2088 bridgeboard

[chiark]

OK, so I'm on a mission. My 3000 is alive (it lives only through complete donor motherboard) and I want to get it on the network.

Via a bridgeboard.

I have a 2088 (thanks Eric) that works fine. I have a 3COM Etherlink III. It seems others have made this combo work, despite it looking like the Etherlink 3 is a 16 bit card, but let's cross that bridge (hoho) when we get there.

Do I absolutely need a 5.25" drive connected to the internal connector? I've tried attaching a 1010 to the external connector, but it always wants to boot from A: on the internal connector, it seems.

Is there any way around this?

I've tried creating a hard file with makeab, however it doesn't want to boot from that...

Is there any way to get it to boot from a hard file (assuming I can get files on there) or from an external 3.5 drive, or do I need the 5.25.

[Zetr0]

@chiark

my friend, I just happen to have a 5.25 drive you can have for postage my friend

[chiark]

Blimey, you're good

I wonder if anyone has a hardfile that they could post that has a minimum dos (freedos) environment on it... That would be a hell of a lot easier, as I don't have any MS-DOS 5.25 floppies either!

[hit]

here is a 10 mb freedos hdd image:
http://bochs.sourceforge.net/diskimages.html

hope this works.

[TheCorfiot]

Originally Posted by chiark

Blimey, you're good

I wonder if anyone has a hardfile that they could post that has a minimum dos (freedos) environment on it... That would be a hell of a lot easier, as I don't have any MS-DOS 5.25 floppies either!

@chiark my good friend

As an owner of a A20088XT and aiming for the same goal as yourself, and yes my Network card is 16Bit too
I can ofer the following.

I have an MSDOS 6.21 Hardfile alrready set up (10MB) on my A2000, which I can compress & upload for you (see my A2000 album piccies for screenshot), Of course I need to transfer it to my PC first which i can do over the weekend.

You can also connect a 3.5" drive to the 2088's floppy connector, I created a 720K MSDOS 6.21 Boot Disk using Virtual PC on my Windoze PC & if you like I can point you towards that Virtual Hardisc which I have already posted up to . This will give you a full DOS & Win311 enviroment & you can transfer which ever files you like by 3.5" floppy, VirtualPC is of course free to download from MS & pretty good too.

I know Zetro's offer is very kind but do you really want to mess about with old 5.25" discs, with a 3.5" drive Transfer between the Bridgeboard & your Windoze PC is straight forward.

Let me know how I can help....
and of course whoever gets the network up & running first will help the other

TC

[chiark]

Cool, many thanks to all!

I didn't realise that I could fit a 3.5 720k drive on there too - that'd be great! Do I need a PC floppy drive or amiga floppy drive?

That hardfile would be great, TC, absolutely great! It would (I assume) save the need for messing around with floppies at all? If you could do that then it would help everyone in the same situation...

Of course, as and when we get this working I'll share any tips I've got . Just for reference, this is a 2088XT in an A3000 with a 3COM Etherlink 3. Fingers are definitely crossed that this should work, but I am concerned that it's a 16 bit card.

Still, I'll crawl before I walk before I run: a booting bridgeboard would be a good first step!

Thank you all again!

[TheCorfiot]

@chiark

Check your PM

You can use a 1.44 But regarding HD floppies tape over the HD Hole.

Don't forget to set the Drive ID to zero too.

Regarding always wanting to boot from A: I cant find a way round this but Once you have the HD file installed, (Do you have the latest Bridgeboard Floppies ?? )
The system just gives a A: drive error but pressing F1 to continue then Boots straight off the HD File.

1 Correction to all, apologies, The MediaFile image I uploaded is DOS621/WIN3.0, which I corrected for installation on my A500 with KCS Power PC Board, & Yes it works perfectly in VGA Mode.......but slow...

PS @chiark,, You may have probs with the 030 on the A3000 & the Bridgeboard janus.library. To overcome this download "enforcer" from Aminet. It does work.


TC

[chiark]

already done that (the enforcer bit) - I also found the janus 2.1 install disk on l8r.net which seems a bit better than the old version.

So, just to get this absolutely straight: I can connect a PC 3.5" floppy disk to the internal connector, and it'll appear as drive a? If so, that's great! What do you mean by "set the drive ID to zero"? I thought that was controlled by the cable :

[TheCorfiot]

Originally Posted by chiark

already done that (the enforcer bit) - I also found the janus 2.1 install disk on l8r.net which seems a bit better than the old version.

So, just to get this absolutely straight: I can connect a PC 3.5" floppy disk to the internal connector, and it'll appear as drive a? If so, that's great! What do you mean by "set the drive ID to zero"? I thought that was controlled by the cable :

@chiark

If you use a HD PC cable with Crossover you are quite correct - Drive is ready (set to 1), If you use a staright 34way cable you will need to set the Drive ID to 0

let us know how you get on ..

TC

[chiark]

aha! I think I understand. Will play tonight

[keropi]

does it worth all that hassle? maybe a DENEB or a X-Surf is a more trouble-free solution and both have extra bonuses, especially the DENEB...
if you get it working chiark, report on the speed of this setup

[chiark]

Yeah, but where's the fun in that eh?

I've got an xsurf. I could SLIP into the machine with xsurf on. I could parnet in

But I want to get this running, because it's too cool . Bending the whim of an 8088 chip to be a mere service to the amiga? Who couldn't love that

But yeah, there's easier solutions but that's not the point here

[TheCorfiot]

Originally Posted by chiark

Yeah, but where's the fun in that eh?

I've got an xsurf. I could SLIP into the machine with xsurf on. I could parnet in

But I want to get this running, because it's too cool . Bending the whim of an 8088 chip to be a mere service to the amiga? Who couldn't love that

But yeah, there's easier solutions but that's not the point here

That's my reason too, also the fact I can't afford an xsurf either,

[davideo]

Originally Posted by TheCorfiot

That's my reason too, also the fact I can't afford an xsurf either,

That's a pity because I've got one spare now that I've got my CF card working on my 4000D

Dave G

[Secret Vampire]

If the 16 bit-ness is a problem, I probably still have some 8 bit NE1000 cards somewhere that I could donate to the cause, not fast, but then, it was never going to be a speedy solution anyway.
Of course they don't have 10baseT ports on them, but I think I might have a transceiver to go with them, or you could set up some thinnet for real retro points :P
I've got an A2286 now, so 16 bit isn't a problem, just need to upgrade those 2 extra slots so I can have graphics and sound, or maybe a SCSI card, or ISA RAM...

[rkauer]

ISA RAM never surfaced! Only notebooks had PCMCIA memory expansions (from that came the difference/mess between extended and expanded memory).

[Secret Vampire]

the 2 ISA RAM cards I have say different...

Edit: some pr0n

[rkauer]

ISA expansion memory!

[Secret Vampire]

When you think about it, it's no more weird than a zorro (Or for that matter SBUS for fans of the sparcstation 2/IPX) RAM cards...

The Kingston one in the picture is particularly nice, supporting up to 16MB per card, and up to 2 cards per system, though I don't know if that means you can have 32MB or if you can only use 2 in configurations with less than 16MB.
The other is a full length one made by mitsubishi, stuffed full of 256kx1 chips.

[chiark]

Elusive Lost boy, that's excellent - I might have to take you up on that, but first off I need to get the sodding thing booting . One member here has put a post up saying that they've got an etherlink 3 working with the 2088, so I'm hopeful

Curry is on its way, then I'm off to the batcave. Well, the loft anyway...