andrew@alberta.UUCP (12/10/86)
I'm looking for some extra memory, and I'd like to hear from anybody and everybody who has added memory to their machine. The latest AmigaWorld has a list of all available hardware, but they just give the bare essentials (a full review will be in the May/June issue, according to "Help Key") : Name Company Price AC PT Description Alegra Access Associates $379 Y N 0.5M aMEGA C Ltd. $550 Y Y 1M AX1000 Comspec $729 Y Y 1M AX2000 Comspec $899 Y Y 2M PowRCard RS Data Sys $800 Opt Y 2M, up to 4M RAM-BOard-1 Techni Soft $500 Y Y 2M + 3 RAM-EXP-1 slots Starboard 2 Microbotics $495 Y Y 0.5M + 0.5M sockets 1 Megabyte RAM Academy Comp. $399 Y N 1.05Meg Memory Skyles Electric W. $700 Y Y 2.15Meg Memory Skyles Electric W. $1000 Y Y [Type of addon, port used, availability left out] AC = Auto Config, PT = Pass Through One other company in the running is ASDG : Convertible 0.5M $450 Convertible 1.0M $650 Convertible 2.0M $900 Mini-Rack $500 - 3 slots, 9 amp power supply Mini-Rack B $300 - 2 slots, 6 amp power supply According to the review, the chassis have "substantial discounts if purchased with a convertible memory board". Their ad in "Amazing Computing" states that the Mini-Rack B will be available for $150 if purchased with any memory board, the memory boards are also on a 10+% discount (15+% if you're in a user's group), giving a total price for 1 Meg of $575 + $150 = $725, 2 Meg = $795 + $150 = $945 (at 10% discount). How long are these discounts on for? Does ASDG have plans for hard disks? I'm aware of ASDG's recoverable ram disk capability, do any of the other boards have this? Can I buy the software for this separately? The Alegra board is upgradable to 2 Meg by replacing the RAMs with 1 Mbit DRAMs (as these "become widely available"). Are they, and if so, how much do they cost and where can you find them? A quick check of the mail order ads in "Radio Electronics" returns a null result. Questions: - Number of wait states? (Does anyone make 1+ wait state boards?) - Quality of board, case, design, etc. Description of any special features. - Have you had any problems with the board? What is the company's warantee period, repair/replace policy? - Desireability of passing the bus? I'm not interested in adding anything more than a hard disk, so could I get away with one of the cheaper boards? - Can the information in the board survive a warm boot? So, I am interested in any information anyone has about any of these (or any other) products, I'll even summarize for the net if there are enough responses and/or requests. Thanks in advance.
hamilton@uiucuxc.cso.uiuc.edu (12/11/86)
>I'm looking for some extra memory, and I'd like to hear from anybody and >everybody who has added memory to their machine. i've had the C Ltd ram for a few months, and i've been very happy with it. don't believe the $550 price; i got mine for $430, and $450 is common. if i were looking to get ram now, however, i would probably get one of the small chassis units like the ASDG or Pacific Cypress. >The Alegra board is upgradable to 2 Meg by replacing the RAMs with 1 Mbit >DRAMs (as these "become widely available"). Are they, and if so, how much >do they cost and where can you find them? A quick check of the mail order >ads in "Radio Electronics" returns a null result. Micros Unlimited and IC Express are advertising 100ns 1Mb's for $40/ea; that's about 10x the price of 256K's, for 4x the memory, or 2.5x premium for reduced real estate/power requirements. wayne hamilton U of Il and US Army Corps of Engineers CERL UUCP: {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!hamilton ARPA: hamilton%uiucuxc@a.cs.uiuc.edu USMail: Box 476, Urbana, IL 61801 CSNET: hamilton%uiucuxc@uiuc.csnet Phone: (217)333-8703 CIS: [73047,544] PLink: w hamilton
ee162faq@sdcc7.ucsd.EDU (>) (12/11/86)
I am using the Alegra. Works fine under 1.2 (auto) or 1.1 (addmem). Very compact, looks good. The only problem I had was that my Mimetics Audio Digitizer would no longer plug into mouse port 1. (the rear mouse port) because the Alegra case is a little too close to that port, and the digitizer is a bit too wide. So I just made a little 6 inch extend-o-matic using 2 db 9 connectors. Now, no problems... In the San Diego area, 1 meg drams are currently available. The price? $29 a piece, so 16 for 2 megs = $464. Total retail price for a 2 meg Alegra would be $379 + $464 = $843. Phil Mercurio of SDAUG is using the ASDG 2 meg board. The current case is (I'm guessing) 8" wide by 12" tall. Finished in matte black with red pin stripes, and a little red LED indicating power status. The memory board contains all 256k drams, which are soldered in place. Phils says it works fine, and the recoverable RAM disk it excellent for development work. All RAM is not saved, only what was saved in the RAM disk (good enough, eh?). The trade-in upgrade rack is supposed to be lower profile and sit on top of the amiga. It would appear that ASDG will allow group discounts as well. (They at least said they would for the SDAUG developers....). hope this info was useful, John 7OHN
