GVP Impact II Series User manual

FCC STATEMENT
WARNING: This equipment has been certified to comply with the
limits for aClass Bcomputingdevice, pursuantto subpart] of Part I 5 of
the Federal Communications Commissions rules.These rules and regu‑
lations are designedto provide reasonable protectionagainst radio and
television interference in aresidential 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 on and off. If this equipment does cause
interference, correct it by doing any of the following:
0Reorient the receiving antenna or plug.
0Change the relative positions for the peripheral and the receiver.
0Plug the equipment into adifferent outlet so that the peripheral
and receiver are on different circuits.
CAUTION:Onlyequipmentwith shield‐groundedcables (computer
input-outputdevices, terminals, printers,etc),certified to comply with
Class Blimits, can be attached to this device. Operation with non‑
certified equipment may result in communications interference.
Your house AC wall receptacle must be athree-pronged type (AC
ground). If not,contact an electrician to install the proper receptacle. If
amulti-connectorbox 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‐TV
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 US.Government Printing
Office, Washington, DC. 20402, stock no. 004-000‐00345-4.
This manual is the Copyright ©I991 of Great Valley Products, Inc. All Rights
Reserved. This document may not, in whole or in part, be copied, photocopied, repro‑
duced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form,
without prior consent. in writing of Great Valley Products, Inc.
GVP, Impact,Impact Series II,DPRC, and FaaastPrep‘" are registered trademarks of
Great Valley Products. Inc.
Amiga is aregistered trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc. Commodore is a
registered trademark of Commodore Electronics Limited. Macintosh is aregistered
trademark of Apple Computers, Inc.

TABLE or CONTENTS
Introduction ...................................................................... 2
InstallingAdditional Fast RAM in GVP's Impact Series II
SCSI/RAM Controllers ........................................................ 3
Installingthe First Hard Drive on a
GVP Series IISCSI/RAM Controller ......................................... 5
InstallingAdditional Hard Drives on the GVP Impact
Series IISCSI/RAM Controller ............................................... 7
Installing the Impact Series II SCSI/RAM Controller Cards
in the Amiga 2000 ............................................................ 9
Using the PCBridgeboard with aGVP Hard Disk ......................... 15
Instructions for Ianus Version I............................................... 16
Installing the Ianus Software Version II .................................... 20
Partitioning and Formating Using FaaastPrep ............................ 22
Programmer's Documentation ............................................... 27
Tech n ica l Specifications ....................................................... 34
NOTE:
Please remember to send in your warranty registration card

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INTRODUCTION
The Great Valley Products (GVP) Impact Series II product line offers
awide range of high-performance add-on peripheral products for the
Commodore Amiga computer systems. This manual serves as the User's
Guide for the following products:
0ImpactSeries II A2000-HC+8. This product is GVP's flagship SCSI
controller. This controller has room to mount, directly on the
card, a3.5" SCSI hard drive aswell asthe capability to hold up to
eight (8) megabytes of Fast RAM.
0Impact Series II AZOOO-HC. This product is similar to the A2000‑
HC+8 but does not contain the expansion RAM capability. This
controller has room for a3.5" SCSI hard drive to be mounted
directly on the card.
Akey feature of all GVP Series II SCSI/RAM controllers is the new
GVP DPRC. The DPRC isacustom Dual-Port RAMController chip that was
designed exclusively by GVP and is currently only available on GVP Series
IISCSI/RAM controller products.The DPRC allows GVP to achieve some of
the fastest SCSI transfer rates of any controller in the Amiga market.

INSTALLING ADDITIONAL FAST RAM IN
GVP’s IMPACT SERIES ll SCSI/RAM CONTROLLERS
Adding RAM to the board is relatively simple and requires only a
few steps.
The RAM that should be used is lOOns (nanosecond) or faster, page
mode DRAM SIMMs. DRAM stands for Dynamic Random Access Memory
while SIMM stands for Single Inline Memory Module SIMMs are used
because oftheease of installationaswell asthe space they save. GVP uses
1Mx8 SlMMs. This means that there are 8individual DRAMchips soldered
to asmall circuit board These SIMMS can come in two different styles,
both styles are shown below:

