From: burley@apple-gunkies.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Craig Burley) Subject: Phoenix/Micronics-EISA/Adaptec User Went Enhanced... Date: 7 Jan 1993 03:34:07
...as I asked for help to do so over a week ago on these newsgroups.
Thanks for everyone's help!
What happened was I needed to switch my AHA-1740 board to Enhanced Mode
to run Linux 0.99 (previous versions ran in Standard Mode with a workaround
for the 1740 hardware bug in that mode that resulted in very slow,
near-DOS-sluggishness performance).
But I didn't have the necessary EISA configuration diskette as should have
been supplied by my system vendor here in Framingham.
Turned out said vendor closed doors or something -- all phone lines
were disconnected when I called 12/26 -- after they'd been in business
around 13 years at the same place!
But, my brother-in-law got me info on how and who to contact at Micronics,
and they were happy to send me an EISA-II configuration diskette to me
gratis. (I called today to order and pay for documentation, but that's
fine by me.)
Of course, I still fumbled around once the disk arrived. It was 5.25",
and my A: drive is 3.5". I assumed the diskette was bootable, since that's
what the Adaptec docs said to do (insert diskette, hit reset), so I
opened up my system and played with cables and CMOS until I got it to
boot up with my 5.25" drive as A:. (Thanks again to my bro-in-law for
originally insisting I get the 5.25"er -- I assumed they were totally
obsolete!) Turns out the diskette was _not_ bootable, but didn't need to
be, so I fumbled around with the diskette contents, figured it out, and
switch my board to Enhanced Mode as per the Adaptec docs.
After putting everything back together, I indeed was able to boot up either
DOS or Linux 0.99, with the 1740 in Enhanced Mode! And Linux, of course,
runs very fast with the controller in that mode. Now I have a nice, fast
system, with around 850MB of free disk space (thanks to the Extended File
System under Linux), that I can use for real work (GNU Fortran development).
Thanks to everyone who sent me info and suggestions, which helped me
understand how things do (or don't) work! And to the people at Micronics,
of course, who were very friendly and helpful.