Dang.. memory upgrade.

[Bikerbob]

So I won a exxos 4mb memory upgrade in the Dark Force BBS draw.

 

I tried to install it in a 520ST - it seems to me bank 0 on the upgrade is dead. I am talking to Exxos about it.

 

That aside - I can get it to work as a 2.5mb upgrade - 512k on board and bank 1 on the upgrade works 2mb.

 

IF this is my worst case and I cannot get any exchange etc..   what do I loose.. I guess if this machine was ever wanting to run desktops and NVDI etc.. then this will not cut it.. but for games and regular TOS 1.4 work .. should be fine?? 

 

Just throwing it out there..

 

James

[ParanoidLittleMan]

It is known problem that with IMP MMU chip 2.5 MB (2 MB + 0.5 MB) works not properly, and only 2 MB works. I had that problem in my Mega ST, and others too.

 

[Zogging Hell]

So have you deactivated the onboard memory when you try and run it in 4mb mode?

 

I used 2.5mb for quite a while back in the day and it was more than enough to run most things, Magic and Geneva should run fine with it (even with NVDI, although you might want to trim the font use down a bit and lower the print and font buffers - and maybe trim those auto folder programs and accessories). You'll only run into problems if you try and run Mint (which isn't much cop on a ST anyway) or load large pictures (or a picture heavy WP file) for example - but even a 4mb ST will choke on most JPEG files, it probably won't even load a single modern JPEG before it runs out of memory. You can quite happily run a multitasking OS and pretty much all the software out there for the ST, remember 1mb was considered standard by the end of its commercial life, and many users were still using 0.5 and getting away with it. I would suggest running single tasking for memory intensive stuff. You could probably use Teradesk as a desktop as it is pretty memory light.

 

Really if you want to run a NVDI contemporary 'power user' system from back in the day you need at least a TT or a Falcon (pipe dream as that may be for most users today) or a ST fitted with a 12mb upgrade, a graphics card and 030 accelerator. You could also try some different software, I don't know what you want to run, but That's Write is a decent WP for a lower end system and comes with a built in font system. NVDI 2.5 or Warp 9 could also be an option as they don't use as much memory as a full fat NVDI or Speedo GDOS system. Or you could even install a blitter and then you wouldn't get as much benefit from the screen acceleration portion of NVDI anyway - the blitter does make a hefty difference to desktop usage.

[Bikerbob]

yes.. what happened was I forgot to deactivate it in the first place.  It was a 512k machine.. so it saw the on board 512 and one bank of the upgrade.

 

I then deactivated the on board - lifting the 2 approp resistors and running them to 5v - and then NOTHING..  What most people say is - if it cant find memory in bank 0 .. then no boot.. so it could not see the 512k and I guess could not find the 2m on the upgrade either.

 

Removed everything - back to 512k.

 

So I have returned the upgrade to Exxos.. hopefully its found that one of the memory chips is faulty and I get another.. because if thats not it??? I guess I have a 2.5meg computer

 

James

Edited October 17, 2019 by Bikerbob

[Zogging Hell]

Does sound like the Exxos unit may be faulty.

 

Part of the 'fun' of using the ST was hitting its memory limits, first trying to run something like Write On in 512k and realising that you can only use two fonts, then upgrading to 1mb and realising Magic has stolen most of that. 2.5 was workable - 1mb for multitasking system and font system with trimming and the remainder for use. No matter how much you have you eventually run out on the Atari, I used to run out of memory on my 14mb Falcon. It wasn't until I had 64mb on my Milan that I was free from the out of memory blues.