Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    hi,
    
    	It's me again. We seen to have 'sort of' got the SCSI drive going.
    Two problems remain, however... 
    
    1)  Is the Seagate ST277N 17 or 26 Sectors per track ? The docs say
    that it is a 64 Mb drive, but when we formatted it with 17 sectors,
    it's capacity came out at 40 Mb. When trying 26 sectors - it just won't
    work.
    
    2) What is GLOBVEC in the mountlist for ?
    
    Cheers, Dave.
    

    Hi,
    
    Me yet again!  Finally got the SCSI drive up and running by pure trial
    and error - it seemed that GlobVec did the trick, BUT WHAT IS
    GLOBVEC!????!!!! 
    
    I'm running Kicktart 1.3 and workbench 1.3, but mydrive still won't
    auto boot - is my 2090 board missing something, and if so what? Just a
    ROM? (or have I bought a dead duck?)
    
    Being a Rev 4.0 board, I think I have a Rectangular Agnus chip. Is it
    possible to upgrade to the new chip??? Any distributers in the UK?
    (again, have I bought a dead duck?)
    
    Thanks,
    
    Dave......
    
    

Dave,

Do you have a 2090, or a 2090A? Unless you have the latter, you don't have an
autoboot controller. It should autoboot from the first ST-506 device or the
first SCSI device.

The controller should read the first 2 cylinders on the disk for partition
information before DF0: is tested for a bootable disk. You should see the disk
LED flash (and hear activity if you have an RDnn device) before DF0: clicks.

If it does none of this, I'd say it's not an autoboot controller. That being the
case, you're probably only adding 10-15 seconds boot time anyway.

Lindsay

     
    Not having an autobooting controller is not such a large deal, if you
    make your DF0: startup-sequence look something like this...
    
    Setpatch >NIL:
    System/FastMemFirst
    BindDrivers
    Run Execute DH0:s/HDBoot 		;do all the busy work from the HD
    EndCLI >NIL:
    
    This arrangement will add 10 seconds or so to the boot time as opposed
    to a fully autobooting setup.
    
    BTW, wasn't Commodore supposed to release a daughterboard that patched
    the original 2090 to make it autoboot?  It was laughingly called the
    'Slot Waster' or some such.
    
    Ed

Re: GLOBVEC

Some of the Amiga's system software is written in a language named BCPL.
BCPL is a typeless, low-level language whose only real datatype is the
fullword.  (BCPL is the grandfather of the language C.)

BCPL programs have the concept of runtime linking, similar to normal
Amiga shareable libraries.  The GLOBVEC is the BCPL global vector,
which allows this dynamic linking to take place.

Commodore is working to rewrite the BCPL parts of AmigaDOS (I believe
the BCPL code is gone from 2.0).

Re: .4

I have a announcement of the autoboot card for the 2090:


				SPECIFICATION
				    A2090B

		Autoboot Adaptor (sic) Card for the A2090

	Function:	This card, containing two EPROMS will autoboot
			an otherwise non-autobooting A2090 harddisk
			controller card under V1.3 Kickstart.  No
			modifications are necessary to the A2090 card.
			Simply plug this autoboot adaptor card into
			any adjacent slot.

	Card Type:	Amiga Bus (100 pin)

	Card Size:	Half-size card

	Compatibility:	Specifically designed to work only with Commodore
			A2090 card.


The above announcement was made in 1988, at the same time Commodore announced
the '020 board, the A2090A disk controller, the 8 Megboard, Kickstart 1.3,
the AT Bridgecard, the A590 harddisk for the 500, and the multiport
serial card.  As far as I know, the stuff in this paragraph shipped.

At the same time, they announced the ECS chipset and Amiga Unix.  As far
as I know, the stuff in this paragraph hasn't shipped.

I don't know if the A2090B Autoboot Adaptor Card is available or not.
I've never seen one.