doug@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (douglas.sulpy) (09/27/89)
Has anyone successfully used an Accelerator card with an XT BridgeBoard? I'm currently looking at the Orchid TinyTurbo286 and the Charge Card 286 featured in CompuAdd's catalog (I like CompuAdd because if the cards end up not working correctly with the Amiga I'll have no problem returning them). Selling the XT BrigeBoard and purchasing an AT BridgeBoard is beyond my budget right now (although I know it's the obvious solution :-)).
mgh1@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (matthew.g.hetman) (10/03/89)
In article <4242@cbnewsh.ATT.COM>, doug@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (douglas.sulpy) writes: > Has anyone successfully used an Accelerator card with an XT BridgeBoard? > I'm currently looking at the Orchid TinyTurbo286 and the Charge Card 286 > featured in CompuAdd's catalog (I like CompuAdd because if the cards > end up not working correctly with the Amiga I'll have no problem returning > them). Selling the XT BrigeBoard and purchasing an AT BridgeBoard is > beyond my budget right now (although I know it's the obvious solution :-)). I tried two accelerator cards with my XT bridgeboard. One was a glaring success which led me to a disasterous failure. I first tried the SOTA-386X accelerator card and it worked great. I measured 6 fold improvement in screen graphics alone. I was about to order one when I discovered a fantastic sale on the Intel 386 In-board. I took a chance and purchased one. When I opened the package I discovered to my dismay that the Intel board required you to disable your standard memory down to 256k. After a long thought, and I am fairly competent with hardware mods, I un- soldered a bank of chips from my bridgeboard and was ready to try it out. Well, un expectant to me, the Intel board and my GVP 80 meg hardcard did nott agree. Poof went my hard drive and out came my Intel board. I replaced my memory chips, and to my partial delight, the Amiga and bridgeboard booted up fine. But my hard drive was dead. Moral of the story, not all accelerator boards are alike. The SOTA 386X is great and I hope to fine one real soon at good discount price. The one I used was borrowed. I don't think I will chance too many others unless I here from someone else who was successful. Matt Hetman .
roadman@portia.Stanford.EDU (arthur walker) (10/04/89)
In article <2105@cbnewsl.ATT.COM>, mgh1@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (matthew.g.hetman) writes: > In article <4242@cbnewsh.ATT.COM>, doug@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (douglas.sulpy) writes: > > Has anyone successfully used an Accelerator card with an XT BridgeBoard? > > I tried two accelerator cards with my XT bridgeboard. One was a glaring > success which led me to a disasterous failure. I first tried the SOTA-386X > accelerator card and it worked great. I measured 6 fold improvement in I have had success with the Orchid PC Turbo286e. Note this is NOT a half card with cache ram and socket for the 8088 and a ribbon connector to its original socket. It is a full card with a megabyte of 16 bit memory, one segment of which at a time can be mapped to the 20 bit address space on the PC bus. The board is fired up after a normal boot by loading a device driver and running a transfer-control program, which boots the 286 board with many interrupts hooked, with a ram copy of the rom bios in the top segment of the 16 bit memory; this program on the 8088 then services the i/o from the 286 with the native bios, which in this case means through the amiga. The screen buffer in 16 bit memory is periodically swapped, etc. one can switch back to 8088 mode at any time. While in turbo mode any undedicated 8088 memory can be used as a disk cache. Anyway, the list price on this board is horribly expensive but I've seen three of them used in the bay area in the last 4 months for $150-250. Norton SI 3.0 is 9.2. I have found with janus 2.0 that Aread and Awrite do not work from turbo mode; however, since the included software allows devices loaded in 8088 mode to be used from the 286, jlinked partitions as well as the makeAB boot disk are accessible. Art walker walker@meggie.stanford.edu
liberato@drivax.UUCP (Jimmy Liberato) (10/10/89)
roadman@portia.Stanford.EDU (arthur walker) writes: >In article <2105@cbnewsl.ATT.COM>, mgh1@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (matthew.g.hetman) writes: >> In article <4242@cbnewsh.ATT.COM>, doug@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (douglas.sulpy) writes: >> > Has anyone successfully used an Accelerator card with an XT BridgeBoard? >> >> I tried two accelerator cards with my XT bridgeboard. One was a glaring >> success which led me to a disasterous failure. I first tried the SOTA-386X >> accelerator card and it worked great. I measured 6 fold improvement in ... >I have had success with the Orchid PC Turbo286e. Note this is NOT a half >card with cache ram and socket for the 8088 and a ribbon connector to its >original socket. It is a full card with a megabyte of 16 bit memory, one ... OK, this is great! Can anyone else post or mail any other results? It would great to compile a list of known compatible accelerators. So far: -Elevator386 -Sota386X -Orchid PC Turbo286e (not Tiny Turbo) Bad news: -Intel Inboard 286/386 -Boards that require the removal of the motherboard (Bridgeboard) CPU or require backfilling ram to 256K. (Is this a correct assumption?) An intrigueing possibility: There is a Quadram Quad386XT for $555 on page 515 of the current Computer Shopper. I called the number but the order-taker did not know much about it. Someone from their "technical staff" was supposed to get back to me but never did. I will try contacting Quadram tommorrow. With the current glut of 386 motherboards available, accelerator boards have fallen into disfavor. Out of 700 pages I found maybe 3 references to accelerator boards for sale! This may be a good sign, though, that manufacturers will soon have to liquidate leftover inventory at fire-sale prices. What I _really_ want is a 68030 accelerator for only $555! :-) :-) -- Jimmy Liberato ...!amdahl!drivax!liberato "My life is conventional and uneventful. It allows me to think with passion and violence." -John Updike