NOW I remember....

[J-Golden]

A few weeks ago I posted my indecission on selling my Amiga that I hadn't used in a long while....

I remember now why I wanted to sell the thing...

It works but never does what I want it to. Case in point, just tried to install Visualprefs. Installer can't find a file and closes. This happens alot. Do the manual install but all it does is change the color of my tool bars.

This is one of many many problems. Since I have a 4000T I can't do the faithful "start without startup-sequence" option in the early menu and then "loadwb" to enter w/o any extras.

And the keyboard, I can only soft restart (reset button or Ctrl-A-A) 3 or 4 times before the keyboard stops working. then I have to cold boot the whole thing!!!!! It's not the PC-to-Amiga adapter, I tried two totally diferent types...

I finally figured out that it was Genesis that was keeping my screen from refreshing but every time I go off line my miggy locks up for 2 or 3 minutes.

Infact, the only think that works with ANY consistancy is Maxon Magic...

too many conflics for a computer that everyone keeps hailing as near bullet-proof...

[leirbag28]

The problem isnt your Amiga.......its your harddrive!

Reinstall everything.

Any computer no matter how bullet proof..........will have problems when 3rd party hardware is involved..........thats why I am 100% against 3rd parties producing anything Majorly important or required for the machine. Any silly little expansions are fine.......such as Sound digitizers, Frame grabbers etc...... but Gfx cards and and native chip designs should be inhouse. This is what originally made Amigas so good. And the lack of this is what makes PC's and Macs suck....................when oh when Will Amiga Inc comprehend this?

We DONT want CLONES! of any kind..............while they may be 500 people who are ok with this............what profit is there in this? I would rather cater to the REAL Amigans who want REAL Amigas..........and People of the world who dont know what they are missing till they see it..........again that is.



if not...I am interested in your A4000T

Now whats this about no Early Startup menu? I never heard such a thing?

[TjLaZer]

Just because you are having issues with your computer does not deem the platform problematic. I have no such problems with my Amigas.

[X-ray]

J-Golden

What do you mean you can't boot without startup on the A4000T?
I don't understand.
Is this a real A4000T?

[Brian]

We're doing things to this 15+year old hardware that was never intended nor even imagined for it. Adding nonestandard things and gadgets everywhere and the magic thing is how often the robust hardware actually allows the stuff to work.

The standard hardware and OS alone is very tight but the thing is there's not much $ in the thing so it's often newb/garage programmers that do things and way to often it's not compliant with the "set rules" but still it works... most of the times. With enough badly written software it's bound to BOOM BANG sometimes. And when it does the Amiga usually lets you in on the secret to why and when not SnoopDOS will often lend a helping hand.

The thing that the AmigaOS does that I'm lacking in Windows is giving the user controll. How many times have you ever sat and though... what's it doing now without my input? Never on the Amiga for me. Enter the Windows and/or doc&settings folder and I can only tell about 5% of what's what... On the Amiga it's the other way around... about 5% is unknown on a system with loads of stuff. That said Windows is a much more complex being but still it could have a much more logical structure. And the registry... what a joke. Geeses... not ment for anyone to understand. and one 0 instead of a 1 is enough to "BSOD - reinstall please".

But all of the above is worth nothing if you don't know why you're using it. It's like driving around in an old car from 1920 and complain how little works compared to the toyota rolling of the productionline. There's nostalgia behind it and it's simple enough that we can understand it's hickups and often we love the challenge it gives us... how exciting is it to find new rims to you're toyota compared to the old banger from 1920? ;)

[J-Golden]

@ x-ray and lierbag:

When ever I had a boot problem with other Amigas, I could go into the early startup screen ans select at the bottom "Boot without Startup-Sequence" and from the CLI type "loadWB" and I'd have a watered down yet functional GUI. With the A4000T they removed the workbench.lib from the BIOS so you can not do this any more w/o a boot disk WITH the file on it. BUT, I never got the A4000T specific WB disks (asked around but no one could do it).

Sice I din't have those, it is almost impossible w/o a lot of headache to start from scratch as lierbag suggested that and my OS 3.9 CD crashes when ever I try to install from it...

