HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: riley@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Daniel S. Riley)
Subject: Re: Is it silly to buy an A3000 now?
Organization: Cornell Theory Center
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 10:53:15 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.210445.3309@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>   No, it is not correct.  The "promotion" feature is software-only.  If a
>program (such as an old, unsupported utility or game) insists on opening an
>interlaced screen, the screen will be opened as interlaced and there will be
>nothing you will be able to do about it.

No, this is not correct.  If a program insists on opening an interlaced
screen, it will get promoted to a non-interlaced screen unless the open
explicitly called out for an NTSC or PAL mode.  And even that can be
fixed with a simple patch to graphics.library, so there *is* something
you can do about it.

-- 
-Dan Riley                          Internet: dsr@lns598.tn.cornell.edu
-Wilson Lab, Cornell University     HEPNET/SPAN: lns598::dsr (44630::dsr)
From: DennyA@cup.portal.com (Denny Lee Atkin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Avoid the Amiga 4000
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 19:28:47 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

Barrett,

Take it to .advocacy, will you? This is the _hardware_ section, not
the whine and gripe about hardware section.

And get a life while you're at it. Sheesh.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
From: barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett)
Subject: Re: Is it silly to buy an A3000 now?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 20:08:30 GMT

In article <Zapper.0mw6@qube.OCUnix.On.Ca> Zapper@qube.OCUnix.On.Ca (Zapper) writes:
>
>In a message dated Thu 14 Oct 92  9:44, Barrett@iastate.edu (marc N Barrett
>wrote:
>
>>The question is: is it foolish to get an A3000 in terms of
>>future upgrade/compatability?
>
> BNB>    No.  The A3000 is far more advanced than the A4000 in terms of
> BNB> non-interlaced display resolution.
>
>  Ok stop for a second... although you are making a big deal over the
>display enhancer, your points are valid. What you say about the a4000 not
>being able to deinterlace all screens automatically, etc. etc. is all true,
>but you are making a BIG deal over very little really... think of the
>capabilities the a4000 has that you are throwing away to avoid seeing scan
>lines on games....
>
>   But saying the a3000 is far more ADVANCED is outright wrong. The "dumb"
>deinterlacer in the 3000 may provide some output advantages over the a4000
>is some situations, but it is very very much LESS advanced.
>
>   Plus the a4000 can display higher res non-interlaced screens that the
>a3000 can anyways.

   That's bullshit.  The A3000 can display a 724x480 non-interlaced screen,
using the display enhancer, while the A4000 is limited to 676x480.

>------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Zapper@qube.ocunix.on.ca    |  University of Ottawa Gee Gees
>    University of Ottawa      |    1992 Panda Game Champions
>    Computer Engineering      |           17-6 over
>       (Trevor Boicey)        |    Carleton University Ravens!

---
| Marc Barrett -MB-  |  email: barrett@iastate.edu
--------------------------------------------------
From: malnar@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Joe Malnar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Quantum LPS42 SCSI pin assignments?
Date: 10 Oct 92 23:59:34 GMT
Organization: Boeing Computer Services, Seattle

I'm looking for the SCSI pin assignments for a Quantum 42M LPS drive.
If you've got them handy would you please send me a copy?  Thanks.
-- 
Joe Malnar   malnar@bcstec.boeing.com   or   ...!uunet!bcstec!malnar
From: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: 14Mhz A500 mod info wanted
Date: 10 Oct 92 03:45:49 GMT
Reply-To: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

