eidetic@islenet.UUCP (George E. Darby) (03/05/85)
With regard to the Everex Gr. Edge v. Paradise Mod. Graphics Card ("MGC"):
I've been using an MGC in my AT for about 2 months. I have had
the following problems:
1. There is clock contention between the
Clock/Calendar module the MGC expects to find and the
inboard AT clock. The setup utility, "mgprep," will
not recognize the AT clock. Until you have a "PC"-
style C/C module (on-card) in the system, the date and
time stamping of files, etc., does not work unless you
run "date" and "time." I installed an AST I/O+ with
a C/C and this allows the date to come through, but the
contention of the clocks is still evident in that the time
is + or - 60 minutes from true. I have written and phoned
Paradise about the problem with no response.
2. You might find the rolling display before mgprep stabilizes
the monitor bothersome. I now tolerate it,
since mgprep will initialize and redirect all your
ports, and even set up input and output buffers, all in the
time it takes to "settle" the monitor. This is find handy.
No more watching MODE commands scroll by.
3. The serial port module has a weak line driver. I had
trouble driving a NEC 7710 on 30 feet of cable.
I finally resorted to shortening the cable to 20 feet.
Problem disappeared.
Pluses:
1. In addition to mgprep's utilities, the only plus is price.
I've see the MGC mail order for $249 and $65 for the serial
port.
(One note: the "Princeton" monitor option to the MGC means the HX-12,
not a MAX-12. Select IBM Mono for MAX-12.
Overall: Poor tech support from Paradise, fair manual, marginal
engineering on the serial port. If I had to do it over AND
had a bigger budget, (about $450 + memory), I would
use the Everex Graphics Edge and an AST Advantage.
Conclusion: Everything works well now, but I had some stressful
moments bringing the printer up.
George Darby, Eidetic Technology, Inc. Honolulu
(software developers: check out Hawaii as a business location)