So you see, I'm plagued. And it doesn't help to have everyone else say "Well, mine works fine."

This whole thing came up because I WANT to experiment more in the field of Amigas. Right now it's getting a good emulated Amiga on a X-Box so THAT hardware can be used for something good for a change...

J-Golden

[amiganut4k]

Sorry to say it this way but... WHAT A BIG PILE OF HORSEFEATHERS!!!

I have an A4000T standing around here and the last weeks I've been using it I also had some problems, which were none of them all hardware related, and I've booted the machine several times without startup-sequence and entered loadwb and the machine booted straight into workbench without a single problem (except for the requester for ENV: ). And the fact that workbench.library isn't in ROM doesn't mean that you cannot boot without startup-sequence. You just have to be sure that the file is in LIBS: As the file usualy is there (if it wasn't you wouldn't be able to boot into Workbench at all) you will not have a single problem. And with OS3.9 you have an option to create a emergency boot floppy. You can always put workbench.library in the libs directory on that floppy. So there are several ways to boot the machine even if it has no workbench.library in the ROMs.

[X-ray]

J-Golden

I think you just need to give the system a chance, by getting the proper disks.
Did you get any disks at all with that A4000T?

[J-Golden]

@amiganut4K:

Cool, I'm glad you spoke up, I've been told what I relayed so I'm DEFINATLY going to give it a try.

As for all the other things, it's just really odd how I keep geting install errors where no one else does. I really wasn't trying to turn this into a whine session and am glad for the input You all did throw back

@ X-ray:

No, I only have some generic 3.1 disks and a 3.9 CD. I tried to get a copy of the A4000T WB disk so I could do a fresh install but there was no one willing to help (willing = making a copy of copywrighted material so I'm in no way trying st slam or slight anyone, just stating what happened).

J-golden

[leirbag28]

@Brian


Well said!


@J-Golden

Quote:
With the A4000T they removed the workbench.lib from the BIOS so you can not do this any more w/o a boot disk WITH the file on it.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Wow! I apologize for saying it was your Harddrive...........its NOT! its Your Amiga!
If what You said is true....this Alone would Piss Me Off.....No Workbench.lib in the Kickstart???? can Commodore have gotten any stupider?

Is this True??????? is there a way to fix it? cant someone just change the ROMS?


Let me Say something: The Best Kickstart ROM EVER made and best one to own for any Amiga.is the Kickstart 3.1 ROM in the CD32....This is a FACT!

why? because it has everything plus the CD Audio Menu and CD+G and VideoCD Menu's.

No one seems to get the picture on this how important this is.
This makes any Amiga....much more of an Amiga and with more of an Amiga like philosophy.

I wish All ROMS for All Amigas had the Upgraded CD32 Kickstart (BIOS) ROMS.


It is possible to do this.

[amiganut4k]

@J-Golden

I'll have a look at the A4000 that's standing here this weekend. And I’ll grab the ROMs to see if the workbench.library is in there. As far as i know the file can be left out as it is available in every WB disk (as far as i remember). The problems you have can also come from partially defective SIMMs. you could try that by booting the machine from floppy with as less memory as possible.

As far as i can remember I’ve always installed the A4000T from floppies i had from my A1200 or my A4000D not very sure. So if it doesn't work for you it might be a defective component as simple as a SIMM module. if you still have your original CPU board you could even try to install WB 3.1 without any SIMMs installed on the mainboard. That way you can determine if it's memory related or a different defective component.

But I'll keep you posted on this.

[Markus_Bieler]

It is only the A4000T which has the workbench.library on Harddisk. ThenKicirom for the A4kT has two scsi-drivers in romm (one for nci-scsi, and the other for the IDE part). And the Workbench.librarary justbdidn't fit also into 512KB.
As the A4000T never was sold without an harddsik and the libraray is on the installdisks for the A4000T from C= (and later Amiga Technologies)and This computer never was ment to be used without Harddisk.

All other 3.1 rom contain the Workbench-stuff.