In article <doiron.0fhd@starpt.UUCP> doiron@starpt.UUCP (Glenn Doiron) writes:
> In article <35539@cbmvax.commodore.com> grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins) writes:
> > In article <in2a505.717946124@rzaixsrv1.rrz.uni-hamburg.de> in2a505@rzaixsrv1.rrz.uni-hamburg.de (Elvers) writes:
> > > e52382015@violet.ccit.arizona.edu (EDDY, JONATHAN GABRIEL) writes:
> > > 
> > > >I got a file from wuarchive the other day that describes a processor swap
> > > >for the A500.  You take out the 7Mhz one, and put in a 16Mhz 68000, plus
> > > >a timing circuit(?), and viola, you have a 14Mhz A500, which should a 
> > > >+70% performance boost.  Does this work???  I would love to do it, but would 
> > > >rather be sure it worked.  Heck, at $25, I'll probably do it anyway, but
> > > >please warn me if I shouldn't.
> > > >Thanks!
> > > 
> > > >jon eddy.
> > > 
> > > I did it, and it works !! 
> > 
> > Of course it may not work on your particular machine, the A500 "Gary"
> > gate array and associated logic were not designed with 14MHz in mind
> > and it is a small miracle that it works at all on any systems.
> > 
> > If you want a real headache, start trying to work out all the details
> > required to make a "spec" 14MHz double speed processor speedup...
> 
> Actually, in hacks like these (unless they've changed), only the CPU is
> clocked at 14mhz, not the rest of the chips.  The result is a 5%-10%
> speedup (maybe 25 if you're doing lots of multiplications/divisions).
> Hardly worth the $25 you spend on parts.  It's like the "CMI Processor
> Accelerator", I'm sure some people here can tell you about THAT thing.

Most of them are pretty crude.  Having the processor running at 14MHz
results in the 8520's running at double speed and results in Gary seeing
signal transition at "unexpected" times relative to the 7MHz processor
spec's it was designed to, especially with the delay between 28MHz/2
and the output clocks from Agnus being unspecifed and rather dependent
on process and temperature.  Gary wasn't designed to support asynchronous
operation, but manages to limp along well enough for some folks.

Delaying the _DTACK input on the processor by clocking it on the rising
edge of the 7MHz processor clock would clean up a lot of the timing
violations by preventing the processor cycles from "ending early", but
I don't claim it really makes things right.

-- 
George Robbins - now working for,     work:   to be avoided at all costs...
but no way officially representing:   uucp:   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr
Commodore, Engineering Department     domain: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
From: "robert buonincontro" <robert.buonincontro@canrem.com>
Subject: 24 bit or not 24 bit
Reply-To: "robert buonincontro" <robert.buonincontro@canrem.com>
Organization: Canada Remote Systems
Distribution: comp
Date: 15 Oct 92 20:46:18 EST


Does anyone know how far RTG graphics is from being added to the Amiga 
line of computers. It's damn frustrating for some of us Amiga 3000 owners.
 
I don't know if I should buy a 24 bit graphics board now or if I should
wait for the standard to come into effect, or if I should just forget about
purchasing a 24bit board and go the A4000 route. 
 
I called Commodore to ask them if there was a power up deal for the A4000 and
they said "Not Yet". So I don't know if I should wait. I also figured it 
wouldn't hurt to ask if there would be some kind of upgrade (motherboard with
AGA ect.) for the Amiga 3000 computer. They said "We Can't Say", which is even
more frustrating because if they aren't going to do it they should flat out 
say. There won't be anything. Now I'm even more confused and can't make up my
mind on if I should keep my A3000 and get a 24 bit card, keep my A3000 and wait
for RTG before a 24 bit card, get an Amiga 4000 and sell my A3000. Wait to see
what kind if any powerup deal will come into effect or wonder if Commodore will
ever release an A3000 replacement motherboard with AGA chips.

AAAAAH! I think I'm losing my mind!

          robert.buonincontro&canrem.com
---
  DeLuxe 1.12 #8947  AMIGA : The Power To Be Creative!
--
Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044
From: Aurelius@cup.portal.com (Mark Christian Barnes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: AA sound chip. Specs?
Date: Thu,  8 Oct 92 23:00:29 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: na
  <1992Oct2.191941.24538@news.iastate.edu> <35571@cbmvax.commodore.com>
  <1992Oct7.211824.90290@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au>

 Bull@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au writes:

|How could you add a DSP to the Amiga and still stay compatible
|with current software (at least with software that uses the OS properly)?
|Lets start with an AutoConfig card for the DSP, add a device driver called
|dsp.device and modify audio.device which handles the data passed to Paula.
|The trick here is to be able to set a switch in the OS which tells it
|to redirect data from audio.device to dsp.device. Since programmers are
|*supposed* to call audio.device to use the sound channels, they don't have
|to worry about where the data goes. The driver dsp.device is given the 
|data and plays it. I am assuming that dsp.device is designed to do
|everything Paula can do (vis a vis audio), and more.

