Very Computer

Hi I've only got two very quick questions.

First,
What does port J12 on the mainboard and J1 on PCI riser with SCSI.

I was told that the  J1 was a 50 Pin IDE port, but that looks unlikely
on a SCSI card. I've looked in the Manual and I can't find any
reference to what sort of interface it is anywhere.  I think that J12
is IDE, and I think J1 is SCSI-2, but with what I know about SCSI, it
could be a waffle toaster....

Second,
How do you fit a 3.5" SCSI drive in a Multia??

By the looks of things you need a special rack to fit where a PCI card
would go.  But I don't have one of those.  So maybe the question is
where do I get one.

Third (Ok, so I can't count),
Does anyone know where I can get memory for a Multia in the UK?

All the links on AlphaLinux for the UK are either dead or the
companies don't do Alpha || Multia stuff.

Thanks (and a Gift Voucher [Or small cheap item of your choice] ) to
anyone who can help.

Ian.

--
bortaS nIvqu' 'oH bortaS'e'
Heghlu'DI' mobbe'lu'chugh QaQqu' Hegh wanI'
bIQapqu'meH tar DaSop 'e' DatIvnIS.

Hi,

I wouldn't be able to tell you which ports are which off the top of my head,
but I will try and explain it (you will need to have your multia handy).

Firstly, the port on the motherboard, the one that is just next to the white
floppy ribbon connector, and behind the floppy drive is a 44-pin mini-IDE
port, you can tell that this is an IDE port because there is a pin missing
from it, and this pin is used for orientation on IDE devices. I think that
this is your J12.

 J1 on the SCSI card is the 50-pin SCSI port.

To hook up a 3.5" SCSI drive you will need to have a SCSI card WITHOUT a PCI
slot, this variety has a 50-pin ribbon cable leading off J1 which you can
hook up to an internal 3.5" SCSI drive. These cards came with the 3.5"
mounting bracket that fits wher the PCI card would go, thus eliminating the
PCI slot on the actual card. By the way, you cant buy the actual rack to put
in the hard drive without buying a new scsi card.

These cards are very hard to find, and pretty useless unless you are willing
to give up the PCI slot, and your 2.5" SCSI drive.

Lastly, a company called PIICEON manufactures memory in the UK, and they
stock memory which is compatible with the multia. Their web address is:

http://www.piiceon.co.uk/docs/cat/sgi.htm#STANDARD

The product numbers for the RAM that would suit the multia are: 906-7604,
906-7608, 906-7616, and 906-7632

Another company in the UK that sells memory is Offtek, at
http://www.offtek.co.uk they also sell the memory that is compatible with
the multia. They market it as: "72 Pin FPM Parity Simm - 60NS"

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Dusan Senicic

PS.  If you want to install a 3.5" SCSI drive, i would be happy to trade you
my SCSI card (which has the drive rack and scsi connector that fits on the
hard drive), for yours, as I need PCI slot, and do not use a 3.5" drive.

Quote:> Hi I've only got two very quick questions.

> First,
> What does port J12 on the mainboard and J1 on PCI riser with SCSI.

> I was told that the  J1 was a 50 Pin IDE port, but that looks unlikely
> on a SCSI card. I've looked in the Manual and I can't find any
> reference to what sort of interface it is anywhere.  I think that J12
> is IDE, and I think J1 is SCSI-2, but with what I know about SCSI, it
> could be a waffle toaster....

> Second,
> How do you fit a 3.5" SCSI drive in a Multia??

> By the looks of things you need a special rack to fit where a PCI card
> would go.  But I don't have one of those.  So maybe the question is
> where do I get one.

> Third (Ok, so I can't count),
> Does anyone know where I can get memory for a Multia in the UK?

> All the links on AlphaLinux for the UK are either dead or the
> companies don't do Alpha || Multia stuff.

> Thanks (and a Gift Voucher [Or small cheap item of your choice] ) to
> anyone who can help.

> Ian.

> --
> bortaS nIvqu' 'oH bortaS'e'
> Heghlu'DI' mobbe'lu'chugh QaQqu' Hegh wanI'
> bIQapqu'meH tar DaSop 'e' DatIvnIS.

Quote:> > the multia. They market it as: "72 Pin FPM Parity Simm - 60NS"

> I thought the multia would only take 70ns simms. Am I wrong??