Step 1:
The SlMMs must be inserted in aspecific order. They go in from
the innermost (CNlO) to the outermost (CN17) sockets (see diagram
at beginning of Chapter 5). The maximum configuration is eight mega‑
bytes and in this configuration all the SIMM sockets will be filled. With
two megabytes only the first two sockets (i.e. CN10and CN11)will be filled
and with four megabytes the first four sockets will be filled.
The SlMMs can only beinserted in one direction since they are keyed.
This key prevents the SlMMs from being inserted backwards and being
damaged. Once the SIMM is in its socket, apply slight pressure to the top
of the SIMM to ensure that it is properly seated. When the SIMM is being
seated, it will generally snap intoplace. SlMMs must be inserted in incre‑
ments of two (i.e. 2, 4, 6. 8).
Step 2:
Nowyou mustset the proper jumpers so that the system knows about
this new expansion memory. There are five jumpers on the board below
the word “TRAM The diagram at the beginning of Chapter 5indicates
where the jumpers are located. The chart below indicates the proper
jumper settings:
Memory SIMM Locations 15 16 I7 18 I9
0NONE
2CNlO-CNll ON
4CNlO-CN13 ON
6CNlO-CNIS OFF
8CNlO‐CNl7
Once the proper jumper settings have been made, you should
proceed to Chapter 5on how to install your ImpactSeries 1]board in your
Amiga 2000.

INSTALLING THE FIRST HARD DRIVE ON A
GVP SERIES II SCSI/RAM CONTROLLER
If you purchased your GVP Series II controller with no hard drive
attached and wish to attach ahard drive, just follow these few steps:
Step I:
First it is necessary to physically prepare your hard drive. The follow‑
ing items must be taken care of:
0The SCSI ID number should be set to zero
0The terminating resistor packs should be removed
(see Chapter 4)
In order to set the SCSI ID to zero, you should read the manual that
came with the hard drive. Usually, aSCSI ID of zero means that all SCSI
ID jumpers are removed,but refertothe owner's guide that comeswith the
drive. The same applies to the resistor packs. It is necessary to refer to the
owner's guide of the hard drive in order to find out how to remove the
resistor packs.
Once the SCSI ID is set and the resistor packs have been removed,
proceed to the next step.
Step 2:
Since the drive has to be mounted on the card and connected to two
cables, it is best to connect the cables first. Beginby connecting a50-pin
ribbon cable to the controller at the location specified in the figure shown
in the beginning of Chapter 5. The ribbon cable is keyed and so is the
connector on the GVP board, so it can only be inserted in one direction.
After the ribbon cable is attached to the controller, it is necessary to
attach the other end of the ribbon cable to the hard drive. The hard drive

has the same connector as the GVP board, so attach the other end of the
ribbon cable to the hard drive keeping in mind the key. Next,you should
connect the 4-pin power connector to the hard drive. This connector is
located on either side of the SCSI connector. Included with your GVP
Board was asmall four-wire cable with aconnector on either end. The
small end plugs intothe connector on the board and the large end plugs
intothe harddrive. This connector isalso keyedat the corners and can only
be inserted in one direction.
Once the two cables are connected, you can use the four screws that
came with the GVP controller to secure the hard drive down to the board.
if you are using the new one-inch high Quantum drives, only three
screws are required. The location for the forth screw is not drilled on
the drive, this is left blank intentionally.
Now reinstall the GVP Series [1controller as per Chapter 5.

INSTALLING ADDITIONAL HARD DRIVES ON THE
GVP IMPACT SERIES II SCSVRAM CONTROLLER
Up to seven SCSI peripheral devices can be attached to any GVP
Impact Series II controller. These devices may be hard disk drives,
tape drives, CD-ROMs, etc. There are afew concepts to understand
about the SCSI interface that should be explained before you do the
actual installation.
SCSI ID:
Each SCSI peripheral must have itsown SCSI ID. SCSI IDs range from
zero to seven. However, the Impact Series II controller itself uses SCSI ID
number seven. Therefore no other SCSI peripheral may use aSCSI ID =7.
Terminating the SCSIBus:
Since SCSI devices are chained one after another in a"daisy chain",
the last device needs some special attentionThe end oftheSCSI bus must
be terminated with terminating resistors. Terminating resistor packs are
small plastic packages, usually with eight pins coming out of them. The
figure below shows atypical resistor pack:
Note: Some SCSI peripherals do not have terminating pachs, instead they have
terminating plugs/connectors which serve the same purpose. Please refer to the appropri‑
ate user’s guide for more information.
Only the last SCSI device in the chain should contain the resistor
packs. It is essential that the terminating resistor packs are removed from
all but the last SCSI device. If there are both internal and external SCSI
devices, then the last external SCSI device is considered to be the last
device, therefore usingthe terminating resistor packs. This means that all