 How about simply adding a *new* channel (unit) to the audio.device.
Add as many as are appropriate wrt the DSP's capabilities.
Is there any reason why audio.device cannot support both Paula
and any new sound hardware? I woudn't think so, myself.

 Knowledgable software can make requests to open channels (say 16
thru 33) corresponding to the DSP and communicate via IOAudioDSP
extended audio IO blocks.

			Regards, Aurelius@cup.portal.com
From: bender@oobleck (Duke of Canterbury)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: GVP A3001 and RAM board
Date: 11 Oct 92 06:32:35 GMT
Reply-To: bender@oobleck.eng.sun.com
Organization: SPARK's R US
NNTP-Posting-Host: oobleck
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

I've got a GVP A3001 68030 accelerator board, but no 32-bit RAM board for
it; the guy I bought the A3001 from didn't ever buy the board.  I called
GVP, and they want $$$ for the RAM board, so I asked them if they would send
me the schematics for the A3001 and the RAM board, thinking that I could
designe a RAM board that would work with the A3001, but no luck there either
since GVP says the schematics are proprietary and won't send them to me.
This incenses me, because I've got a boatload of 256K and 1Mb SIMMs sitting
around at home, and I can design a 32-bit RAM card that would work with the
A3001 if I had the schematics.  I suppose that I could trace the A3001 board
and find out what the pins on the RAM card connector go to, but I thought
that I'd ask c.s.a.hw first to see if anyone has schematics for the A3001
and/or the RAM board (probably unlikely) or has a RAM board that they would
like to sell or trade.

mike

--
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    Grashopper, you have been many years in the training, and I grow old,
    expecting the day when I receive the SIGXCPU, and _exit this world.
    I see that you are ready.
From: mueller@carissimi.cs.unc.edu (Carl Mueller)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Amiga 4000 is HERE : )
Date: 7 Oct 92 19:22:25 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In article <1992Oct7.060236.5656@news.iastate.edu> (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>In article <35600@cbmvax.commodore.com> (George Robbins) writes:
>>[...]  This left room for pins (3) to address up to
>>8 M-byte of chip memory, **iff** the Agnus core got updated to support
>>22-bit addressing.
>   Actually, 8M addressing would be 23-bit.

Depends upon what units you are accessing.  You only need 23 bits if you
need to specify down to the byte.  Twenty-two will do for shorts, 21 for
longs, etc.

>  But anyway, why did you have to
>worry about preserving the pin count from the Agnus chip?

IC packaging does not come in arbitrary pin-count packages.  Please use
a little thought before posting such dribble.

>   It is interesting that you have confirmed that the Agnus core has not been
>updated very much.

I'm amazed at how you pick up so much misinformation from such a terse
message.  George only said that the Agnus core does not support 22-bit
addressing.  Do you have the slightest clue as to what's changed?

>>Turned out not to be the true path to the future, but it seemed like a
>>pretty good idea at the time.
>
>   Are you now confirming that no upgrades to the Alice chip are being planned
>as updates to existing systems?  If not, then why are you saying that the
>devotion of three pins as additional addressing pins is not the "true path to
>the future"?

Personally, I hope that the future includes a complete redesign, instead
of hanging on to old architectures.  The whole idea of a chip-memory bus
seems antiquated in the day of cheap VRAM memory (for those who don't
know, VRAM provides essentially a dual-ported memory, via an additional
fast serial I/O interface). 

I would hope that a device-independent graphics (RTG) software interface
is one of Commodore's top development priorities right now.  I would like
to be able to pick a video system with MY OWN priorities in mind, not
some distillation of what a few people think everybody needs.  Personally,
I don't give a hoot about having NTSC-compatible video; I want workstation
resolution NOW, maybe 24-bit color sometime later, when I can afford it.

The argument about the cost of workstation quality monitors being far too
expensive no longer holds very well, mostly due to the fact that these
monitors are being mass-produced for the MACINTOSH market.

Well, I'll get off my soapbox now.  I just hope somebody at Commodore is
paying attention.

