I recently tried to upgrade my A3000 to OS3.1 by changing two ROM's provided via the upgrade kit. It did not work; it turned the screen blank grey.
Can someone explain to me why? And above all, how to solve the problem? My A3000 has a Buster7 chip (someone thought it needs a newer one). It also has a GVP IV24 graphics board (by the way, any company supporting that still?).
Gratefully,
Bjorn, Sweden
Several possibilties come to mind.
You might try opening the Amiga and pressing down on various chips, particularly the ones you just installed, to see that they are properly seated. This is one problem that a grey screen frequently indicates. Or one or more of the chips could be in backwards.
The new GVP, GVP-M, might still support that board. You can find out about GVP-M through dealers such as Software Hut.
Some other staff members had some wisdom to offer on this too. I'll include their responses here to provide the most complete answer we can.
Michael Webb
Editor-in-Chief
Well, I asked a friend of mine in #Amiga (Renegrade):
"Critical error! the chips must be installed in the wrong sockets! Or backwards, which is worse. I think the U181 and 182 are backwards. Anyhow, to be clear: the chips must be aligned properly, but the sockets must be reversed or SOMETHING. Anyhow, with chips, the little notches in the chip line up with the ones drawn on the motherboard."
Beth Wise (Ink)
Associate Publicist
The chips might be in upside down; the writing on some of the upgrade sets is reversed.
Greg Noggle
Telecommunications Editor and Hardware Guru
I would have to guess that the ROM's are installed improperly. I know I was confused when I got the ROM's for my A2091 SCSI controller. He should first try to reinstall the old ROM's as they were in the machine. Then test it. If the machine works as before, then try reinstalling the 3.1 ROM's, carefully making sure no pins bend and that the "notch" on the 3.1 ROM's face the same way as the original ROM's. Then test the machine. Another thing to note is that the ROM with the lower number in the 3.1 set should be in the same socket that the lower-numbered original ROM was in, generally.
The Amiga 2000 was easy with its one single Kickstart ROM. It is very easy to acidentally "swap" the ROM's into the wrong socket. Also note...many machines have a silk-screened representation of the orientation of the ROM under where the ROM will sit, or a Pin One notation next to the socket. Pin one is the pin to the left of the notch on the chip. It is very easy for someone writing instructions to get them wrong, but the board designers are usually right on the money.
Lastly, a company named GVP-M is selling some of the ex-GVP product line. They may support the IV24. You will have to contact them and ask. They probably are listed in the Amiga Web Directory under companies, or you can call any Amiga mail order house that deals in Amiga hardware to get the contact info.
I find most Amiga dealers to be among the most helpful in the computer industry.
Anthony Becker
Executive Editor
I have a question regarding the use of Final Writer 5. I am using the American version 5.04 of the program. I am about to hand in a seminar in which I have been ordered to put my endnotes at the bottom of the page. How is this done? I am well aware that one can create a section called "Endnotes" and FW5 manages the whole thing. It would, however, be great if instead the endnotes were placed at the bottom of each representative page rather than in a section of their own.
Please help me out.
Kind Regards,
Jesper Frede Andersen
Team
AMIGA
Endnotes are, by their very nature, at the end of the document. What you're looking for are Footnotes. As far as I can tell, Final Writer does not support these, which was somewhat surprising at first, until I thought about it and remembered that, in the literary community, Endnotes seem to have become highly favored over Footnotes. However, I understand all the accepted standards in the world do little to help when one has been specifically requested to do otherwise.
You should be able to create "footnotes" with Final Writer, but unfortunately, you're going to have to do it yourself. That is, by setting aside an area at the bottom of each page, including a horizontal rule, and then entering your footnotes by hand. It's a pain, I know, but it appears as if, due to the way Final Writer has been designed, it's the only way to do what you want to do.
Thanks to several members of the CompuServe AmigaVendor Forum for confirming this.
Michael Webb
Editor-in-Chief
Dear Amiwizards - I can't seem to find any info on how to get older (500, 2000) Amigas to interface with the WWW. My "communication" Amiga is a 500 with Workbench 2.0 & Oregon Termite TCP/IP software installed. This gives me FTP and Telnet but no E-Mail or WWW. Of course there is a plethora of shareware or freeware out there for the web but no info on whether or not they will work on my system. What I would like to know is exactly what I'd need to set up a basic web browser and an e-mail reader. Can you help me? Thanks in advance.
Charles Bailey
Sure can, Charles. It just so happens that I, too, have an A500 which, from time to time, is out cruising the internet.
You don't say how much memory or disk space you have, which may be a limiting factor. I have a GVP A530 Turbo Accelerator, which gives me more than enough system resources for such tasks. You probably want to have at least 4mb RAM for a graphically internet-capable machine, although you might be able to get by with less. Since all the software's free for download, though, there's no harm in trying.
Without knowing your system configuration, I can give you some general information.
I can say right off that unfortunately, your OS may be a limiting factor. I believe there are currently 4 graphical web browsers for the Amiga (AMosaic, Voyager, AWeb, and IBrowse), and every one of them requires OS 3.x to work properly. I used AMosaic with OS 2.04 for a month or so, and for the most part it worked, except there were no graphics. The other browsers might also work this way. Frankly, I'm not certain. If you're on the fence about whether you should upgrade to OS 3.1 or not, I will give it my strongest recommendation. Aside from the wonderful system of Datatypes and Multiview, you also get noticeably improved graphics speed, a CD-ROM file system, and better GUI routines. If you don't wish to upgrade your OS at this time, however, you don't have to. But for a modern Amiga web browser, it is practically essential.
Many of the internet programs for the Amiga right now require MUI. If you don't know what this is, the letters M, U, and I stand for Magic User Interface, and it is a system that allows programmers to easily build up standardized, complex GUI's, and allows users to highly customize their software. MUI programs also generally look very good. There are those who hate MUI, and those who love it, but that's beside the point here, because you simply need it to run a great deal of modern Amiga software. It can be found on Aminet.
Assuming you have the OS and memory to run it, I will recommend IBrowse as a web browser. At this time, it supports the most HTML of all the browsers, and in my highly humble personal opinion, it has the best GUI. You can find a demo on Omnipresence's web page, http://www.omnipresence.com. It should work well with Termite TCP with minimal interference on your part. Simply install it and run it, and it should do the rest.
E-mail programs are a little trickier to set up and use, because you have to have certain information about your provider, and the mail server it uses. This information should not be difficult to obtain. There are a number of e-mail programs available for the Amiga now. YAM and Voodoo are two examples that come to mind. These, too, should be available on Aminet (http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/aminet). The documentation with the programs should tell you what information you need to get, and your internet service provider should be able to help you get it.
Generally, any old Amiga with a hard disk, some extra memory, and a recent enough version of the OS can run modern Amiga internet software.
Michael Webb
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief