mark@gizzmo.UUCP (03/04/87)
I have recieved several comments on Amperfax's ram upgrades for the
7300, so I thought that I would share them with you.
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I just got my 7300 back from Amperfax, and am very pleased with
the results. I went for the 2MB ram upgrade, a 40MB disk, and
clock battery kit, to the tune of $1550 parts and labor.
The previous configuration was the wimpy and nearly useless
.5MB ram, 10MB disk, along with "epoch clock syndrome" :-)
The people I dealt with (Andrew and Cathy Cohen) are professional,
courteous, and knowledgeable. They deserve all the business the
7300 user community can give them.
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Well, I've taken the plunge! I've had my 512k motherboard upgraded to
2 Meg by the Amperfax (sp?) folks in Florida.
First, let me tell you about the the company. This has got to be one of
the most professional outfits I've ever done business with. When you
are ready to order the upgrade, they will send you a simple agreement
(contract) to tell you about what is gonna happen. When you are about
to ship your parts (I shipped only the motherboard, the whole machine is
ok too) they ask that you call them on the phone and tell them when to
expect the shipment. They call you when the shipment arrives! Then,
they call you when the conversion is complete and tell you when to
expect the shipment back. I sent my motherboard on Monday, they got it
on Wed, converted it, and shipped it the same day. I got it back Friday.
Now for the preformance... I had a 512k motherboard and a 512k expansion
board before, and now have 2 Meg with no expansion board. I took a few
stopwatch tests of typical tasks and heavy duty 'compute bound' tasks before
I shipped it off to compare with. On the average, the speed of the
typical tasks were increased only slightly... 5-7%. However, the increase
in performance on big tasks (like a 'make' on large source code files) were
more like 15-20%. The real increases came in multiuser and multitasking
situtations... typically 50-70%. One of the increases that puzzled me was
the apparent refresh rate of the screen! I'm not sure how the two are
related, but it appears that things are happening faster on the console.
The bottom line: If you use your machine for code development (like I do)
or have multiuser/multitasking situations, then the upgrade is a bargain.
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PLEASE TELL AMPERFAX WHERE YOU GOT THIS INFORMATION (NEWSNET) !!!!!!
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AN INEXPENSIVE RAM UPGRADE FOR YOUR 7300 OR 3B1!!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ok, here is how to get more information:
Call or write Andrew Cohen of Amperfax and tell him WHERE YOU SAW THIS INFO!!
This is very important. Amperfax is trying to find the best way of contacting
7300 and 3B1 owners, and they must know how you found out about their company!
AMPERFAX CORPORATION
Andrew Cohen,President
1928 N.E. 154th Street
North Miami Beach, Florida 33162
305-944-1477
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ethos---\
Mark Hilliard seismo!rochester!kodak!gizzmo!mark
fthood!-/dave@arnold.UUCP (Dave Arnold) (12/11/88)
Hello again, Question: Does anybody know if the expansion memory has any wait states? I have tried to answer that question myself by looking at the hardware reference manual, but since I'm not hardware I couldn't really find anything that said YES or NO. If somebody knows for sure, and has a HRM, could you please tell me where it is mentioned in the HRM? Another question: I have a 512K motherboard with a 1.5meg combo card, and this weekend I hope to modify a 512K RAM expansion board with John Milton's hardware mod. so I can use it with the combo card. Now... what I ultimately want to do, is upgrade the 512K RAM expansion board to 2M, and use it with the 1.5meg combo board, giving me a total of 4M (.5 + 1.5 + 2.0). Does anybody know of any reason why I can't do this? Thanks. -- Dave Arnold dave@arnold.UUCP Volt Delta Resources Phone: (714) 921-7635
jbm@uncle.UUCP (John B. Milton) (12/13/88)
In article <265@arnold.UUCP> dave@arnold.UUCP (Dave Arnold) writes: ... >Does anybody know if the expansion memory has any wait states? I don't know where, but yes, ALL expansion memory has 1.0 wait states. >Another question: > >I have a 512K motherboard with a 1.5meg combo card, and this >weekend I hope to modify a 512K RAM expansion board with John >Milton's hardware mod. so I can use it with the combo card. >Now... what I ultimately want to do, is upgrade the 512K RAM expansion >board to 2M, and use it with the 1.5meg combo board, giving >me a total of 4M (.5 + 1.5 + 2.0). Does anybody know of any >reason why I can't do this? Well, the fact that there aren't enough address bits on the expansion connector to put more than 2M on the expansion bus might be a limiting factor. There have been many discussions in this group about this. THERE IS # # #### # # ## # # ## # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ## # ###### # # ## # # ## ## # # # # # #### # # # # # TO HAVE MORE THAN 2 MEGABYTES OF EXPANSION MEMORY! The absolute maximum of user, mappable memory in the system is 1024 pages of 4k = 4 meg. Without changing the map rams, all the circuitry concerning them, all the other stuff that more memory would bump into, and all the kernel vm stuff, there's NO WAY to go over the 4 meg limit. The reason I posted HwNote06 is so that people with 1.5M Combo Cards could fill their expansion memory up to the 2M limit. John -- John Bly Milton IV, jbm@uncle.UUCP, n8emr!uncle!jbm@osu-cis.cis.ohio-state.edu (614) h:294-4823, w:764-2933; Got any good 74LS503 circuits?