cheung@vu-vlsi.Villanova.EDU (Wilson Cheung) (09/03/88)
I just got my letter fron ASDG, detailing the situation with the 2000-and-1 expansion chassis. The letter in short asks for a show of consumer interest in such a product coming out. All seriously interested consumers are asked to make a $100 deposit that is refundable if either the 2000-and-1 doesn't emerge or the consumer decides to back out before December 15th. If by October 15th, an insufficient amount of interest doesn't come up, the 2000-and-1 will be cancelled. Additionally all those who decide to put down the "no-risk" $100 deposit, will be able to purchase the 2000-and-1 at $799 instead of its slated $899 list price. If there are any A1000 owners interested at all in the 2000-and-1 expansion chassis, please contact ASDG for more information about the product and current offer. If there are any seriously interested in the 2000-and-1 please make that known to ASDG and do it soon. Why am I telling all this, because I am an A1000 owner who is very interested in maintaining compatiblity with A2000, and IBM form factor cards. I also happen to have invested around $1500 on a 2.5 Meg board and 40 Meg hard disk that are Zorro I compatible, therefore, I would stand to waste a lot of money if I purchased some of the current crop of A2000 to 1000 compatibility boxes, which do not have Zorro-I slots. For those who haven't heard about the 2000-and-1 box, it will contain 2 Zorro-I slots (Good news to any ASDG Mini-Rack owner, Expansion Technologies Escort owner, or any Zorro-I expansion box owner). Additionally it will have: 5 Zorro II Slots to accept A2000 cards 1 Co-Processor Slot for something like a 68030 3 IBM PC/AT slots 2 3.5" drive bays 1 5.25" drive bay and a 200 watt power supply. All the slots are non-overlapping, unlike in the A2000. Now what do you stand to gain with the 2000-and-1 over some other A2000 to A1000 box? Two companies are already making such boxes one is CSA the other I think Comp-u-save. The CSA is comprable to the 2000-and-1 box in features except it doen't have Zorro-I slots and costs around $1000. The Comp-u-Save box is probably less expensive than the 2000-and-1, but has only Zorro-II and IBM slots (I don't know how many) so those interested in future co-processing or using some internal IBM PC floppy drives without kluding up a drive case and power supply will be out of luck. So if there are any interested please let yourself be heard. If there is any one you know who might be interested please let him know. Wilson Cheung ... up Niagra without a paddle.