Commodore AMIGA 2500 Reference manual

Introduction to the

Introduction to the
2500

COPYRIGHT
©
1988,
Commodore-Amiga, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This document may not, in whole or in
part, be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or
machine readable form, without prior consent in writing from Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
Amiga
is
a registered trademark
of
Commodore-Amiga, Inc. Amiga 2000, AmigaDOS,
Amiga Workbench, and Bridgeboard are trademarks
of
Commodore-Amiga, Inc. Commo-
dore and the Commodore logo are registered trademarks of Commodore Electronics, Ltd.
Microsoft
is
a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. UNIX
is
a registered trademark
of
AT&T.
DISCLAIMER
This information
is
provided
"as
is"
without representation or warranty
of
any kind, either
express or implied, including without limitation, any representations or endorsement regarding
the use of, the results of, or performance
of
the information, its appropriateness, accuracy,
reliability, or currentness, the entire risk as to the use of this information
is
assumed by the
user.
In no event will Commodore, its affiliated companies, nor its employees, be liable for any
damages, direct, indirect, incidental or consequential, resulting from any defect in the infor-
mation, even
if
Commodore has been advised ofthe possibility ofsuch damages.
This disclaimer shall supersede any verbal or written statement to the contrary.
User's
Manual
Statement
WARNING: This equipment has been certified to comply with the limits for a Class B comput-
ing device, pursuant to subpart J of
Part
15
of
the Federal Communications Commissions
rules, which are designed to provide reasonable protection against radio and television inter-
ference in a residential installation.
If
not installed properly, in strict accordance with the
manufacturer's instructions, it may cause interference.
If
you suspect interference, you can test
this equipment by turning it offand on.
If
this equipment does cause interference, correct it by
doing any
of
the following:
• Reorient the receiving antenna or
AC
plug.
• Change the relative positions
of
the computer and the receiver.
• Plug the computer into a different outlet so that the computer and receiver are on
different circuits.
CAUTION: Only peripherals with shield-grounded cables (computer input-output devices, ter-
minals, printers, etc.), certified to comply with Class B limits, can be attached to this device.
Operation with non-certified equipment may result in communications interference.
Your
house AC wall receptacle must be a three-pronged type (AC ground).
If
not, contact
an
electrician to install the proper receptacle.
If
a multi-connector box is used to connect the
computer and peripherals to AC, the ground must be common to all units.
If
necessary, contact your dealer or an experienced radio-television technician for additional
suggestions.
You
may find the following FCC booklet helpful:
"How
to Identify and Resolve
Radio-TV Interference Problems." The booklet
is
available from the U.S. Government Print-
ing Office, Washington, DC 20402, stock no. 004-000-00345-4.

Contents
1.
Introducing the A2500
1
2. Getting Started with the A2500 3
1\uningon
Your
Machine 3
Using the Accelerator Card 5
Using
Your
Hard
Disk 7
Copying Programs to
Your
Hard Disk 8
Saving/Retrieving Files
11
Backing Up
Your
Hard
Disk
11
3.
Running the Reinstall Software 13
Running
PrepHD
16
Running a Format Program 16
Running
an
Install Program 17
A. Subdividing the Work Partition 19
B.
Adding a Second
Hard
Disk to the A2500
23
Installing
an
Internal
Hard
Disk
23
Installing a 51
/4"
Hard
Disk
25
Connecting the
Hard
Disk to the A2090A
27
Connecting External SCSI Devices
29
Running Install Software on the New
Hard
Disk
29
1.
How Many Partitions? 29
2. The MountList Entries 30
3. Mounting the First 1\vo Cylinders 33
4. Prepping the Hard Disk 33
5.
Formatting the New Disk 34
Sample Session 35
C. Installing Expansion Cards in the A2500 37
D. Developing Software with the Accelerator
Card
39
E. Adjusting the Accelerator
Card
Hardware
41
Installing a Faster Math Chip
41
Installing
an
Additional 2MB
of
Memory
44

