Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!hrc!force!covertr From: covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Mega chips & drive questions Summary: Great, just great! Message-ID: <472ae52a.14a1f@force.UUCP> Date: 1 Dec 89 15:58:23 GMT References: <21653@brunix.UUCP> <24548@cup.portal.com> <1833@atari.UUCP> Organization: gte Lines: 86 In article <1833@atari.UUCP>, kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher) writes: > Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes: > > | Spectre GCR was unuseable. When I had the 4 meg upgrade done they aslo > | replaced the two LS 373 chips with AS373 chips. Since then the machine has > | been 100% without a bus error to be seen and Spectre GCR is 100%. > Ken, a friend of mine wanted to buy my SLM804 laser printer. So, as I was going on a 2 week vacation around Thanksgiving I loaned my SLiMe to him. And guess what, it wouldn't work on his system! He has a stock 1040ST ( a newer model where you can just yank the 1/2 meg of RAM and replace them with 1 meg chips to upgrade the ST to 2.5 megs). Anyway, there he is sitting with a 2.5 meg 1040ST, a SH205 megafile 30 and a SLM804, but the hard drive won't boot! So my friend scratches his head, re-addresses the DMA port on the SLM804, and still no go. The slm804 works fine w/o the sh205, the sh205 works fine w/o the slm. But add the slm804 and the sh205 won't boot. My friend's solution was to go to Computer Works (God Bless Henry Ahle at CW!) and Henry suggested replacing the Atari host adapter with an ICD host adapter. And miracles of miracles, the system works fine now. My friend loves the SLM804 (unlike me who grew to *HATE* the beast). But, he couldn't get it to work in a stock Atari system. It took a third party vendor board (the ICD host adpater) to finally get the system working. So much for quality and good design at Atari! So, Ken, any ideas WHY my friend's system wouldn't boot with the Atari host adapter? Oh yes, he was using the 6 EPROM TOS 1.4 and the AS373. Henry did the new TOS installation and everything (includeing his Spectre cart) worked fine until the SLM804 was hooked up. > The hardware guys at Atari are looking into this problem. It looks like it > may be a bus loading problem caused by the GCR. I wonder, has anyone noticed > this problem occurring _without_ a cartridge plugged in? The Atari hardware > guys I've talked to say that the cart port is on the hairy edge - basically, > if you hang anything but ROM's out there, you're asking for trouble. It was > _designed_ this way, the intent of the cart port is to provide ROM space, > nothing else. Ken, WHY was the cart port designed that way?? Are you guys just too CHEAP to add a decent buffer chip to the cart port?? > > One other thing, there were some Mega 2's which were produced that are NOT > upgradable to 4 megs because of the parts used in manufacture. I don't know > the details, but just thought I'd let people know, in case you're thinking > of dropping an extra 2 megs of RAM in, it may not be that easy. Atari > dealers should be able to get the scoop on this from the dealer support folks > at Atari. > -- You know Ken, that is ONE reason why I refuse to buy the new TT. If you can't even upgrade a Mega ST2 to 4 megs because of some manufacturing decision to save 10 cents by using a MMU chip that can't address 4 megs, then what does that tell me about Atari?? It is INSANE to sell a Mega ST2 that is crippled so that it can't be upgraded to 4 megs. That is another example of Atari's No Upgrade Policy. Why do you folks do that?? And are you folks going to change this policy with regards to the TT/p? Or if I want to add more memory after I purchase a TT/P will I have to sell it and buy another TT/p with more memory?? > ||| Ken Badertscher (ames!atari!kbad) > ||| Atari R&D System Software Engine > / | \ #include The sad thing is that I sold my SLM804 and am buying a Panasonic KX-P4450 laser printer. Much faster (11 ppm vs, 8 ppm for the SLM) and has builtin LaserJet+ and Epson emulation (and a whole host of other features). And the 4450 doesn't load the DMA port so I won't have problems with my 130 meg hard drives! I know that the slm804 is faster than any other printer, but the added features in the 4450 will allow me to use the 4450 with both Spectre/GCR and pc ditto/pc speed. And I couldn't do that with the slm. also, I will be able to use more ST software, programs which contain only printer drivers for Epson printers (such as Certificate Maker). I am staying with the ST, and will try to buy a TT/p as a Registered Developer simply because, even with all of the ST's warts, and with all of Atari's lack of support, the 680x0 cpus are my cpu of choice. And the ST is MUCH easier to program than the Mac!! But, I am buying as much non-Atari peripherals as possible in the future. I own two ST systems and NEVER has Atari brand hard drives. Oh well, life goes on.