5 Oct 2007 18:27
5 Oct 2007 18:59
Re: A7000 RAM SIMMs
Stephen Borrill <netbsd <at> precedence.co.uk>
2007-10-05 16:59:02 GMT
2007-10-05 16:59:02 GMT
On Fri, 5 Oct 2007, Andrew Ball wrote: > I have read that the A7000 takes "standard" 72-pin SIMMs, but it's not > clear to me whether these must be EDO, FPM, whether parity is required > or how fast they must be. Does anyone here know? A7000 or A7000+? The latter wants EDO, the former not (though you'll probably get away with it). All IIRC, of course-- -- Stephen
5 Oct 2007 23:04
Re: A7000 RAM SIMMs
Andrew Ball <aball <at> students.prairiestate.edu>
2007-10-05 21:04:23 GMT
2007-10-05 21:04:23 GMT
Hello Stephen,
SB> A7000 or A7000+? The latter wants EDO, the former not (though
> you'll probably get away with it).
Thanks for the information. Is the A7000+ discernably faster than the
A7000? Do both models include an ATA interface? What is the capacity
limit for a hard disk?
- Andy Ball
7 Oct 2007 12:00
7 Oct 2007 23:59
Re: A7000 RAM SIMMs
Ben Morrow <ben <at> morrow.me.uk>
2007-10-07 21:59:48 GMT
2007-10-07 21:59:48 GMT
Andrew Ball wrote: > Hello Stephen, > > SB> A7000 or A7000+? The latter wants EDO, the former not (though >> you'll probably get away with it). > > Thanks for the information. Is the A7000+ discernably faster than > the A7000? Do both models include an ATA interface? What is the > capacity limit for a hard disk? The A7000+ has a one-channel (two-device) ATA interface. I'm afraid I can't help with the rest... Since you're writing to this list, I'm going to take a giant intuitive leap and guess you're trying (or planning to try) to run NetBSD on an A7000... if I'm wrong, please ignore me :). I have been trying on-and-off to make this work for a while now, and have pretty much failed: if you have better luck, I'd appreciate knowing how you did it (off-list if you like). Of course, I would also be happy to share what little I've learned (and it really is little: unfortunately, my understanding of the internals of RISCOS is much less than I'd like). Ben
8 Oct 2007 03:23
Re: A7000 RAM SIMMs
Andrew Ball <aball <at> students.prairiestate.edu>
2007-10-08 01:23:10 GMT
2007-10-08 01:23:10 GMT
Hello Ben,
BM> I have been trying on-and-off to make this work for a while now,
> and have pretty much failed...
I suppose it's good to find that out ahead of time. Apart from one for
myself (will they tolerate 240V at 60Hz?) I have thought about having
one set up at my parents' house, so that I can periodically send them
CDs with pictures of the 2-year-old granddaughter they have yet to
meet. It might be simpler to send them a digital picture frame, but a
computer has more scope for additional uses. Ideally I'd put NetBSD on
it because I can manage that remotely, but if RiscOS is all it will
run, then I'll have to find (or perhaps write) software for that.
How far did you get? What obstacles did you encounter?
- Andy Ball.
8 Oct 2007 09:56
Re: A7000 RAM SIMMs
Stephen Borrill <netbsd <at> precedence.co.uk>
2007-10-08 07:56:41 GMT
2007-10-08 07:56:41 GMT
On Mon, 8 Oct 2007, Andrew Ball wrote: > BM> I have been trying on-and-off to make this work for a while now, > > and have pretty much failed... > > I suppose it's good to find that out ahead of time. Apart from one for > myself (will they tolerate 240V at 60Hz?) I have thought about having > one set up at my parents' house, so that I can periodically send them > CDs with pictures of the 2-year-old granddaughter they have yet to > meet. It might be simpler to send them a digital picture frame, but a > computer has more scope for additional uses. Ideally I'd put NetBSD on > it because I can manage that remotely, but if RiscOS is all it will > run, then I'll have to find (or perhaps write) software for that. !SwiftJPEG. > How far did you get? What obstacles did you encounter? I certainly had NetBSD running on an A7000 successfully some time ago. Did something get broken? I probably first used an A7000 for NetBSD around 2002; it was a router/firewall with 2 network cards in - an EtherB in the NIC slot and an EtherIII as a podule. Of course, a RiscPC would be better. -- -- Stephen
8 Oct 2007 13:22
Re: A7000 RAM SIMMs
Theo Markettos <netbsd-port-acorn32 <at> markettos.org.uk>
2007-10-08 11:22:22 GMT
2007-10-08 11:22:22 GMT
On Sun, Oct 07, 2007 at 10:59:48PM +0100, Ben Morrow wrote: > Andrew Ball wrote: > >Thanks for the information. Is the A7000+ discernably faster than > >the A7000? Do both models include an ATA interface? What is the > >capacity limit for a hard disk? > > The A7000+ has a one-channel (two-device) ATA interface. I'm afraid I > can't help with the rest... The A7000+ is clocked at (I think) 48MHz while the A7000 is clocked at 32MHz, so there should be a significant speed difference. The A7000+ also has a floating point unit, though I don't know if things in NetBSD are ever compiled for hard-float, and the EDO RAM might make a small difference. For the disc interface, in terms of hardware, it's just a few bus buffers so any restrictions are, in theory, purely with the OS. RISC OS 4/6 can drive up to 128GB (this is the limit of LBA28 addressing - RO6 doesn't yet support LBA48). The hardware only supports a few PIO modes so it's fairly slow (no DMA). RISC OS 3.7 can, in principle, format to the same sizes but the Filecore E disc format has a map size limitation. That means you start getting things like minimum 16MB per file, and it all gets very inefficient above about 10-20GB. This won't bother you if you only format a small RISC OS partition at the start of the disc and then NetBSD for the rest. There is a small hardware problem on the Risc PC board that causes it to pay attention to the /IOCS16 line from the hard drive which is long deprecated. Some modern drives, notably Hitachi, have stopped generating this signal which means the motherboard only latches in 8 bits not 16 bits. I'd assume the A7000(+) board has the same arrangement, but don't have a schematic to check. More details here:(Continue reading)
RSS Feed