Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!bruce!trlluna!rhea!aduncan
From: aduncan@rhea.trl.oz (Allan Duncan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: ASDG VD0: does not work! (ADDENDUM)
Message-ID: <2399@trlluna.trl.oz>
Date: 25 Oct 90 22:38:24 GMT
References: <1990Oct24.233018.29972@wpi.WPI.EDU>
Sender: news@trlluna.trl.oz
Lines: 54

From article <1990Oct24.233018.29972@wpi.WPI.EDU>, by longshot@wpi.WPI.EDU (Kenneth M Botwinick):
> It seems I created a tidle wave with my question about VD0:
> Well I have come up with a solution to my problem.  It seems 
> like others should have also had this problem, but no one suggested
> it in their replies to me.  When I don't run setpatch, my ram disk
> is fully recoverable even after commercial games that seize the
> machine.  But when I do run setpatch there is no hope.

I hate to dissappoint you, but VD0: and setpatch happily co-exist on my
machine!  (Setpatch first, of course).  I should point out that there
are two versions on VD0: - the original one that is very robust, and a
rebuilt one that is smaller, and less robust. (Fish disks 58 and 241
respectively).  It is important to get the BufMemType field in the
mountlist correct, or it may not behave.

> My NEW question: Is setpatch 1.34 REALLY necessary? Is this the latest
> version. My version of kickstart is 34.5 and my version of workbench
> is 34.28 if this is any help.  I really want a recoverable ram disk.

Setpatch patches the kickstart, which did not get bug fixed till 2.0, so
you either use it or live with the bugs (rarely got bitten by them
anyway).

> Here is a new and interesting twist to my problem.  I have adram 540
> for the 500 which is populated with 4 megs.  It fits where the A501
> would go.  Now 2 megs of it is autoconfig.  The other two megs can
> only be recognized if I run an included program called adram.
> Now if I run adram I will never have a recoverable ram disk.  Anyone 
> know why?

This relates to BufMemType above, with complications.  If you do not
mount AND USE VD0: before you adram, this memory may be used rather than
the autoconfig lot.  I am not familiar with the adram 540, and cannot
say if its autoconfigure is kosher, or any of its other gyrations to
live on the chip bus but not be addressable as such.  If you had
mentioned this in your original post you might have got a clearer
answer.  I would hazard a guess that adram 540 is not compatible with
_any_ recoverable arrangement (experience to the contrary anyone?) and
therefore suggest that you use BufMemType=2 (chip only) and set your
size down to fit in the smaller space.

As to gurus, I and many others can go for days without them despite a
heavy workload on the machine.  To get to this state you have to be
careful what new utilities you add to your operation (add them slowly,
one at a time so that you have time to find a rare-but-hard-to-find
interaction that gurus).  There are also flaky machines that are prone
to get their knickers in a twist, and machines that have had kludges
(eg adram 540) added are always a bit nearer the edge than standard
units.

Allan Duncan	ACSnet	a.duncan@trl.oz
(03) 541 6708	ARPA	a.duncan%trl.oz.au@uunet.uu.net
		UUCP	{uunet,hplabs,ukc}!munnari!trl.oz!a.duncan
Telecom Research Labs, PO Box 249, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia.