Any AMIGA users?

From: Ethan Dicks <erd_6502_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Thu Jan 3 11:52:35 2002

--- Gary Hildebrand <ghldbrd_at_ccp.com> wrote:
> "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" wrote:
> >
> > > > OK what was the AMIGA that ran both AMIGA and PC software...
> > > > ... (286 + 68000 ) cpu cards on a PC style box. Did that have a
> > > > special software to write PC disks?

The hardware solution you are probably referring to is an A2000 and
Commodore Bridge card. The first models were the A2088 with an 8088,
the later model, the A2286, had the '286. Third-parties produced
cards that were faster. They were called bridge cards because they
bridged the Zorro bus (68000-side) to the ISA bus that was present
in every A2000 (and A3000...) but inert. I produce the GG2 Bus+
bridgecard which has _no_ CPU, but makes the ISA bus available directly
in 68000-address space (shameless plug off...)

As delivered, the A2088 (and A2286) came with an internal 5.25" floppy.
You would mount the floppy in the one-and-only 5.25" hole in the A2000
and cable it to the bridge card - that's your A: drive. The provided
software allowed you to display the contents of the display memory
on the bridge card in a window (there was a well-documented interface
between the A2088 and the Zorro bus). You had several ISA slots available,
so you could put in a hard disk controller, a network card, whatever
you wanted. I think you could override the internal emulated display
and put in an ISA video card, but if it was possible, it was not a
common arrangement, partially because you were still limited to using
the A2000's keyboard through the bridge card software, over the Zorro
interface (no external keyboard connector).

There was also a device driver you could buy (later licensed with the
OS) to read/write PC floppies - CrossDOS. I've used it for 720K and
1.44Mb floppies (with a C= 1/2-speed HD drive). They also produced
CrossMac for reading/writing Mac floppies (HD only, not 400K/800K).
Essentially, it was a filesystem handler and a couple of mount scripts.
The Amiga is friendly when it comes to adding new devices/filesystems.
You get OFS in ROM always, FFS in ROM sometimes and other filesystems
as you desire to add them; completely unlike DOS/Windows.

> > > > I saw one once - but it was sure slow!

Yes. For as expensive as they were, they were never at the top end of
the PC performance curve.
 
> > On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Christopher Smith wrote:
> > There was a software only PC emulation that ran on the 1000. It was
> > VERY slow, but it PASSED the "acid test of PC compatability" (PCW
> > 1?/84 "How the clones stack up")
> >
> > For a while, they gave it free with the purchase of the external
> > 5.25" drive.
>
> That was the transformer software, and it was only semi-compatible with
> the PC

I never used it, but I don't recall hearing good things. Later, a
third-party company (the makers of "CrossDOS") came out with Cross-PC,
a reasonable software approximation of a real PC... some of the versions
even supported real ISA cards over the GG2 Bus+. Kinda neat, really...
a fake PC with real hardware - like hanging a Unibus off your PC and
running E-11.

-ethan




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Received on Thu Jan 03 2002 - 11:52:35 GMT

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