70ns or better.  The smaller the number, the faster the RAM
Faster is better :)

Marshall,
Who just got his first multia ... in a yard sale.

Quote:

> Yes I thought it was..

> How do you setup a Laptop floppy disk then? They have more pins than
> normal IDE drives so you can't just get a cable.

You cant set up a normal laptop floppy disk in the multia, you have to buy
DEC's original floppy, (which Compaq sells here, in Australia for about
70). This floppy has a LESSER amount of pins (26 instead of 34) than normal
floppies.

You might be able to get a floppy from citizen (who make the drives for
Compaq), look up: http://www.citizen.co.uk/oem/fdd/w-std.htm, but if you do
this, you will still have to get the specialised ribon cable connector.

You can easily set up a laptop IDE drive in the multia, this has a standard
laptop 44-pin interface, as opposed to the normal 40-pins, this is because
the 2.5" IDE drives get their power from this cable as well. You can easily
get a cable from any store that supplies amiga hardware, as this is the same
cable that amigas need to hook up a hard-drve.

Quote:> I've got a cable for J1 and it's folded to run under the floppy drive.
> That's how the thing came.

> They said I should use a 2.5" IDE drive internally, but in that case I
> don't have a cable for it.

The cable that you have, the one that runs under the floppy drive is the one
to the 2.5" SCSI HDD.

Quote:> And the 2.5" SCSI??  I didn't know 2.5" SCSI drives existed.  I was
> told that they did not exist, which was why I wanted to know about the
> J1 connector as it looked almost correct for the 2.5" IDE.

Unless you bought your multia with a 3.5" HDD or a 2.5" IDE, you have a 2.5"
SCSI drive, that's what the multias were shipped with. 2.5" SCSI drives
certainly do exist, but now are very rare, and extremely hard to find.

Quote:

> I thought the multia would only take 70ns simms. Am I wrong??

The multia can handle 70ns simms or better, anything below 70ns is better,
and faster too.

Regards,

Dusan Senicic

I see the port, but what chipset do I need to configure in the kernel?  I
am booting 2.2.13 with some IDE support compiled in, but nothing appears
detected in my bootup logs.  I am booting SRM.

thanks,
-bp
--
# bryan at terran dot org
# http://www.terran.org/~bryan

I use kernel 2.2.5-16. In my kernel config, i configure:

Enhanced IDE/MFM/RLL....... (this is the second option)
    under those settings, i select the following features:
        Include IDE/ATA-2 disk support
        Generic PCI IDE chipset supprt
        Generic PCI bus-master DMA support
        Use DMA by default when available

My Hitachi 6.4Gb laptop IDE drive works fine with these settings.

If you have these settings in your kernel, you should have no problems
whatsoever, even though you can't see the IDE drive in SRM.

Before doing anything with IDE drives in the multia, **make sure you have
the cable in the right way**, as my friend once put the cable in backwards
and it fried his drive because power was sent through the data channels.

You should also have the latest firmware installed.

AFAIK, the multia only has a simple IDE controller, not EIDE, and
it doesn't do busmastering/dma.

--
Bart Hartgers - TUE Eindhoven
Get my GPG key at http://etpmod.phys.tue.nl/bart/pubkey.gpg

On Thu, 18 Nov 1999 05:30:01 -0000, "Ian Wilkinson"

I got mine from SMC in Slough. www.smcdirect.co.uk
It was a while ago now though.

Martin

Quote:

> > Yes I thought it was..

> > How do you setup a Laptop floppy disk then? They have more pins
than
> > normal IDE drives so you can't just get a cable.

> You cant set up a normal laptop floppy disk in the multia, you have
to buy
> DEC's original floppy, (which Compaq sells here, in Australia for
about
> 70). This floppy has a LESSER amount of pins (26 instead of 34)
than normal
> floppies.

> You might be able to get a floppy from citizen (who make the drives
for
> Compaq), look up: http://www.citizen.co.uk/oem/fdd/w-std.htm, but if
you do
> this, you will still have to get the specialised ribon cable
connector.

> You can easily set up a laptop IDE drive in the multia, this has a
standard
> laptop 44-pin interface, as opposed to the normal 40-pins, this is
because
> the 2.5" IDE drives get their power from this cable as well. You can
easily
> get a cable from any store that supplies amiga hardware, as this is
the same
> cable that amigas need to hook up a hard-drve.

