From: dkm@col.hp.com (Dave K. Martin)
Subject: 2286 won't work with 5.25 drive (long)
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 22:27:30 GMT
Organization: HP Colorado Springs Division

Sorry to interrupt all of the EMPLANT ranting and raving with such a mundane
problem :-)   

I recently purchased a used A2286 AT Bridgeboard to replace the A2088 board 
that I've used for the last couple of years.  After many hours of "Can't open
Janus.library" requestors, I finally managed to get the 2286 to boot up 
reasonably consistently from the virtual Amiga drive.  Since I didn't get a 
floppy drive with the 2286, I connected the 360k drive from the XT board and 
set the correct parameters in SETUP.  Any attempt to access the floppy resulted
in the light coming on, the motor would spin but the head would not move.  
Eventually MS-DOS (3.3 or 5.0) will time out with 'INVALID MEDIA, ABORT, RETRY,
FAIL?'.  Borrrowed a 1.4m 3.5 inch drive, set it up and it works perfectly.  
Reads, writes, formats and boots 720k and 1.4m disks.  Borrowed a 1.2m 
5.25 drive, it will read and boot from 360k floppies but will not access 1.2m 
disks at all.  Get the same invalid media message etc as with the 360k drive.  
Tried a Cannon dual drive (a hi-density 3.5 and 5.25 drive in one unit) that 
was working perfectly on another 2286 Bridgeboard.  Again, the same results, 
3.5 drive works great, the 5.25 will read and boot from 360k but won't touch a 
1.2m disk.  When the 2286 boots, it does step the head from track 0 to track 79
and back so the board is talking to the drive (sorta).  Every possible floppy 
drive configuration in setup has been tried.  Except where the 2286 would not 
even boot with the drive settings, all produced the same results.  All of the 
floppy drives have been tested on a MS-DOS clone and they *all* work perfectly 
so the drives are not at fault.  I've also tried three different drive cables.
The person I bought the 2286 from had a Cannon dual drive on the board in his 
system.  The board was shipped in an anti-static bag.  I have no reason to 
doubt that the Bridgeboard worked fine in his system.

Now for the numbers....
The A2000 I'm trying this in has; 
	Rev 4.3 motherboard
	ECS Agnus and Denise chips
	2.04 Roms and software
	C=2320 display enhancer
	C=2091 controller with 2m ram and a 105S Quantum
	Microbotics 8-UP with 4 meg
	CSA Mega-Midget Racer with 2m of 32 bit dram.
		(removing the 8-UP and the MMR made no difference to the 2286)

The 2286 has; 
	Main board is marked Rev 6.1 and also has a RWK1 sticker on it 
           (several wires run around the board which I suspect are part of 
            the rework.  Some on the main and some on the daughter board.)
	U5 has a 380673-01 sticker on it
	U6 has a 380672-02 sticker
	U23 has a 380674-02 sticker

	Daughter board is marked Rev 8.1
	U56 has 380683-02 2286 0D00 sticker
	U57 has 380682-02 2286 D8F3 sticker
	U58 has 380685-04 sticker
	U72 has 380680-01 2286 1F4B sticker

The SETUP screen says "COMMODORE A2286 BIOS REV 3.5  380 682-01"              
                      "                              380 683-01"
                      "SETUP UTILITY V1.2                      " 

I've tried Janus 2.0 and Janus 2.1, both of which work perfectly with the 
2088 board.  Janus 2.1 has been installed for most of the 2286 problems but 
they were present using 2.0.  I've deleted the PC drawer and the Janus
libraries prior to re-installing Janus on the Amiga side.  So far, the 
PC side has not worked well enough to even try creating an AUTOEXEC.BAT or
CONFIG.SYS file.   

I've reseated all of the chips on the 2286 several times, looked for bad 
solder joints, cracked board, broken traces, etc.  The card edge contacts 
have been cleaned as have the sockets on the motherboard.  The jumpers on 
the 2286 are set to the defaults although setting the floppy drive mode from 
AT to PS2(?) prevented the board from booting at all.  No other devices have
been installed on the XT/AT bus yet.

I also briefly tried the board in a friends rev 4.4 system.  All we got there 
was the 'Can't open Janus.library' message.

Are there any known problems with using the 2286 with a 4.3 motherboard?  
Anyone have any ideas as to what the problem may be?  Anyone want a 
dysfunctional 286 bridgeboard cheap?  I've aready decided to get rid of this 
thing and get a 386 (or 486) board like I should have done in the first place.

I had thought that I was fairly Bridgeboard literate but this 2286 has me
completely baffled.

Comments, suggestions, rumors and flames welcome via post or email.

Dave Martin - dkm@col.hp.com

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.emulations