Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    
    	The new packages offered in the shops in England are using the
    Commodore A501 which have a clock...(Also doesen't void your warrenty)
    
    	In respect of the 1.5 megs memory expansion you'll have to remember
    that these have to have the case opened and a daughter card add under
    the Gary chip ( voiding your warrenty) also the ram is Slow-Fast
    type...The only true fast memory is to have a board on the expansion
    slot (on the left hand side of the A500) There are severals ways to do
    this ... 1) get an A590 (hard-drive plus upto 2 megs of FAST memory)
    	     2) get a GVP or equivalent (Supra,Protar) these are also 
    harddrive plus memory combinations but allows upto 8 megs...FAST memory
    
    
    	All the best
    	Steve G

    re buying the one meg, and adding .5 meg.
    	The one meg 500 IS the 512k 500 with the .5 meg addon. You cannot
    end up with a 1.5 meg system regardless of which way you go. Here in
    the states it's the CBM card that has the clock, and the cheaper .5meg
    cards that don't. Are you sure you have the correct information?
    								bill

 	Some dealer might package a 500 with cheaper addins with no clock.
	Double check.  A battery-backed up clock on the commodore 501
	keeps time with power off.
Tom

Note 4563 and replies for more information...

Tony

     Is it true that the battery on the real time clocks can sometimes hold
    a virus in the machine after it has been switched on ?
    Regards,
         Arron

Wow - what a notes file - not used to this flurry of activity - perhaps we are
making the wrong machines...
	Seems like I made a naive assumption about memory expansion - I think 
I must have been confusing the Amiga and the Atari - I remember someone talking 
about four slots for memory - so there are two slots for 512K modules, and then 
it's external memory?
re .1 A501 has clock - thanks,that sorts out that confusion!
re .2 CBM card has clock - yup, here we can get a card with clock for #30,or a 
	card without for #28 - both unspecified origin.
re .4 thanks for the pointer - now I begin to understand the complications, don't
	think I realy want to go to that length
Seems like the solution is to go for the 1Mb package anyway - Ta,allf 

Re: .5

>     Is it true that the battery on the real time clocks can sometimes hold
>    a virus in the machine after it has been switched on ?

No, the battery backed up clock can not hold a virus.  This is a rumor that
got started when a few buggy programs managed to switch the clock off.

The time is set and read from the battery backed up clock by storing or
reading values from magic memory locations.  If a program has a bug that
causes it to store data in random memory locations happens to store the
"correct" bit pattern in the clock, the clock will shut off.  The symptom
is that the SETCLOCK program will not see the values of the clock ever
change, and will report that you do not have a battery backed up clock
installed.  This is the effect that made people think there was a virus.
The RESET option of the SETCLOCK command will fix this problem, by the
way.

The clock memory can not be used to store a virus.  For a virus to do anything
it must be executed.  To be executed, someone must jump to the address where
the virus is stored.  No code on the Amiga ever, ever tries to execute the
battery backed up clock as instructions.  So, storing a virus there would
be a good way to make sure the virus was completely ineffective.  Besides,
one second after you stored a virus in the battery backed up clock, the
clock would tick, and the virus will have been altered.

Maybe someone should encourage virus writers to spend all of their time
working on battery backed up clock viruses...

    re .0
    
    Get the Commodore clock! I got a cheap one, 2 years ago. The clock has
    now DIED! 
    
    Also make sure you get a 500 with the fatter AGNUS. See quite a few
    notes about the fatter agnus, and it's benefits.
    
    
    Greg