Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hplsla!tomb
From: tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Starboard question
Message-ID: <5160015@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: 12 Jan 89 21:55:01 GMT
References: <11300003@hpfclr.HP.COM>
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Lines: 61

> 
>      I am tending to lean toward a starboard 2 memory expansion for my
> amiga, but I had someone tell me that he had trouble with his.  Can 
> anyone let me know if this is a general problem on the A-1000?  Is the
> starboard reliable?
> 
>      Doug Quarnstrom
> ----------

(Slight commercial mode on)
  A friend and I bought some RAM chips at a good price that we are trying
to move.  We figured that populating some Starboards might be a good way
to do it.  In doing so, we came up with some Starboards (w/2 megs, and
we have a spare StarDrive and Multifunction Module) for sale, and learned
quite a bit :-)  Any interest in one of them, or in 256k x 1 150nS chips,
please contact me.
(Commercial mode off)

Some of what we learned:

I was using a BearBoard (2meg), with no problems.  I could replace it with
any of the Starboards with no problem.  However, I couldn't get either
two Starboards or a BearBoard + Starboard (4meg total) to work on my
machine, and my friend couldn't get even one Starboard to work on his.
Symptoms were that in most cases it would try to boot, might even get to
a Workbench screen, showing proper amount of memory, but soon after would
crash, often all the way back to Kickstart.

I went through the "PAL Grounding" trick on mine, and after that, found I
could use the BearBoard with a Starboard, so now I run 4.5 megs.  I've
been using that combo for several weeks with XCAD in RAM:, using up all
but a few hundred kbytes, and have had NO problems.  We grounded the
PALs on the friend's machine, and now he can run a single Starboard just
fine, but he was not successful with the same BearBoard/Starboard combo
that works on mine, nor with 2 Starboards.

I think the problem can be solved with additional beefing up of the ground
in the Amiga; I agree with the previous reply that said the Starboards are
pretty solid, but not all A1000's are.  However, if you aren't afraid to
go into your machine, or have someone do it for you, I believe you can
get your A1000 working reliably with at least one peripheral on the
expansion bus with very little effort.

There is one other problem I have had, and I suspect it has to do with
the fact that the Starboard is autoconfiguring, and the BearBoard is not.
I use a 5-1/4" drive to xfr MS-DOS files to Amy.  I use the 1.3 enhancer
extras PC transfer program.  It chokes with the Starboard hooked up, but
works fine with the BearBoard alone connected, or with no external mem
connected.  The 5-1/4 drive works fine for Amiga format disks with any
of the mem configurations, just not for MS-DOS xfrs.  Anyone know anything
about that one???

BTW, does anyone have any experience with trying to solve an A1000 problem
by grounding PALS without success, then replacing the PALs and succeeding?
Or the other way around: trying new PALs first unsuccessfully then
grounding with success?  This is for expansion problems, like hooking up
external memory or other devices . . .  Any experiences could be helpful.

Cheers,
Tom Bruhns
tomb%hplsla@hplabs.hp.com