29 Mar
2001
29 Mar
'01
11:07 p.m.
a few A1200 Amiga questions (do they hit the 10 year limit? I know I got my
A500 in the early 90's, and I think A3000's were around then, right??)...
Anyway, here goes:
Do all 1200's come with built in IDE hard drive controllers - or did
commodore do things on the cheap and only add controllers for machines
shipped with drives (I'm assuming the controller lives on the main board
itself)?
Will the 1200 accept any size (capacity) drive? Or wasn't the OS / ROM code
hard-drive aware and cheated by making the drive look like a big floppy (I'm
sure there were systems which did this, but I can't remember if the amiga
was one of them)?
Presumably 2.5 drives are the preferred method - but there's nothing to stop
3.5" IDE drives being used with a suitable adpator (OK that's actually an
IDe question - I think it's just the connectors that differ between them
though, right?)
On the hardware side of things, someone said the 1200's IDE controller is
basically unbuffered I/O straight to the CPU (which sounds possible
certainly with IDE) and so it's real easy to toast things - is that true?
What are the options of networking a '1200 (ideally TCP/IP stack on the
Amiga, using SLIP or something to a Unix box maybe? Are there things around
that allow this, with NFS mounting of drives for data copying?)
Can PC SVGA multisync monitors be used with the 1200, or won't the monitor
sync to a low enough frequency for the Amiga (seem to remember that was the
problem with the 500, not sure if the 1200 has any sort of 'fix' for this on
the Amiga side though)
Having seen how cheap 1200's are these days, and having a pile of spare IDE
drives lying around (both 3.5 and 2.5) I'm quite keen to get a 1200 to put
Deluxe Paint on - it's still far better than any art package I've seen on
modern systems despite being ancient by modern software standards! I can't
be bothered using my old A500 for this though - too slow and too painful
without a hard disk...
directions to an Amiga FAQ that may answer some or all of the above would be
most useful too! :-)
cheers!
Jules
30 Mar
30 Mar
2:44 a.m.
Julian Richardson skrev:
a few A1200 Amiga questions (do they hit the 10 year
limit? I know I got my
A500 in the early 90's, and I think A3000's were around then, right??)...
The A1200 was released around christmas '92, so it's OT. The A3000 is 1990
vintage, though.
Anyway, here goes:
Do all 1200's come with built in IDE hard drive
controllers - or did
commodore do things on the cheap and only add controllers for machines
shipped with drives (I'm assuming the controller lives on the main board
itself)?
Nope, all have controllers.
Will the 1200 accept any size (capacity) drive? Or
wasn't the OS / ROM code
hard-drive aware and cheated by making the drive look like a big floppy (I'm
sure there were systems which did this, but I can't remember if the amiga
was one of them)?
Definitely no such trickery. The only odd thing is that the IDE interface is
masquerading as scsi.device. The OS will be most content with drives below
four GB. This has been remedied in versions 3.5 and onwards, but you're most
likely running OS 3.0. This may be patched nevertheless, I'm running a 20GB
drive on a 3.0 system myself.
Presumably 2.5 drives are the preferred method - but
there's nothing to stop
3.5" IDE drives being used with a suitable adpator (OK that's actually an
IDe question - I think it's just the connectors that differ between them
though, right?)
There is not a lot of space. Try to get as slim a drive as possible if you're
intending to use a 3,5" drive. You may have to cut away a bit of the
shielding, too.
On the hardware side of things, someone said the
1200's IDE controller is
basically unbuffered I/O straight to the CPU (which sounds possible
certainly with IDE) and so it's real easy to toast things - is that true?
AFAIK, it's unbuffered, but how would you go about frying anything?
What are the options of networking a '1200 (ideally
TCP/IP stack on the
Amiga, using SLIP or something to a Unix box maybe? Are there things around
that allow this, with NFS mounting of drives for data copying?)
Certainly. You could use SLIP, but the better route would be an NE2000
compatible PCMCIA network card. I use a CNet card in my A1200, and AmiTCP
(bundled with OS 3.9), otherwise available as a demo on Aminet or for online
purchase through vapor.com, which includes an NFS client. I run an NFS server
on my 4000, too, so that my NetBSD machine might easily download things in the
file archive.
Can PC SVGA multisync monitors be used with the 1200,
or won't the monitor
sync to a low enough frequency for the Amiga (seem to remember that was the
problem with the 500, not sure if the 1200 has any sort of 'fix' for this on
the Amiga side though)
Most PC SVGA monitors won't sync low enough (15 KHz) for games, but they will
most probably run if you stick to applications. Just make sure to activate
VGA-friendly modes such as Multiscan, DoubleNTSC, DoublePAL and Euro72.
They're activated by being moved to DEVS:Monitors/ , and are otherwise stored
in Monitors/ on your Storage disk. You may possible have to copy VGAOnly to
DEVS:Monitors, or was it into WBStartup/ ?
Having seen how cheap 1200's are these days, and
having a pile of spare IDE
drives lying around (both 3.5 and 2.5) I'm quite keen to get a 1200 to put
Deluxe Paint on - it's still far better than any art package I've seen on
modern systems despite being ancient by modern software standards! I can't
be bothered using my old A500 for this though - too slow and too painful
without a hard disk...
You should try Personal Paint, too. I find it a more than worthy successor to
DPaint, and it's free on Aminet.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
optimus@dec:foo$ %blow
bash: fg: %blow: no such job
5:19 a.m.
--- Julian Richardson <JRichardson(a)softwright.co.uk> wrote:
Do all 1200's come with built in IDE hard drive
controllers - or did
commodore do things on the cheap and only add controllers for machines
shipped with drives (I'm assuming the controller lives on the main board
itself)?
AFAIK, yes. The A600 was available with and without drives and ISTR the
ROMs were different, but I've owned just about every other model than that
and can't comment from personal experience.
