filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us (Bela Lubkin) (06/04/90)
In <11700@cbmvax.commodore.com> Dave Haynie wrote: >[...] the up-to 1.75 Gigs of memory possible (assuming some serious >DRAM density improvements real soon) in the Zorro III bus. By eye, I guessed that a Zorro III board could hold 96MB of 1MBx4 ZIP chips. 19 such cards would fill the 1.75G address space. Would a 20-slot backplane have any chance of being reliable? (I mean an A3000 motherboard in a different case, with a 20-slot backplane replacing the standard 4 slots). If necessary the backplane could connect to the motherboard in the middle and have 10 slots on each side. A fully loaded system would cost in the $.3-.5 million range. hehe. But it is amusing to think about... I certainly can't think of any other less-than-mainframe machines that support a large address range both in software and logical hardware, AND have a chance in hell of physically attaching such hardware. Bela Lubkin * * // filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us CI$: 73047,1112 (slow) @ * * // belal@sco.com ...ucbvax!ucscc!{gorn!filbo,sco!belal} R Pentomino * \X/ Filbo @ Pyrzqxgl +1 408-476-4633, XBBS +1 408-476-4945 If you want the best possible speed, there's nothing like 10 or 20 megabytes of memory. RAM, its the Real Thing. - Dave Haynie <daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com>
billsey@agora.uucp (Bill Seymour) (06/05/90)
In article <196.filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us> filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us (Bela Lubkin) writes:
:In <11700@cbmvax.commodore.com> Dave Haynie wrote:
::[...] the up-to 1.75 Gigs of memory possible (assuming some serious
::DRAM density improvements real soon) in the Zorro III bus.
:
:By eye, I guessed that a Zorro III board could hold 96MB of 1MBx4 ZIP
:chips. 19 such cards would fill the 1.75G address space. Would a
:20-slot backplane have any chance of being reliable? (I mean an A3000
:motherboard in a different case, with a 20-slot backplane replacing the
:standard 4 slots). If necessary the backplane could connect to the
:motherboard in the middle and have 10 slots on each side.
After adding enough glue logic to actually *use* the memory, you're
looking at only 64M on a Zorro II card. :-( Of course, that'll all change
when the new 16M chips become more available. That gets you to 256M/card.
Then you'll only need seven cards... And when the 64M chips hit the distributers
(1993-1994?), you'll be able to get a full gig on a card. Of course, we'll
all be Amiga 6000 owners by then. :-)
:Bela Lubkin * * // filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us CI$: 73047,1112 (slow)
: @ * * // belal@sco.com ...ucbvax!ucscc!{gorn!filbo,sco!belal}
:R Pentomino * \X/ Filbo @ Pyrzqxgl +1 408-476-4633, XBBS +1 408-476-4945
:
:If you want the best possible speed, there's nothing like 10 or 20 megabytes
:of memory. RAM, its the Real Thing.
: - Dave Haynie <daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com:
Actually, what we need is real high density/high speed static ram...
Now 16M of zero wait state 25ns RAM for a 3000 woudl be enough for *me* to
get by on for the next year or so... :-)
-Bill Seymour ...tektronix!reed!percival!agora!billsey
=============================================================================
Bejed, Inc. NES, Inc. Northwest Amiga Group At Home Sometimes
(503) 281-8153 (503) 246-9311 (503) 656-7393 BBS (503) 640-0842daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (06/06/90)
In article <196.filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us> filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us (Bela Lubkin) writes: >In <11700@cbmvax.commodore.com> Dave Haynie wrote: >>[...] the up-to 1.75 Gigs of memory possible (assuming some serious >>DRAM density improvements real soon) in the Zorro III bus. >By eye, I guessed that a Zorro III board could hold 96MB of 1MBx4 ZIP >chips. We fit about 64Megs worth (actually 16 Meg of 256K x 4, but they take up the same space) on an A2630 daughterboard, just for experimentation's sake (eg, Not A Product). Squeezing more than that, plus the support logic, buffers, etc. would be a trick. Then again, with clever mechanical design, you might build a double-decker board that fits in a single slot... >19 such cards would fill the 1.75G address space. Would a >20-slot backplane have any chance of being reliable? (I mean an A3000 >motherboard in a different case, with a 20-slot backplane replacing the >standard 4 slots). I know a 10 slot backplane can stay in spec, at least for Zorro III cards. I'm not sure about a 20 slot backplane. In any case, the A3000 Buster chip only supports 5 slots, though you could theoretically trade one last full featured slot for an arbitrary number of slave-only cards without fast interrupt support, sufficient for memory boards and the like. If we hold out for 4MBx4 devices, a slight modification of the 8/32 Meg card I wrote up for the upcoming DevCon could handle 128Megs, or 256Megs if you up the density to the level of that daughterboard I mentioned. So in the forseeable future, you could stuff 1 Gig of expansion RAM into your A3000, if the power supply holds out. Looking at what these 1Mx4s go for these days, prices better drop significantly before the 4Mx4s are ready. But I still have to figure out what to do with 32 extra megs. >A fully loaded system would cost in the $.3-.5 million range. World's Most Expensive Amiga. When you buy that system, you get the A3000 logo in gold :-) >Bela Lubkin * * // filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us CI$: 73047,1112 (slow) > @ * * // belal@sco.com ...ucbvax!ucscc!{gorn!filbo,sco!belal} >R Pentomino * \X/ Filbo @ Pyrzqxgl +1 408-476-4633, XBBS +1 408-476-4945 -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "I have been given the freedom to do as I see fit" -REM
jdutka@wpi.wpi.edu (John Dutka) (06/07/90)
In article <12334@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie) writes: >>A fully loaded system would cost in the $.3-.5 million range. >World's Most Expensive Amiga. When you buy that system, you get the A3000 >logo in gold :-) But the great part is, you'd never need a hard drive - just use a 1.6 Gigabyte Recoverable RAM disk.. Seriously, Is Commodore planning on a version of the 3000 with more slots or a tower version? Four slots are a bit restrictive, even considering that a flicker remover and SCSI controller are on the motherboard. -- | husc6!m2c!wpi!jdutka | "Hey, baby - wanna do some HEAT TRANSFER? | | jdutka@wpi.wpi.edu | Heh, heh, heh!" | | John Dutka, Jr. | -Mechanical Engineers On The Prowl | | jdutka%wpi.wpi.edu%mitvma.bitnet __________________________________________|