[Piru]

@leirbag28
We DONT want CLONES! of any kind.
Who is this "we" ?
Reinstall everything.
Don't you think this is a bit premature considering the problem could be someting very easy to fix?
If what You said is true.this Alone would Piss Me Off.No Workbench.lib in the Kickstart? can Commodore have gotten any stupider?
What should they have done, leave out the SCSI driver?
Is this True?
Yes.
is there a way to fix it?
Since it has always been like this, and it's no flaw, I can't see why there would be any need to fix anything.
cant someone just change the ROMS?
ROM's are read only.
The Best Kickstart ROM EVER made and best one to own for any Amiga.is the Kickstart 3.1 ROM in the CD32....This is a FACT!
Fact based on what?
why? because it has everything plus the CD Audio Menu and CD+G and VideoCD Menu's.
No it doesn't have everything. Different Amiga models have different ROMs.
I wish All ROMS for All Amigas had the Upgraded CD32 Kickstart (BIOS) ROMS. It is possible to do this.
It is? How?

[LoadWB]

Hey if you continue to have problems with that crappy 4000T, let me know and I'll send you a UPS shipping label and I'll be glad to dispose of it for you ;-)

Seriously, though. Don't give up just yet. I have had many MANY quirky issues with my Amiga systems, and I've been lucky enough to solve them all with a little patience and perserverance.

[TjLaZer]

Well if anyone was giving you a hard time for wanting to get a copy of a WB disk that is crap. You own the computer and the 3.1 ROMs right? You own the right to WB 3.1 disks! Period. Regardless what Peru thinks. LOL ;)

Seriously if you need help getting a copy of WB disks contact me I will make you a copy for free!

I am sick and tired of the people that complain about this. If you own the computer and the ROMs, you also are entitled to the OS on disks. If you lost or damaged your disks you should be able to get a working copy. Normally you would contact the manufacturer, but I guess CBM in West Chester is no where to be found huh? ;)

[B00tDisk]

TjLaZer wrote:
Well if anyone was giving you a hard time for wanting to get a copy of a WB disk that is crap. You own the computer and the 3.1 ROMs right? You own the right to WB 3.1 disks! Period. Regardless what Peru thinks. LOL ;)

Seriously if you need help getting a copy of WB disks contact me I will make you a copy for free!

I am sick and tired of the people that complain about this. If you own the computer and the ROMs, you also are entitled to the OS on disks. If you lost or damaged your disks you should be able to get a working copy. Normally you would contact the manufacturer, but I guess CBM in West Chester is no where to be found huh? ;)

Wait...is that why nobody returns my calls when I try to get someone to send me my free copy of DeluxePaint IV AGA?!

:-o

[TjLaZer]

Wait...is that why nobody returns my calls when I try to get someone to send me my free copy of DeluxePaint IV AGA?!

Yeah I am trying to get a hold of Epyx too, no answer whats going on!???!

[amiga_3k]

J-Golden:

Quite an impressive Amiga setup you've got there:


-=Amiga Technologies - A4000T=-
* Cyberstorm 060@60MHz. / PPC604e@233Mhz - 98 Megs.
* External SCSI-III RAID Tower (37 Gigs. so far)
* Mediator PCI - D Link 530TX+ 10/100 / Voodoo 5500 / SB Digital 4.1
* eFlash 4000 (2 meg version)


I see eFlash 4000 in your configuration. I've not read into that piece of hardware too deep yet but IIRC it's a 'ROM' enabling you to store all of the OS3.9 patches such that no multi-softboots are needed before the system to be ready for use. Now could it be that this piece of hardware is responsible for all the inconsistency you encounter at the moment? I can imagine something has gone wrong while changing the content of the FlashROM.

My guess would be trying to clean the content of that FlashROM and see if that helps. Chances are that the OS3.9 CD has been compiled way before the eFlash was created. Is there a way to simply de-activate it?

If that fails you could go back to the bare-bones, just installing the hardware needed for a basic OS3.9 installation (and don't forget to create a rescue floppy ;-)). If that installation has been carried out to satisfaction plug the other hardware back in, one at a time, and keep checking the system.