eric@amc.UUCP (Eric McRae) (03/09/89)
This is a review of a A-1000 to A-2000 bus expansion box. It allows you to run A-2000 cards on your A-1000. I got mine last night. Here's the report. This is a new product. They started shipping last week. Product: Expansion Technologies "Tool Box", Model 2120, SN 5058, Cost $222 Gives you 2 Zorro-2 slots and a 3 amp power supply in an enclosure that plugs directly into the side of your A-1000. Packaging: The chassis is about 7"w x 7"h x 14"l. When connected to Amy, it extends back beyond Amy about 5". That was a little disappointment to me because my desk is not very wide. The box contains a lot of airspace. I suspect they plan to use it for PC (yuck) cards or something because it's 3 - 4 inches longer than it needs to be. The chassis is constructed from inexpensive sheet metal. The color matches Amy nicely. The cover is attached with 4 small screws & washers. People will come to hate these small screws if they go into this box more than a few times. There is no power switch on the unit but it is fused and has a front power indicator. In a pinch, you can use the fuse as a switch (Don't tell Mom!). The Bus pass-through connector is exposed on the side of the box. A cover should have been provided for it since anything metallic falling into it could short poor Amy out. Electronics: The unit consists of a A-1000 bus to A-2000 motherboard and a power supply. The motherboard layout seems reasonable except that the A-1000 bus connector is hand soldered. They may have had to do that to keep the out-going edge connector at the same height as the one in Amy. The A-1000 bus is not buffered. There is one 74F08 (I think it was an '08). There are power supply isolation diodes and jumpers on this motherboard to allow for reasonable power supply configurations. The 3-Amp linear power supply really only supplies 5V@2A and 12V@1A. Documentation: Not real great. Stapled paper. The motherboard diagram did not match my unit. The description of jumper settings was a little ambiguous. There were several instances of poor wording. Installation: Simple. You remove the cover, install your card(s), and pop the unit onto Amy's bus connector. My experience: I have an A-1000 with a 1 Meg Insider RAM, Kwickstart, & 256K std. Amiga exp. Ram. In the "Tool Box", I was adding a Microbotics 8-Up with 2 Meg of SIMMS. I plugged everything together and powered it all up and was greeted with a funky flash of Amy's power light and an occasional flash of the screen (no colors). After checking connections and jumpers, I figured I might have the std. A-1000 PAL problem. I took Amy apart and put good grounds in the appropriate places. This time, I left the covers off everything and had my scope handy when I powered the unit up. It still didn't boot so I started probing around. Noise and signals were respectable everywhere until I checked power on the 8-Up card in the expansion box. Holy Sh*t! 6.2 volts! I dived for the power strip and killed everything. I Disconnected the "tool box" and removed the 8-Up card. Then I powered up the box and rechecked the power levels. Sure enough, +5 was at 6.2V, and +12 was at about 4.4V. Then I noticed that the power supply had 2 trimmers that were both cranked to the stops. I was really P*ssed. I figured I'd blown up my 8-Up and 2 Meg of SIMMS with it. I adjusted the (unlabeled) trimmers and easily brought the supplies to the proper levels. After reconnecting everything, I powered it all up and Zowie, it booted (Thank you Microbotics for a sturdy 8-Up). Subsequent RAM tests showed everything happy. It's now all buttoned up and I've got 3.75Meg (total) to play with. As an aside, I had a hell of a time getting VD0: working again. I had no problems before but after changing only HighCyl = 255 in the mountlist, I would lose VD0: on reboot. It turned out that I needed to do the FastMemFirst before I mounted VD0:. I can only imagine why it worked before (Highcyl = 109). Which leads me to this question: Can anyone tell me how to get a 1.3 Kickstart PROM for my Kwickstart board? I don't think it's the standard 1.3 ROM. Any comments? (I'd like to run RAD: instead of VD0:) Summary: The unit shows low quality assembly work inside (solder splashes and poor workmanship). It obviously was not tested before it was shipped. Now that it's running, my only complaint is it's size. It will probably be a good product once the production quality comes up. You won't be able to put together an expansion chassis of your own for less (if you value your time). If you get one, check the power level before you do anything else. Disclaimer: I have no interests in either of the companies mentioned in this article other than I own some of their products. Eric McRae Applied Microsystems Corporation USENET: ..amc!eric Audio: (206) 882-2000 USNAIL: PO Box 97002 Redmond, WA 98073-9702 MISSILES: 122 8 27 W / 47 39 14 N
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (03/10/89)
in article <845@amc.UUCP>, eric@amc.UUCP (Eric McRae) says: > Keywords: A-1000, Bus Expansion, Expansion Technologies, Tool Box > Product: > Expansion Technologies "Tool Box", Model 2120, SN 5058, Cost $222 > Gives you 2 Zorro-2 slots and a 3 amp power supply in an enclosure > that plugs directly into the side of your A-1000. It's about time something reasonable for A1000 expansion came out. Further reading points out, however, that this probably isn't a reasonable box. The size can hardly be avoided, unless they find a different way to mount the cards. A Zorro-II runs from front to back on an A2000, making the card itself longer than an A1000. Doesn't matter if there's a PC bus or not. > The A-1000 bus is not buffered. There is one 74F08 (I think it was an > '08). Really? Then this box is no good. An A1000 SOTS box gets one standard TTL load per pin, roughly. A Zorro-II PIC gets two standard TTL loads on most of it's pins. So even one card on an unbuffered bus is asking for trouble, depending on the design. Two are certainly trouble. And passing the bus in this case is another request for problems. Are you SURE this thing isn't buffered? > Sure enough, +5 was at 6.2V, and +12 was at about 4.4V. Then I noticed that > the power supply had 2 trimmers that were both cranked to the stops. Yow! Glad to hear things worked out, but there's not excuse for that kind of thing. > Eric McRae Applied Microsystems Corporation ^^^^^^^ | Good 680x0 emulators. -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (03/10/89)
In article <845@amc.UUCP>, eric@amc.UUCP (Eric McRae) writes: > Expansion Technologies "Tool Box", Model 2120, SN 5058, Cost $222 > Gives you 2 Zorro-2 slots and a 3 amp power supply in an enclosure > that plugs directly into the side of your A-1000. Two Zorro slots? Sigh... not enough. Do they have an older sister? > The Bus pass-through > connector is exposed on the side of the box. A cover should have been > provided for it since anything metallic falling into it could short poor > Amy out. Can't you put the cover you removed from your Amy into their pass-through opening? > If you get one, check the power level before you do anything else. Holy screw-up, Batman. I think not. Does *anyone* make a 3-or-more slot expansion box for the 1000? -- Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva `-_-' ...texbell!sugar!peter, or peter@sugar.hackercorp.com 'U`
eric@amc.UUCP (Eric McRae) (03/11/89)
In article <6199@cbmvax.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: >in article <845@amc.UUCP>, eric@amc.UUCP (Eric McRae) says: >> Keywords: A-1000, Bus Expansion, Expansion Technologies, Tool Box > >> The A-1000 bus is not buffered. There is one 74F08 (I think it was an >> '08). > >... Are you SURE this thing isn't buffered? Absolutely. The 'F08 seems to be on the clock line. There are no other digital devices on the board. There is however, plenty of room for me to insert a homebrew bus buffer. But as you say, the bus should have been buffered. It runs fine with the 8-Up. I'm planning to drop some of my own hardware in the other slot so I can maybe design around the problem. Can you say FET? :-) >Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" Eric McRae Applied Microsystems Corporation