nj@teak.Berkeley.EDU (Narciso Jaramillo) (11/06/90)
In article <1609@umriscc.isc.umr.edu> fredc@umriscc.tmc.edu (Fred Clauss) writes: > I have a Microbotics StarboardII for sale. It is fully populated with > 2 megabytes of RAM. For those who don't know, the StarboardII is > an external memory expansion unit with a bus pass-through. There are > also additional modules which can add a 68881 and (I think) a SCSI interface > in the same box. Almost--you can't add both the 68881 module and the SCSI module; it's one or the other. It's a good box; the SCSI interface runs reasonably fast. Aside: From what I've heard, the Starboard II won't work with Lucas/Frances boards because it generates a lot of bus noise. (The documentation for the Starboard explicitly states that internal plug-in boards are not supported.) Has anyone managed to fix this? -- nj nj@teak.Berkeley.EDU ...!ucbvax!teak!nj
amiga@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Paul) (11/06/90)
The problem with the Starboard II and the Lucas/France is not noise. The starboard is one of the least noisy boards around. In the Lucas/Francas docs Brad says it was a fault in his design. There are several hacks to make them work together though. Amiga@walt.utexas.edu .....Paul...... I like boats, they're healthier than valium. Cost more tho.
vincelee@tornado.Berkeley.EDU (Vincent H. Lee) (11/07/90)
In article <39197@ut-emx.uucp> amiga@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Paul) writes: >The problem with the Starboard II and the Lucas/France is not noise. The >starboard is one of the least noisy boards around. In the Lucas/Francas >docs Brad says it was a fault in his design. There are several hacks to >make them work together though. > > >Amiga@walt.utexas.edu .....Paul...... > >I like boats, they're healthier than valium. > Cost more tho. Sorry, the problem IS noise, on part of both the Lucas and Starboards. Both devices seem to be noisy AND sensitive to noise, so that the two cannot coexist on the bus. None of the U9 hacks on the Lucas board could fix the problem on my machine, tho' other memory boards were no problem. Eventually, I just sold my Starboard. I had called Microbotics, and the JERK there read me this preprepard phrase 7 Times!!!!: "Microbotics designs its products to work with an unexpanded, stock 512k Amiga. Microbotics has no intention to modify any of its products to function with a nonstandard configuration" Can you believe this!!! It's not like I was blaming them! I just wanted to talk to a techie who could give me some hints on how to get the thing to work. I certainly didn't call long distance tech support to hear this. Advice: If you have a Starboard and want to add a Lucas board, sell the Starboard. You'll never get it to work 100%, and noise problems are a pain in the neck to deal with anyway. -vince