Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!pikes!bscott
From: bscott@pikes.Colorado.EDU (Ben M Scott)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Midget Racer problems w/ A-590?
Summary: Woe is me!!
Keywords: A500, Upgrade, Cheap
Message-ID: <3390@pikes.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 11 Mar 90 10:46:20 GMT
References: <1004@wet.UUCP>
Reply-To: bscott@pikes.Colorado.EDU (Ben M Scott)
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Colorado, Denver
Lines: 48

I'm feelin' mighty low...

Today I finally got my tax refund, found that the CSA Midget Racer was on
sale at the local store, and got there just in the nick of time before they
closed for a 3-day weekend.  Got home, installed the Midget Racer, and voila!
An "Insert WB 1.3" prompt.  This is with an autobooting HD connected, folks.
So, I popped in a disk.  It got almost all the way through the boot, then a 
weird GURU (#2C3A or some such?).  After that, nothing but hardware failure
messages and repeted attempts to boot.  Swapped back in the 68010; all is well.
Disconnected the A-590, put the MR back in, and it works!  But 1 meg, and no 
HD does not an Amiga make (at least not one which earns its owner money in 
the video business).  After a lot of hardware fiddling which I am by no means
qualified to do, I found that there is just no way to get the thing to work
with the 590.  No way to access the drive, even.  Without it I could run CSA
benchmarks, games, and such, and the '020 worked.  
 
Setup:  A-500 rev 5, 1 meg Agnus, 1.3 ROMs, populated A-590, and the CSA MR.

What's worse, during one of the last few swaps I guess I blew a chip somewhere,
because my floppies no longer work.  The drive light stays on all the time
(even during a reboot), and they don't respond to anything.  Great.  What did
I blow?   I now have to wait until Tuesday to even return the card.

Does anyone out there have a Midget Racer working with an A-590??  The manual,
which I finally broke down and read, says that CSA does not guarantee it to
work with any non-Commodore equipment.  I don't HAVE any non-Commodore equipment
that could possibly be interfering.  My modem, printer and external drive aren't
hooked up at present.  I'm able to run with the 68010 and booting off the HD,
but no floppy at all.  

Other notes:  I am using a used 68020 chip (no FPU) from the Krueger Company.
It is in a MR that was shipped with a CPU that the store removed for me, because
they said they had the unpopulated version and didn't, so they 'made' one for
me.  But the fact that it works without the HD means (to me) that there's 
nothing wrong with the chip or my installation of the board.
 
Please somebody help me!  I'm sorry for making this post so long but at this 
time of the night I'm not good at concise messages.  Also, it's hard to type 
while beating yourself with a stick for spending your whole refund on a 
possibly-useless piece of... electronics.

.                           <<<<Infinite K>>>>

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