🚀 go-pugleaf

rglaeser@sunc4.cs.uiuc.edu (Russell D Glaeser) writes:

> I was about to buy an A3000/25-100 and had a few questions.
> 
> 1) I currently own a c64 with 1541 drive and 1702 monitor.  I was wondering
>    if it were possible to connect the 1702 to the 3000, in addition to the
>    1950 and thus have two screens to play with.  Could it be set up so
>    different applications run on different screens?

(flips coin . . . heads!) yes, in my opinion you can hook your 1702 to your 
A3000. I believe that the A3000 still puts an NTSC signal out (is the 1702 
composite?) or at least a hackable rgb. But I don't think you can get 
different pictures simultaneously on the 1702 and 1950 -- just a lesser 
quality picture of the same screen.
> 
> 2) What is the difference between chip ram and fast ram?

Chip ram is ram that shares its buss with the 68xx0 cpu and the Three 
Sisters (special chips (called Agnes, Denise, and Portia) that make the 
Amiga special). Normally the special chips accelerate things like grpahics 
and do so transparently to the cpu, because they can interleave their buss 
access with the cpu's. Sometimes, under real heavy loads, the "steal" buss 
cycles from the cpu (called buss contention) but who cares? Fast ram is 
merely all that ram which exists above the address space of the special 
chips and so are not directly accessible to them. In old Amigas fast ram is 
that ram above 1/2 Meg, but now it seems to be moslty that ram above 2 Megs. 
Good sound and graphics require lots of ram but the Amiga special chips are 
only 16 Bit VLSI technology (alas) trying to live in a 32 bit tomorrow. Oh 
well, it's still a killer computer. Even my ancient A1000 running a 68000 at 
7 MHz still feels good in many things next to a 16 MHz 386 with PGA board 
(and that board has its own special "accelerator" (an 80186)!). 
> 
> 3) What are the hardware differences between the 3000/25-100 and the 3000UX?
>    I have heard that they are significant.  ie. you can't upgrade a 3000/25-1
>    to run UNIX.

Hmmm... this is news to me. I was lead to believe that even an A2500 can be 
equipped to run Amix (or whatever they're calling it this month). As far as 
I know the A3000ux comes (will come?) standard with a 300 Meg scsi drive and 
high density (2 Meg?) floppies. The roomermonger said that the HD floppies 
were part of the reason for delay since they are needed to load the unix 
distribution -- but there's been some specualtion that a cd-rom distribution 
or even streaming tape cartridge will be possible. Don't hesitate to 
straighten out my "factoids" when you get the straight poop. I'm not too old 
yet to unlearn.
> 
> 4) Finally, I have heard of a program that will allow me to run my c64 stuff
>    on the 3000.  Does this exist?  How well does it work?  Is there a way to
>    run the 1541 into the 3000 so I can load the programs?
> 
> Well, that's about it.  Thanks for all the help(When I get it :))

I've seen a c64 software emulator on the boards, but i've never been tempted 
to try it. Supposedly one or more work tolerably well under A_DOS 1.3 (and 
maybe 2.0 but I odubt it for a while anyway). So they/it should work as well 
on an A3000. I suppose such a product has a niche value to ween a user up 
the curve to a higher plane of enlightenment. But, s'welp me, if I hear 
you're buying an A3000/25-100 just to impress your friends on how fast 
GeoWorks goes . . . <grrr>

> 
> Russ Glaeser
> rglaeser@cs.uiuc.edu


Travis_Bissett := Cult_Amigoid(4, GearHeads);


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