-Carl (mueller@cs.unc.edu)
From: mlelstv@specklec.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Photo-CD on Amiga/CDTV
Date: 16 Oct 92 14:29:37 GMT
Organization: Max-Planck-Institut f"ur Radioastronomie

In <1992Oct15.170341.14229@coli.uni-sb.de> fritsch@fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de (Lothar Fritsch) writes:
>Can you imagine now what market CD-I targets at? I wouldn't like to watch my
>holiday photo cd in 352x580 HAM - therefore CDTV is definitive the wrong device.

You mean you don't want to watch your holiday photo on TV what is the
target of Photo-CD ?

Regards,
-- 
Michael van Elst
UUCP:     universe!local-cluster!milky-way!sol!earth!uunet!unido!mpirbn!p554mve
Internet: p554mve@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
                                "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
From: brianc@iastate.edu (Brian J Cerveny)
Subject: Re: Avoid the Amiga 4000
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 05:04:04 GMT

>Notice that he didnt say "more resolution".  He said "more resolution with
>MORE COLOUR".  You can't just chop off the end of his sentances to try and
>prove your point.  The A4000 gives you more resolution with more colour.

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that the 4000 provides MUCH more
color in all of the resolutions supported by the 3000.

Face it, a jump from two colors to 262,144 colors in 1280x400 is a
FANTASTIC improvement!!!

>I notice how you totaly dismiss everything else he said.  The A4000 gives
>us almost everything that people have been wanting, with exception to
>improved sound (which is being worked on).

I hope so!  If there's one expansion board I'll plan on adding to my AGA
computer, it's a 16-bit sound board.

>> and $2000 486 systems from IBM (of all companies) also with resolutions of
>> 1024x768 non-interlaced in standard hardware, 676x480 is no longer
>> adequate.

>676 x 480 with 262144 colours would suit me just fine.  I think that would
>fairly well blow away all of my IBM freinds.  800 x 600 x 262144 colours
>would definately make their jaws drop.  Even with the interlace.

The argument for a non-interlaced 800x600 mode is a valid one if it is a 
flicker-free, very high resolution for the Workbench or productivity
software.  HOWEVER, good luck detecting much flicker on a "pseudo-24-bit"
picture.
-- 
   // Brian J. Cerveny (brianc@iastate.edu)
 \X/  Disclaimer:  The views expressed above are my own.  So there.

"If the founding fathers were alive today they'd be spinning in their graves."
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
From: mlelstv@specklec.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst)
Subject: Re: Avoid the Amiga 4000
Organization: Max-Planck-Institut f"ur Radioastronomie
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 23:26:37 GMT

In <Bw57Lz.8D4@news.iastate.edu> barrett@iastate.edu (Marc N Barrett) writes:
>   What is the name of the card, and what are the exact specs?  And
>where could I get one?

There are 2 boards at that price. One is called Domino sold by X-Pert, the other
one is a board from ArMax. Both use VGA technology with a Zorro-II interface.
Both sell for DM 598,- (== $400) and come with software to run Workbench on
the board. I have seen the ArMax board running Workbench at 1280x1024 pixel
in 16 colors on an Eizo 560i monitor. They also showed a standard CAD program
("MaxonCAD") that opened on workbench. I also have seen the Domino board running
a 1024x768x16 Workbench on a smaller monitor (Eizo 9080 or something similar).
The Domino software can handle programs that open custom screens as well (I'm
not sure wether the ArMax software has that feature). Obviously you cannot drag
such screens but you can flip them with standard Amiga-N/Amiga-M keystrokes.

It is also clear that not all software runs on the board, this software class
is probably identical to the class that doesn't run under a RTG scheme.

The "Workbench-driver" software is limited by AmigaOS2.0 in that it can only
offer 16 colors (the cards can do 256 colors at 1024x768 and 32768 at lower
resolutions) and is limited to a 4096 colors palette (the boards have a 256k
(Domino) and 16M palette (ArMax)). The color limitation comes from the fact
that the boards use chunky pixels with 256 color and higher modes. You can
only use 4096 colors because the system calls will only accept 12bit color
information. You get a custom Paint program for these boards and libraries
to use all modes from your own programs.

A third board recently presented at the CSS (Amiga fair) in Cologne has even
a 24bit true color mode but the software to run Workbench isn't finished yet.
In fact, they just contacted some programmer for that job.

>   That's for the 50Hz mode, which would flicker intolerably.  The
>highest resolution you can get on an A2024 60Hz is 1024x800.

