk requests separate 'cause little bus is not bright enough to keep
everything straight. I'm going to test a PC hard disk against the 16 bit
mode on the vga card to see it it works. Your version numbers are all like
mine, (store bought JANUS V2.0), except I'm using Workbench 1.3.3.
N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J
| Jon Harding, N2KZJ email: harding%b56vx...@Kodak.COM |
| * I don't represent KODAK by word or deed. * |
N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J N 2 K Z J
Jon Harding, RDCS, x75944, mc23302
>In article <12...@ncar.ucar.edu>, hu...@hao.hao.ucar.edu (Howard Hull) writes...
>>I also have had to do a lot of scratching around to get the 2286 bridgeboard
I did test a PC Harddisk on the pc side of the BB. It fails the same way
the Amiga side PC virtual disk failed. Next I'm going to strip it down to
a bare 2000 and test but I think this is a bus timing problem. I hope this
doesn't mean that those 16 bit slots (1) and potential 16 bit slots (2) are
no good for 16 bit peripherals. (I was going to buy an AT HD for the PC side.)
*
ANYONE AT COMMODORE CARE TO COMMENT?
Klaus Burkert
>In article <18JUL9...@b56vxg.dnet.kodak.com>, har...@b56vxg.dnet.kodak.com (Jon Harding, RDCS, x75944, mc23302) writes...
>>In article <12...@ncar.ucar.edu>, hu...@hao.hao.ucar.edu (Howard Hull) writes...
>>>I also have had to do a lot of scratching around to get the 2286 bridgeboard
>>I'm glad to hear somebody else's VGA card had to be set to 8bit: I think ...
>I did test a PC Harddisk on the pc side of the BB. It fails the same way
>the Amiga side PC virtual disk failed. Next I'm going to strip it down to
>a bare 2000 and test but I think this is a bus timing problem. I hope this
>doesn't mean that those 16 bit slots (1) and potential 16 bit slots (2) are
>no good for 16 bit peripherals. (I was going to buy an AT HD for the PC side.)
I've expanded the XT-slots to 16 Bit and had no problems.
I ran a IDE/FD/SER/PAR-card with a ST-1102A-HD and had no problems till the
controller trashed my entire HD (I thought, my backup was a newer one... :-(),
but when I reinserted my ST-08A-controller (without I/O) and reformatted,
there were no problems again. Maybe the HD+I/O-card is defective...
In addition I run a brandnew ATI-VGAWONDER-XL VGA-card with no problems.
Of course, that's a very intelligent and expensive one, it autodetects several
things like monitor and bus-size.
It autoinstalls itself to 16-bit-RAM-access and 8-bit-BIOS-access.
That's ok, since the 8/16-bit-detection is handled in 128KB-chunks and
on the A2286, there's a 8-bit-wide piece of dual-ported-RAM at $D000 - $D400
and there's nothing you can do against it.
Because cheap(er) VGA-cards are designed to switch between 8 and 16 bit for
RAM and BIOS at the same time, so you've to wait or spend some more $$ for a
better card... :-)
BTW. it has an inport-mouse-connector on it and can display 1024x768 pixels
in 256 colors at 72 Hz noninterlaced, for Windows it really screams!
Ciao, Klaus.
PS: I have nothing to do with ATI Inc., only a pleasd user of their products...
-----------------------------------------------------------
Klaus Burkert email: burk...@kirk.fmi.uni-passau.de
Brandweg 11 voice: +49-851/83993
D-W-8390 Passau / Federal Republic of Germany