Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Amiga 3000, HardFrame & 8-UP: Will it work?
Message-ID: <16711@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 20 Dec 90 23:22:27 GMT
References: <9012191933.AA00620@.nairobi.inel.gov.inel.gov.>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 30

In article <9012191933.AA00620@.nairobi.inel.gov.inel.gov.> mnu@INEL.GOV (Rick Morneau) writes:

>Recently, I've been considering purchase of the more
>powerful Amiga 3000. My question is: will I be able to
>use my memory board and disk controller on the 3000?

The memory board will work fine, though of course, much slower than normal
A3000 memory.  There's some kind of a problem with the HardFrame, which appears
to be a data hold time problem, that makes it fail with DMA to Chip RAM on the
A3000.  It'll work fine with DMA into any expansion bus memory, and can't
reach the A3000's motherboard memory.  So yes, it will work OK on the A3000
as long as you specify Fast Memory in the board's mountlist.  However, there
is a software problem with the Hardframe (and most Zorro II DMA controllers),
in that they never considered that there might be non-24 bit Fast memory in
the system.  So they often allocate buffers in A3000 memory, that they can't
reach.  

All of which is moot, of course, because the A3000 has a much faster SCSI
controller built in.  Microbotics follows the Rigid Disk Block standard, so
you should be able to take any drives you have off that controller, perhaps
adjust a SCSI address jumper if necessary, and them plug them right into
the A3000.  

>=  Rick Morneau            Idaho National Engineering Laboratory  =


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
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