As someone already stated, the refresh rate of the A2024 in the panelled
mode is independant of the Amiga refresh rate and is slightly higher than
60Hz. The A2024 monitor has also a slow phosphor, even when displaying the
standard Amiga resolutions at 50Hz it does not flicker.

>   BTW, where could I get one for $200?

I know at least 3 German dealers that sell it at DM 298,-, one advertised at DM 249,-

Wether you are able to buy something in Germany is beyond my imagination.

Regards,
-- 
Michael van Elst
UUCP:     universe!local-cluster!milky-way!sol!earth!uunet!unido!mpirbn!p554mve
Internet: p554mve@mpirbn.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
                                "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."
From: kopnicky@owlnet.rice.edu (Lyle Warren Kopnicky)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Bad 68000 or CIA?
Keywords: 2000
Date: 15 Oct 92 02:05:49 GMT
Article-I.D.: rice.Bw54Hq.Kvx
Organization: Rice University

Ever since I got my 2000, 2-1/2 years ago, I've noticed that when I run
benchmarking programs, it shows up at 85-90% of the performance of a
stock 2000.  One day I installed a faulty AMAS digitizer which zapped
my CIA chips so that my printer would (when on) advance line-by-line
indefinitely.  Not knowing what the problem is at the time, I took my
machine to a dealer who replaced my CIA chips, and everything worked fine.
	I still sometimes get noise from this digitizer when recording,
but it may be the switch boxes I was using because if I held down the
button on the switch box, the problem would go away.  This summer I
borrowed DigiView from a friend of mine, and noticed that I got some
streaks on the screen.  When I used it on another friend's new A2000,
the digitizing went noticably faster, and with no streaks, and the rest
of the picture was clearer, too.  In addition, my SupraFAXModem will
sometimes hang up on me or make bad connects, but that may be a faulty
modem.  However, this is not the first modem replacement I have had,
and it is using the new ROM's.
	The question is, can I fix these problems (speed, serial and
parallel port) by replacing the 68000 and the 2 CIA chips?  It would
cost me only $35 to do so, and it would really increase the resale
value of my machine.  Maybe it's just the 68000?  Or just the CIA's?
Or maybe it's something else, and I'd be wasting my money?  I don't
want to spend $40 to have a technician figure it out.  Thanks.
	Could somebody E-Mail a response as it's kind of hard to fish
out responses in a group like this?

+----------------------------Ren & Stimpy--------------------------------+
| "Psst. Hey Guido. It's all so clear to me now. I'm the keeper of the   |
| cheese. And you're the lemon merchant. Get it? And he knows it. That's |
| why he's gonna kill us. So we gotta beat it. Yeah. Before he lets      |
| loose the marmosets on us! Don't worry, little missy! I'll save you!"  |
+--------------- Quantum Seep -- kopnicky@owlnet.rice.edu ---------------+
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Two A4000 questions
Date: 7 Oct 92 20:21:39 GMT
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA

In article <stefanb.718458688@hathi> stefanb@hathi.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Stefan Becker) writes:

>1) The A3000 supported static column RAM chips. Does the A4000 Ramsey chip
>   support this type too?

The A4000 RAMSEY supports them, but there are two problems.  First of all,
the '040 doesn't run burst cycles, so the only advantage of SCRAM would be in
page-detect mode, which does work on the A4000's RAMSEY but isn't a guaranteed
performance win (though changes are, it'll be more effective with '040 than
'030 bus activity).  The second problem is that the standard SIMMs don't
support the SCRAM interface used by RAMSEY (you need both SCRAM and output
enable control).  The A4000's SIMMs support OE* on a free module pin, but you
would need a non-standard module to take advantage of it.

>2) The C= Ethernet board (A205?) is a Zorro-II board. Does it use DMA to
>   transfer its data? 

No.  The Ethernet chip buffers up packets in private memory, which are then
transferred by the CPU to their destination in RAM.

>If it does, can it still be used in the A4000?

If it did, it could still be used in the A4000, though transfers would of course
be limited to Chip RAM or Zorro II RAM.

-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Cool Advanced High-End Systems You Can't See Yet)
 "The Crew That Never Rests"  {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh   BIX: hazy
              "I got a pocket full of kryptonite" -Spin Doctors
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware