Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:66322 comp.sys.amiga.tech:14518 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!intelhf!agora!billsey From: billsey@agora.uucp (Bill Seymour) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: A3000 and WB2.0 --- HELP!!! Keywords: a3000,wb2.0,ram,memory,bru Message-ID: <1990Sep18.190542.25968@agora.uucp> Date: 18 Sep 90 19:05:42 GMT References: <1788@nemesis.stsci.edu> Organization: Open Communication Forum Lines: 116 In article <1788@nemesis.stsci.edu> scott@stsci.EDU (Jim Scott) writes: : : hiya folks -- Hiya! : first let me say thanks to all of you who answered my posting in : june in which i asked "why buy an amiga" and which model. : i wound up buying a 3000! i love it! : : but .... : : i am having problems and need answers! maybe some of you : kind folk (particularly those who own 3000) might be able to answer. : : 1. i noticed in magazines featuring the wb2.0 that the title bar : which gives memory information that they all have slews more : memory than i do. at first i thought 'well, maybe they have : extra ram installed. this weekend i was at a users meeting : at valley forge, pa where various companies had the 3000 : demonstrating hard/software. all of them, too, had huge : amounts more memory than i. well i asked one of the : fellows, and he was at a loss to explain the difference. : tonight i noticed in my "using the system software" manual : that came with the machine that all the sample wb pictures : had more memory! this is getting ridiculous. normally, : i might drop it, but i have been having problems which : indicate that my memory is low (see 2., below) : lemme give you the figures... : : my machine: 944000 graphics 193000 other : amiga world: : (10/90 pg 60) 944160 graphics 2256648 other : manual (2-41) 942480 graphics 1274024 other : at the expo 941000 graphics 2120000 other : : now, okay, the 'graphics' memory seems in line, but! : my 'other' memory is like 1/10th of everybody else! OK, each of these other machines have had extra expansion memory added. the standard A3000 comes with two megs of memory, one meg of chip and one meg of fast. There is 512K of fast memory used up by loading the 2.0 Kickstart. That only leaves 512K of fast before mounting partitions, loading workbench, Addbuffering floppies, etc... It's not unusual to use 300K during a system boot. The solution is going to be to plug in more memory, or wait until 2.0 ships in ROM. That'll free up 512K. : another curious point is that my "ram disk" title bar : always shows 100% full! That's normal. RAM: allocates memory as needed, and never uses more than needed to store the files. : as a double check, i downloaded several memory test : programs from some bb's and got weird answers (all : consistant...like .... : : size in use avail : : chip: 1,040,152 69,232 970,920 : fast 0 0 0 : $c00 0 0 0 : >16m 524,256 198,616 325,640 : -------------------------- : 1.564meg 267,848 1.3meg This looks right... 1M of chip and 512K of fast. : 2. i have tried backing up my hard disk. since the tool : "hdbackup" is not available yet, c= has given 3000 owners : bru. when i try to use the compress option (-z) i get : about 5 floppies into it and get a ram disk full error. : wierd. it is writting to df0. what has ram got to do : it? it does say in the manual, do not attempt the comp- : ression if you have <= 512k ram. well, that shouldn't be : a problem! bru _will_ do the whole backup perfectly : fine if i do not compress (37 floppies! yikes!) : : i watch the title bar while doing this. most of the time i : see the 'graphics' memory oscillate between 800,000 and : 600,000. but at five floppies i watch it drain...down... : down .... down ... to about 10,000 and then bloop : ram full error and a reboot for me. As BRU does it's backup, it store temporary files in ram, before writing them to floppy. you're just running out... : 4. friends of mine who have the 1000 and 500 all got basic. : i find it nowhere on my system, nor is mentioned in the : documentation. does c= no longer provide basic? how come? They aren't shipping AmigaBASIC with the 3000, just with the 500 and 2x00. AmigaBASIC has real problems with memory above the 24bit address space. : 5. when is the real wb2.0 comming? will i need to bring the : machine in to the dealer? will i still have the option of : booting with 1.3? (i hope so) Once 2.0 goes to ROM, you won't have as easy of a time booting back to 1.3. you'll have to use something like SetCPU to load the 1.3 Kickstart from within 2.0. It's still doable, just not as easy. : thanks in advance for any and all *help* : : jim scott : : scott@stsci.edu -- -Bill Seymour ...tektronix!reed!percival!agora!billsey ============================================================================= Bejed, Inc. NES, Inc. Northwest Amiga Group At Home Sometimes (503) 281-8153 (503) 246-9311 (503) 656-7393 BBS (503) 640-0842