Conference hydra::amiga_v1

1081.0. "Hurricane 68020/68881 Board" by LEDS::ACCIARDI () Sun Jan 17 1988 11:54

The following saga was downloaded from PLINK with absolutely no permission 
whatsoever.

Ed.

PS:  The Hurricane CPU board is available from Abel Supply for $859, complete
     with the 68020 and 68881 FPP chip.
___________________________________________________________________________

This is a story about a guy (me) who found himself with a Hurricane (board).

I bought my board from Abel Supply [(615) 428-5100 voice number]. It really
helps alot to have an auto-dialer if you want to get through to them,
although Saturdays are not too bad.

Why did I buy the Hurricane Board??? Well for one, John Wagner of Finally
Technologies said that it was fully software compatible with the existing
Amiga software, even Transformer 1.2 (they send a software Fix for it with
the board). The other turbo-boards (CSA, Gemstone) were not compatible with
Digi-View and the sound digitizers. The Hurricane board also supposedly runs
the system at a full 14 MHz as opposed to the 7 MHz of the other boards.
                                              ^
                                              |____ (not really true)-Ed.
    
Apparently what the H.B. does is emulate the 68000 chip, but at a VERY fast
rate. Heck, I'm not an electronic type, I just wanted a faster machine for
when I do CAD work with Draw Plus. One of the files I work with takes almost
4 minutes to do a full size screen display... UGH!

Before I get into the hardware details of the installation, let me say that
now that I have the thing working, YES, I do think that it is worth it.
I see a noticeable increase in the overall machine operation; menus, screen
display, even hard disk I/O. ESPECIALLY noticeable is when multi-tasking,
like I am doing right now (printing out my 1987 business spreadsheet, down-
loading a file from the LAAUG BBS, and writing this with, and I mean it,
no discernable delays in the printer or my typing!

And no, I DO NOT have the 32 bit memory for the board, just a Micro-botics
Starboard with 2 megs, and for which I am getting their SCSI interface.

Now for the REAL story for those of you who think you might want to do this.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The H.B. just plugs into the socket where the 68000 chip is presently plugged.
No jumpers or mangling. THE 68000 CHIP IS NOT EASY TO REMOVE! Mine was really
plugged in solid. I thought I was going to break something the way I had to
pry the thing up with a very small screwdriver. Got it out, though, slightly
bending just a few prongs.
                                                                         
Plugged in the 'ol Hurricane, fired it up, and what do you know???, it just
sat there and loaded and reloaded and reloaded K.Start, and never got to
asking me for the Wbench disc. Take it back out, plug in the 68000 (after
straightening the bent prongs), it all works o.k., so.... it's gotta be the
H. Board.

Called John at Finally Tech, he finally called back, and this is what I
ended up doing:

1.  Soldered a wire wrap grounding wire across pin 10 of the 4 PAL chips
(labeled J,K,L,N) on the daughterboard. No success. Grounded this to the
motherboard at one of the five very small solder spots right next to the
expansion port. No success. Grounded this to the -Minus pin on the C3 capac-
itor on the Hurricane Board. Still no success. Finally (that word keeps pop-
ping up) had to replace the much-bandidied-about PAL chips (refer to AMIGAWORLD
Sept/Oct. 1987 issue Page 12 and Jan. 1988 issue Page 11 for details). dI very
much recommend buying the Radio Shack combination soldering iron/solder
sucker device ($6.95!!!), it really works GREAT.

AFTER REPLACING THE PAL CHIPS, THE HURRICANE BOARD CAME RIGHT UP. Whoppee, I
thought, Finally! So, now to plug in my new Micro-Botics 2-meg Starboard.

It stopped working.... The READ.ME files on the Hurricane Disc tell you, (now
that I've bought it) that it won't work with the Starboard, the old two-layer
Comspec ram board, and the old Cltd. SCSI interface. great. However, the
Starboard will work if it is terminated. Since I presently have an old Micro-
Forge single-slot adapter with SCSI interace running two hard drives, I think
"This will now work, I mumble to the 68xxx gods that be.....".

So, I grounded the 4 PAL chips again, no go, grounded to the motherboard, no
go, grounded to the Hurricane (see step 1, Ha!) and 'VIOLA! everything came
up!

God, was I glad!

Now all I have to do is get a proper SCSI and then I'll be ready for DOS 1.3,
and that's what I'm working on right now.

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Does it perform????? Yes. Do I like it? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes. I
haven't had the opportunity to fully test all of my software, but Digi-View
2.0 works, and that one is supposed to be a toughie! If you have any
questions, I can be reaced via E-Mail on Plink.

Jay Kubena

PLINK------------> Jay-Kub