Will the 1200 accept any size (capacity) drive? Or
wasn't the OS / ROM code
hard-drive aware and cheated by making the drive look like a big floppy (I'm
sure there were systems which did this, but I can't remember if the amiga
was one of them)?
There are no inbuilt _intentional_ (i.e., marketing driven) size limitations
beyond the usual sorts of things one gets trying to bolt a drive onto a ten-
year-old system that never conceived of a monsterous storage device. I think
there is a general 4Gb limit on disks, SCSI or IDE. I know there is an issue
with the FFS and number of blocks in the device. I have personally never put
anything over 4Gb on an Amiga, but have had lots of luck with 20Mb on up to
1Gb.
Presumably 2.5 drives are the preferred method - but
there's nothing to stop
3.5" IDE drives being used with a suitable adpator (OK that's actually an
IDe question - I think it's just the connectors that differ between them
though, right?)
The 2.5" connector provides power as well as data. If you address that issue,
yes, you can use an adapter to hook a 3.5" device (or 5.25", like a CD-ROM)
to your A1200.
On the hardware side of things, someone said the
1200's IDE controller is
basically unbuffered I/O straight to the CPU (which sounds possible
certainly with IDE) and so it's real easy to toast things - is that true?
It's true. In general, IDE tends to be a fairly raw interface, although as
machines have evolved, it's not as raw as back in the 386 days.
What are the options of networking a '1200
(ideally TCP/IP stack on the
Amiga, using SLIP or something to a Unix box maybe? Are there things around
that allow this, with NFS mounting of drives for data copying?)
Since I've never owned as 1200, I can't speak to the myriad of hardware
options, but there are TCP/IP stacks for AmigaDOS and clients such as
NFS clients, Web Browsers, Samba servers. If you want the storage on the
UNIX box to be accessible by the Amiga, NFS is a good way to go. If you
want the other way around, Samba fits the bill. I do not know if there is
a freeware implementation of NFS Server for AmigaDOS (there was at least
one commercial one)
-ethan
=====
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The original webpage address is still going away. The
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See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details.
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7:57 a.m.
Ethan Dicks skrev:
> On the hardware side of things, someone said the
1200's IDE controller is
> basically unbuffered I/O straight to the CPU (which sounds possible
> certainly with IDE) and so it's real easy to toast things - is that true?
It's true. In general, IDE tends to be a fairly
raw interface, although as
machines have evolved, it's not as raw as back in the 386 days.
It's worth pointing out that the A4000 was buffered, though. There are
buffered IDE multiplexers abvailable so that one might add four ATAPI devices
at once. I've got an unbuffered one on the 4000, though I've since removed the
three sub-gigabyte drives with a single bigger one.
> What are the options of networking a '1200
(ideally TCP/IP stack on the
> Amiga, using SLIP or something to a Unix box maybe? Are there things around
> that allow this, with NFS mounting of drives for data copying?)
Since I've never owned as 1200, I can't speak
to the myriad of hardware
options, but there are TCP/IP stacks for AmigaDOS and clients such as
NFS clients, Web Browsers, Samba servers. If you want the storage on the
UNIX box to be accessible by the Amiga, NFS is a good way to go. If you
want the other way around, Samba fits the bill. I do not know if there is
a freeware implementation of NFS Server for AmigaDOS (there was at least
one commercial one)
There is a free NFS server port on Aminet,
http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/aminet/comm/tcp/nfsd_bin991130.lha
I'd probably go with that in a UNIX environment, though it seems to have a
tendency to fluctuate in speed a lot. I suspect this has got something to do
with the virtual inode which it goes about creating, but suddenly performance
drops a whole lot and drive activity gets quite intense.
BTW, I got my first Speccy today! Can't wait to see if it's a 48K or 16K
version. Now I only have to get one of those cassette recorders. =)
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
The object of this game is to take an ordinary guy and make him into a Pimp
Master. You start off in your home town.You'll gradually build up cash and
prostitutes,until you wipe out the other pimps in town. Then,it's time to move
on to another,bigger city,and do the same.
Pimpin' ain't easy, upcoming game from Delsyd Software
8:58 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
AFAIK, yes. The A600 was available with and without
drives and ISTR the
ROMs were different, but I've owned just about every other model than that
and can't comment from personal experience.
Yep. Every A1200 came with an IDE interface.
There are no inbuilt _intentional_ (i.e., marketing
driven) size
limitations
beyond the usual sorts of things one gets trying to
bolt a drive onto a
ten-
year-old system that never conceived of a monsterous
storage device. I
think
there is a general 4Gb limit on disks, SCSI or IDE. I
know there is an
issue
with the FFS and number of blocks in the device. I
have personally never
put
anything over 4Gb on an Amiga, but have had lots of
luck with 20Mb on up
to
1Gb.
The 4Gb problem can be bypassed by purchasing AmigaOS 3.5 /3.9.
The 2.5" connector provides power as well as
data. If you address that
issue,
yes, you can use an adapter to hook a 3.5" device
(or 5.25", like a
CD-ROM)
to your A1200.
The 3.5" hard disk on my A1200 takes power from the disk drive.
> On the hardware side of things, someone said the
1200's IDE controller
is
> basically unbuffered I/O straight to the CPU
(which sounds possible
> certainly with IDE) and so it's real easy to toast things - is that
true?
Eyetech and several other manufacturers sell a 4-way buffered IDE adaptor.
--
Gareth Knight
Amiga Interactive Guide http://amiga.emugaming.com
Home of the Amiga magazine guide, Complete Amiga prototype/official/clone
list, and more!
8666
days inactive
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4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com -
gareth.knight＠btinternet.com -
JRichardson＠softwright.co.uk -
optimus＠canit.se