LAWRENCJ@UREGINA1.BITNET (jay lawrence) (01/25/89)
I would like to know what other people's experiance has been with the MicroBiotics Starboard 2 for the Amiga 500. I am considering this expander first with the idea of expanding my memory to about 2 or 3 megs, and then when I have more cash I will purchase the SCSI module and buy a hard drive. What have other's success been with this product? How does the SCSI module stack up with other controllers? Is it FFS compatible? Any comments or suggestions would be very appreciated. I am considering this option because I cannot afford a hard drive right now, but I can afford one in the summer. I do currently have enough money for some memory expansion, and I would really like to exapand my machine in as little pieces as possible. Thanks in advance for you help! Jay Lawrence at U of R - MAX
mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) (01/27/89)
LAWRENCJ@UREGINA1.BITNET (jay lawrence) writes: > I would like to know what other people's experiance has been with the > MicroBiotics Starboard 2 for the Amiga 500. I have a Starboard 2/1000, though I think comments about one are interchangeable with the other. > What have other's success been with this product? How does the SCSI module > stack up with other controllers? Is it FFS compatible? I like mine, and think it is an excellent alternative for someone who cannot or does not wish to buy a Zorro II card cage. It offers memory expansion plus a hard disk interface (or a math coprocessor instead of the hard disk) in one package, something the competing SOTS companies don't offer (except for the GVP hard disk package for the A500, and I am not sure you can buy just memory and add the hard disk later -- there could also be similar A500 products that I do no know about). The SCSI module is NOT DMA, though it is somewhat fast. Diskperf gets about 190K/sec using FFS on my Seagate ST-157N with a 3:1 interleave and a 68010 processor (I've not bothered to check other interleave figures, since that's good enough for me). Other people have reported higher figures. It cannot match the speed of the DMA hard disk interfaces, so if breakneck speed is important you should consider the GVP hard disk unit for the A500 or a Zorro II box/A2000-style DMA controller. And yes, it is FFS compatible, although the support software and documentation that comes with it says nothing at all about how to install it, leaving you to work out the details for yourself. Perhaps Microbotics might fix their software and documentation by the time you purchase your SCSI interface. The SCSI interface also has a clock/calendar, but that is a moot point if you have the A501 memory expander. For us A1000 owners, it is quite useful indeed. The Microbotics clock does not interfere with the Commodore clock and can be safely ignored. One feature the Microbotics unit (at least the one for the A1000) has that others don't is that you can purchase an adaptor that lets you plug it into an A2000 or a ZorroII card cage. So if you move to a bigger Amiga in the future, you can take your memory and hard disk interface with you. I would check with Microbotics to make sure that they offer this same feature with the Starboard 2/500. Commodore has also announced their official hard disk unit for the A500. I don't know if it also includes memory expansion; perhaps one of the Commodore folk around here could give more details. -- Michael Portuesi / Information Technology Center / Carnegie Mellon University INET: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu / BITNET: mp1u+@andrew UUCP: ...harvard!andrew.cmu.edu!mp1u+ "I'm very sorry, Master, but that WAS the backup system" -- Slave