Yes, sorry that was my brain not paying attention to my fingers.  I
did mean to type Harddisk not floppy.  I'll be off to the nearest
Amiga store then.

Quote:

> > And the 2.5" SCSI??  I didn't know 2.5" SCSI drives existed.  I
was
> > told that they did not exist, which was why I wanted to know about
the
> > J1 connector as it looked almost correct for the 2.5" IDE.

> Unless you bought your multia with a 3.5" HDD or a 2.5" IDE, you
have a 2.5"
> SCSI drive, that's what the multias were shipped with. 2.5" SCSI
drives
> certainly do exist, but now are very rare, and extremely hard to

find.

I don't have any hard drives in my Multia.  It only came with the
floppy drive.
That's why I'm having so many problems getting it going.

Quote:

> > I thought the multia would only take 70ns simms. Am I wrong??

> The multia can handle 70ns simms or better, anything below 70ns is
better,
> and faster too.

Well I've got two 72pin Simms in it now.  And I boot up to some sort
of menu.

At first all I got was lots of flashes on the status light, but I
moved the Simms to the outside two slots and replaced the battery and
now everything works (as far as I can tell)

All I need now is a distrib. for alpha.  I have fee calls at the
weekend so I'll be able to download ~500Mb.  I've heard Debian is good
on the Multia.  Any opinions (I'll be installing this via NFS, onto an
NFS drive (untill I get a 2.5" IDE hard drive), so I need it to be
able to use NFS at install point).

Ian.

Quote:> I use kernel 2.2.5-16. In my kernel config, i configure:

> Enhanced IDE/MFM/RLL....... (this is the second option)
>     under those settings, i select the following features:
>         Include IDE/ATA-2 disk support
>         Generic PCI IDE chipset supprt
>         Generic PCI bus-master DMA support
>         Use DMA by default when available

> My Hitachi 6.4Gb laptop IDE drive works fine with these settings.

> If you have these settings in your kernel, you should have no
problems
> whatsoever, even though you can't see the IDE drive in SRM.

> Before doing anything with IDE drives in the multia, **make sure you
have
> the cable in the right way**, as my friend once put the cable in
backwards
> and it fried his drive because power was sent through the data
channels.

> You should also have the latest firmware installed.

Sorry, but where do you get the latest firmware from?
And do you just use the Upgrade Firmeware option in the menu thing,
and it loads it?

Sorry I know this must seem really basic, but this is the first time
I've been outside of PC world for a very long time.

Ian

Thanks,

I've got it going with some Ram from Computer Exchange in Birmingham.

Ian.

The firmware is vailable from:

ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/interim/multia/

You would only need to download 'udbupd38.img', and 'rawrite.exe', because
the others are just basic documentation, and this is the actual firmware.

To write the image to a floppy, you would have to go to a dos prompt, run
rawrite.exe, and type in /<directory where image is located>/ubdupd38.img,
put a blank msdos floppy in the drive, and you'll be set.

To install the firmware, you would just select the firmware update option in
ARC (the menu thing).

Have fun,

Akury

Quote:> Sorry, but where do you get the latest firmware from?
> And do you just use the Upgrade Firmeware option in the menu thing,
> and it loads it?

> Sorry I know this must seem really basic, but this is the first time
> I've been outside of PC world for a very long time.

> Ian

Quote:> The firmware is vailable from:

> ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/interim/multia/

> You would only need to download 'udbupd38.img', and 'rawrite.exe',
because
> the others are just basic documentation, and this is the actual
firmware.

> To write the image to a floppy, you would have to go to a dos
prompt, run
> rawrite.exe, and type in /<directory where image is

located>/ubdupd38.img,

Quote:> put a blank msdos floppy in the drive, and you'll be set.

> To install the firmware, you would just select the firmware update
option in
> ARC (the menu thing).

> Have fun,

Well I've updated the firmware, but can I get the multia to boot off a
floppy.... No.
Well I've also found what I think is SRM and the bootsys command
doesn't work.

But boot dva0 does.

The only thing is, it then stops.  Sorry I can't remember where it
stops.

I'm trying the Debian distrib.

Can you get a pcmcia CD-Rom drive to work from the boot disk??

I've got access to one and it would be easier than NFS.

Thanks again.

Ian