1. Introducing the A2500
The Amiga 2500 computer combines the sophistication of the A2000 with the
speed
of an accelerator card and the increased storage capacity of a 40 mega-
byte hard disk drive. The accelerator card contains the circuitry for a 32-bit
68020 CPU, a
68881 Floating Point Unit and a 68551 Memory Management
Unit. The advantages
of using the accelerator card are:
• faster system operation
• ability to read/write
data in 32-bit chunks instead of 16-bit
• on-chip cache memories for faster performance even with slower
memory systems
• direct use
of the 68881 Floating Point Unit for fast math
calculations
• direct use of the 68851 Memory Management Unit for translated,
virtual, and protected memory
The hard disk works in conjunction with the A2090A
Hard Disk/SCSI Con-
troller card allowing you to boot (start operations) directly from the hard
drive. What this means
is that there is no need to insert a Workbench disk, or
other bootable application diskette, into the machine's floppy disk drive to
get the system up and running.
Before proceeding any further, you should familiarize yourself with the mate-
rial included in the A2500 package.
In addition to the A2000, the keyboard,
and the mouse, you also have three manuals (aside from thisone):
• Introduction to the Commodore-Amigo2000
• Commodore-AmigoEnhancer Software
• AmigaBasic
The Introduction to the Commodore-Amigo 2000 covers setting up your
machine, mouse, and keyboard, and using the Workbench software.
The Commodore-Amigo Enhancer Software manual explains the improve-
ments that were made to Workbench with the release
of Version 1.3. It also
documents the utilities on Extras and contains valuable information concern-
ing printers, the SHELL and CLI (tools that let you communicate with the
Amiga through typed AmigaDOS commands), and startup-sequences.
1

Amiga Basic teaches the Amiga Basic programming language,
an
adaption
of
Microsoft® BASIC that was developed especially for the Amiga.
Before reading any further, set up your machine! Follow the instructions in
Chapter 2
of
the Introduction to the Commodore-Amigo manual.
It
explains
the various ports
on
the back
of
the machine and how to attach the mouse,
keyboard, monitor, and power cord.
Because the information in Chapter 3
of
the A2000 manual
is
for a floppy
disk-based system and not
an
autobooting hard drive system, you should
return to this manual for instructions on how to proceed after plugging in the
machine.
2

2. Getting Started with the
A2500
Turning on Yqur Machine
By now your machine should be set up, as outlined in Chapter 2 of the Intro-
duction to the Commodore-Amiga 2000, and you should be ready to get
started! Thrn on the power switch on the back of the A2500 and the power
switch on your monitor. Remember, since the A2500 is an autobooting
machine, you do not need to insert a diskette into the floppy disk drive.
After a few seconds, a screen will appear on your monitor. This screen, which
contains the copyrights and version information for Workbench, disappears
quickly. The next screen that appears is the Workbench screen.
Workbench Screen
Note the four icons that appear along the right side of the screen. These icons
represent the RAM disk and the three partitions of the hard drive-Boot,
Workbench and Work.
3

You
should refer to the Introduction manual for general instructions on using
icons, the mouse, menus, etc.
To
access the files on Workbench, double-click
on the Workbench icon that appears on your screen; you do not need to insert
the Workbench disk into the disk drive.
When the Workbench window opens, it will not look exactly the same as the
Workbench window pictured on page
3-11
of
the A2000 manual.
Don't
worry.
You
have everything you need; it's just arranged a little differently.
Also, since the Workbench partition
of
the A2500 contains the programs
of
both the Workbench and the Extras disks, the drawers for both disks appear
in your window.
Your
display will look like this:
I
,.
....
I
a
I
,.
(1•
JW.I
DISK
r '
~~~
iil
Aniga
Systetl
Pvefs
Anig.JliASIC
~ovkbench
f
I
I
Attiga
Uti
1
ities
ExPansion
FD1.3
Wovk
r
t
r
Tools
EMPtY
BasicDenos
Boot
'
=··i
t:_j
PCUtil
Shell
Tvasltcan
Workbench
Window
Take some time to get used to using the mouse and the Workbench menus.
Open the drawers, and try out some
of
the utilities documented in the Intro-
duction and Enhancer manuals.
4