Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!letni!dms3b1!caleb!jdp
From: jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: board<>3000 RETRACTION-NEAT NEWSGROUP
Message-ID: <10229.AA10229@caleb>
Date: 20 Oct 90 05:57:35 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga
Organization: is sometimes desirable
Lines: 85


[]

In article <2139@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>

lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:

> Nope... It was promoted as having the ability to place multiple PICs in ONE
> expansion chassis _OR_ to place one PIC on the expansion bus. Look at the
> earliest expansion docs. External circuitry was always required to properly
> arbitrate the autoconfig operation.

You seem to forget a very important detail.  I couldn't even get a DOS
manual for months!  (Nor could many others.)  One new Amiga magazine
(Amazing Computing if memory serves me correctly) became famous largely
because they published a list of the DOS commands and how to use them.

[To many of us, using the CLI was like the old Adventure game.  Guess
what commands it will take, then guess what they will do!!!  The syntax
provided by the ? option was not very helpful without the DOS manual to
explain the very weird conventions.]

For a long time, we had to use a magazine article to operate the CLI
because CBM thought that only the experts would want to use the CLI!
(Boy, were they wrong about that!)  It was over a year later when I was
finally able to get a Hardware Manual!  I don't recall ever seeing a word
in it about multiple SOTS being verboten.  The only sources we had were
CBM's promotions, the Byte article, and the stuff floating around on the
networks.  The first time most Amiga owners heard of the single SOTS rule
was either when they tried it and failed or when the aforementioned
developer was flaming his competition.  That was at least a year later
for most of us.

I'll take your word for the fact that CBM had documented the "rule" earlier
than I thought, but they did NOT tell the buyers.  Most of us buyers were
led to believe that we could add several SOTS to our Amiga.

[...]

> By the time you got your Amiga, a friend and I had already designed a 2 meg
> memory expansion, and had it running. It did NOT have a pass-through, for the
> simple reason that a passthrough was clearly not a legal configuration.

Yes, but you had access to info that the average user (at least in the US)
could not get for at least a year.  It's possible that the Canadian support
was better than the US.  You guys always seemed to get the stuff long before
we (US) did.  (Of course, that worked against you in the case of the German
2000...)

[ I wrote: ]

>>One of the primary reasons that many people believe that CBM had always
>>had the single SOTS rule is the fact that a certain hardware developer
>>(which sold expansion boxes) spread the "single SOTS" idea far and wide
>>over the networks.

[ and Larry wrote: ]

> He (yes, I know who you are speaking of), and others, spread this bit of
> information around (myself included, though I never had any products for sale,
> and thus, no personal axe to grind). We did this because it was true, and
> because a great many people complained when they relied on the bogus
> pronouncements of _some_ hardware developers in this matter. The worst offender
> in this regard (and in the area of spreading bogus information about DMA vs.
> non-DMA disk controllers) is thankfully no longer spreading their
> mis/dis-information, nor are they in the disk controller business any more.

You should know who he was, I remember your presence on the networks in those
days.  In fact, your were (and are) usually extremely helpful on the networks.
Many thanks to you.


By the way, we definately agree on your signature quote!

> It is not possible to both understand and appreciate Intel CPUs.
>     -D.Wolfskill


--

                                                Jim Pritchett


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