D]3 P]00j:tlog.brush ]]P00 00 ]]P00 01 ]]P00 02 4]Guest Columnist - Nic Wilson 3]A3000 and Amiga Hints and Tips LATEST VERSIONS OF THE AMIGA OPERATING SYSTEM V2.02 ----- KICKSTART - 36.303 (REALLY BAD, USE 36.207) WORKBENCH - 36.102 V1.3.3 Beta 1 (Not yet for general consumption) ----------------------------------------------- KICKSTART - 34.5 WORKBENCH - 34.34 3]THE A3000 MONTHS LATER Now that enough time has passed for the novelty of playing with the A3000 to wear off, I thought it a good idea to do a review of the thoughts and experiences in using it over this period. The A3000 has not been without its teething problems, as expected I suppose, but it has generally been a pleasure to use. There may be many a user out there running accelerator cards and believe that theirs run faster. I have news for all those people: The A3000 is so fast in many many areas, I wouldn't change it for any one of the currently available accelerators. No matter which way you look at a 2000, and how fast you try to push it, it is still only a 16 bit machine running partially in 32 bit. The A3000 is full 32 bit architecture and access to Chip RAM for example is more than three times faster than a 33MHZ 68030 GVP card. Since first tests I received four megs of the new one meg by 4 bit SCRAM Zips. A re-test of the hard drive performance gave amazing results --the fastest I have seen to date. On a read, it returned 1.5 megs per second. On a write, it showed 1.1 megs per second. Access RAM: was just as astonishing, with results of 10.5 megs per second read and 3.2 megs per second write. I would expect that soon manufacturers will start making 32 bit wide expansion cards for the A3000, further increasing the speed over its smaller brothers. Another beautiful feature of the A3000 is its ability to boot from different Kickstarts from either hard drive or floppy and its ability to boot into a completely different OS, as a floppy boot strap is done before Kickstart is even loaded. The A3000 is also compatible with the 68040 in both hardware and software and is capable of booting with one. I look forward to being able to plug an -040 card into the Amigas fast slot! 3]AMIGA VS. IBM? NO CONTEST In the February 1991 JUMPDISK Readers' Forum, a reader told of leaving the Amiga for the IBM. His statements about the A3000 and A500 were incorrect. The A3000 does come with new res modes. They are not optional. They come as standard and far exceed any standard computer. The Agnus socket problem was limited to only the revision 5 board. I repair Amigas. If the socket is replaced with a new style socket problem is gone. I consider the reader's statements about IBM wrong. I gave up programming it four years ago. It is old technology and completely boring. Stop whinging (as we Ozzies say) and accept your Amiga. If it is having problems, fix it. 4] JUMPDISK NOTE - Ozzies = Australians. 3]SPEEDING UP BOOT UNDER V2.0 If during the startup-sequence, programs do not send output, a CLI window will not open. This can considerably speed boot time. On my A3000, if I allow all programs to output, my boot time from the three-finger salute is 8.5 seconds. If I stop them all by placing >nil: after each command the boot time drops to 4.1 seconds, less than half. The >nil: makes a program send its output to nowhere. This must be placed straight after the program name, before any other parameters. For example, If using Setpatch r , this would change to Setpatch >nil: r 3]EJECT BUTTONS FOR THE A3000 INTERNAL The drive eject button is different on the A3000 from tôse on earlier Amiga models. This eject button is now available from Commodore and fits nicely on an A2010 drive. I know this for a fact because I ordered one and received it recently. 3]WHERE HAS THE CONTROL-D BREAK IN GONE? Some users have asked me how to break into the startup-sequence in V2.0. The old Control-D has been removed. Break-in is still possible but has been placed in the BOOT MENU accessed by holding down both mouse buttons at bootup. Once in the menu, choose the advanced options menu. At the bottom you will see a gadget allowing you to disable the startup-sequence. After this, choose USE and then click on the drive you wish to boot from. This will normally be the hard drive 'WB_2.x:' the system will then boot and stop as soon as the DOS window is open. This window will be in hi-res interlace, which is the default mode in the kernal. 3]STATIC COLUMN MODE RAM CHIPS AND THE CUSTOM CHIP RAMSEY If this new type of RAM is used, the kernal is supposed to automatically check and set bits in Ramsey accordingly. Kickstart version 36.207 does not set the bits in RAMSEY, so no increase in speed is seen, although the previous version did work for the BURST mode. Dave Haynie, author of SetCpu and a Commodore engineer in the U.S., told me STATIC COLUMN has not been enabled due to a problem in either hardware or software. There is an update to SetRamsey (note spelling change) to allow manipulation of these bits. I have found that if STATIC COLUMN is enabled by itself, you get an increase in speed of around 20 percent. If BURST is enabled by itself, the speed increase is around 15 percent, and if both are enabled, the increase is 11 percent. I cannot explain this yet but am attempting to find out. Commodore recommend the use of BURST mode only. I hope V36.303 has fixed the BURST mode and possibly the STATIC COLUMN, but at the time of writing I have not yet received it. 3]STOP THE PRESSES Just received the new update of V2.02 and I am happy to say they have partially fixed the above problems. The new Kickstart (36.303) is now correctly recognizing SCRAM and setting the BURST bit on, but there is a bigger problem. This version seems to have a bug in input.device. It occasionally locks the system when a gadget is clicked, and on 68000 based systems it will sometimes guru. I am currently using the older Kickstart (36.207) with the newer workbench (36.102). This combination seems stable, and I have continued to use SetRamsey to set the BURST on. 3]HEAT PROBLEMS WITH THE A3000 The A3000 seems to have a problem overheating when the temperature rises. I am currently working on finding the actual cause and cure for this problem. I believe it may be in Fat Gary but as yet the test results are inconclusive. I must say that during the time of these problems, Commodore have been extremely helpful and prompt in their information and help. When I finally find and cure the problem I will pass along the information. 3]RUNNING V2.02 ALONGSIDE V1.3 ON A HARD DRIVE The A3000 makes this very simple and it can easily swap among any number of Kickstarts. But some users who have less than legal copies of V2.0 are starting to ask questions about getting it up and running and still being able to run 1.3. This process is very easy and I have written a small utility called MOUSEWARN to make it even easier. MOUSEWARN is on this issue of JUMPDISK. Below is an example startup-sequence that will allow you to swap Kickstarts if the left mouse is being held down while booting. This means that if 1.3 is currently running, it will switch to V2.0 and stay there each boot until you once again hold down the left button. It will then swap back to V1.3 and remain, and so on. The startup-sequence is simple and I have included comments so you can see exactly how it works. MouseWarn ;is left mouse being held down if warn ;sets warn if so version >nil: graphics.library 36 ;is current version of GFX V2.0 if warn ;if not V2.0 zkick kickstart ;then swap to kickstart 2.0 endif ;end for the if statement killzkick ;comes here if V2.0 swap to 1.3 endif ;end for the if statement version >nil: graphics.library 36 ;comes here if not mousewarn if warn ;and tests GFX for V2.0 execute s:startup-sequence1.3 ;if not then execute 1.3's start endcli ;make sure it ends endif ;end for the if statement execute s:startup-sequence2.0 ;it must be V2.0 so do its start endcli ;make sure it ends This makes changing Kickstarts painless. MouseWarn can also be used for many other reasons you may want. Contact me if you have any questions regarding this. I am currently working on software that will allow a choice of Kickstarts from cold boot, depending on partition priority, similar to how the A3000 does it. I will release it on JUMPDISK when I have finished it. 3]V2.02 BOOT MENU There seems to be quite a bit of confusion over this function. The boot menu is part of V2.02 Kickstart and is enabled by holding down both mouse buttons at boot time. This allows you to choose the device to boot from. Any one on the list is acceptable. The advanced options menu allows you to enable or disable any current bootable device, for a single boot only. It also allows the startup-sequence to be disabled, as I mentioned earlier. The Boot Menu is not specific to the A3000 but is available on any Amiga using V2.02. For example, using the option to boot another device allows you to boot from a different floppy. Take note that some games may have a problem with this. Unless they go through the operating system for loading, they will still try for the disk in DF0: as many games use the Amiga's hardware for disk loading. 3]NEW RESOLUTION MODES ON 500, 1000 OR 2000 V2.02 has new resolution modes similar to high-res interlace but without the flicker. These modes require that you have the ECS chip set, comprised of AGNUS 8372A and DENISE 8373. AGNUS is currently being shipped in all Amigas. DENISE is not, but is available by ordering it from your local dealer. It is pin for pin compatible with the older chip, so you can just exchange it. These modes also require a multiscan or VGA compatible monitor, such as the Commodore 1950. My program SysInfo will identify which chip set your Amiga has if you are not sure. 3]BUG IN ASL.LIBRARY Ever since V2.0 Beta 5, there has been a bug in this library in the file requester. If the DRAWER gadget was clicked in, the Amiga would reboot as soon as you started typing. The latest release of Workbench (36.102) asl.library has fixed this. If you have not received this yet, then use the asl.library from the Beta 5 disks. 3]DOUBLE-CLICK FUNCTION REMOVED In the previous releases of V2.0, there was a WBConfig option in prefs that allowed you to select "double click to front". This has now been removed and placed in the TOOLS/COMMODITIES drawer. Strange that they left the option behind in prefs, even though it doesn't do anything. The update supplies it on the Extras disk, but it belongs in the tools/commodities as stated. 3]ENFORCER This brilliant program comes with V2.0. It is a debugging tool designed to work on any Amiga that sports a Memory Management Unit (MMU). It is excellent in finding invisible bugs. Two versions are available: ENFORCER and ENFORCER.PAR. The first sends all output to a serial terminal at 4800 baud and the second to the printer. Any "hit" on an illegal memory location causes the system to momentarily cease, while a full report is printed. This has helped me track down bugs in some of my programs, and has also found some I didn't know existed. 3]HIDDEN ENDCLI in V2.0 There is a keyboard shortcut for the ENDCLI command in 2.0. Try using Control \ while in a CLI window. 3]BUGS More bugs have sprung up in V2.0. The SHOW only icons or all files in the menu only seems to work once. Then the menu tick appears to get confused and continue showing only icons, though all files have been selected. Nic Wilson Software 138d South Street Toowoomba QLD 4350 Australia 4]END OF TEXT