perry@well.UUCP (Perry S. Kivolowitz) (12/12/86)
In the referenced article, mention was made to ASDG's pricing for Amiga memory expansion. This information is outdated. Also, here's some additional information: .5M $370 (unsocketted) .5MS $445 (socketted) This is a 2M (see below) with only .5Mbytes installed. Upgradeable by user to 2Mbytes. 1M (noone ever buys this) 2M $750 2MS $800 This is a 2Mbyte Zorro expansion board with 0 wait states and full autoconfig. It makes a great ram expansion for TurboAmiga's. All ram products: o come with the RRD(tm). This is the ASDG Recoverable Ram Disk which allows up to an 8Mbyte fully AmigaDOS compatible ram disk to be recovered (instantly) upon rebooting after crash, reset, reboot, or guru. o come with 1 year warranty and full set of diagnostics. Quantity pricing to user groups (etc): At five "units" (units defined as any combination of 2M's or .5M's): 2M from 750 to 700 .5MS from 445 to 400 At ten "units": 2M from 700 to 675 .5MS from 400 to 370 Special Pricing for people who purchase before February 1st: if you bought 1 2M, get second 2M for $499. if you bought 1 .5M or .5MS get 2M for $549. Rack products: Mini-Rack-B DOES NOT EXIST! Rather, it did exist at one time but was disappointing to us, so we trashed the design and went with: Mini-Rack-D $325 Two slot FULL Zorro. With power internally (for *both* slots - some people!). Does not pass the bus (but...see further down). Measures 6''w 10''h 10''d. Does not obscure mouse or joystick ports. Very fine quality metal construction. Has cabeling ports in rear. Mini-Rack-C $195 Two slot Zorro SUBSET. Same metal work as MRD. Does *not* have +12V or -5V available to expansion bus. Great for interim expansion or for people who want memory only. But... Both racks can be bought back at full purchase price by ASDG when our four slot (top mounting) rack becomes available. In essence, if you want a four slot box (with internal disk mounting etc) we'll loan you a 2 slot now (with your MRC or D purchase price acting as a deposit on the four slotter). New Product Announcement: 8MX A single 8Megabyte Full Zorro memory board to be available around March to April of 87. This board will run with 2, 4, or 8Mbytes installed. Also, to the best of our knowledge, noone else can make the following statement: It will also run with 6Mbytes. (There is no generic autoconfig support for a 6Mbyte board on the Amiga). We provided this extra logic so that people with 2M's can get a full 8Mbytes without pain or hassel. Yes, we have plans for a disk controller. Unlike any available today. Hope this clears things up. Perry
hr@uicsl.UUCP (12/14/86)
RE: ram expansion
Could someone mail me some information about the ASDG boards?
A recent article mentioned that the .5MB board was user upgradeable
to 2 MB. How difficult is this? Would I have to order a PAL or some
other special chip? What kind of memory chips are used? Standard
256kx1 or 64kx4 that I could get from Microprocessors Unlimited
or something esoteric that would require me to fly to Japan?
thanks
----
harold ravlin {ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!uicsl!hree162faq@sdcc7.ucsd.EDU (John Schultz) (12/15/86)
For Alegra owners (or future): In the San Diego area, 1 M drams are only $29 ea.(120 ns). You will also need a new PAL chip, about $15. Almost everyone in our development group has one. Works great, and we will probably purchase the extra memory and PALs at once for a major discount... John 7OHN
kim@amdahl.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn) (12/15/86)
In article <154@pembina.alberta.UUCP>, andrew@alberta.UUCP (Andrew Folkins) writes: > > I'm looking for some extra memory, and I'd like to hear from anybody and > everybody who has added memory to their machine. . . . > I'm aware of ASDG's recoverable ram disk capability, do any of the > other boards have this? Can I buy the software for this separately? An outfit called "Side-Effects, Inc." (in Raleigh, NC) has advertised in a couple of AmigaWorlds and in Amazing Computing. Their ad claims they have a memory card called "Side-Store" that is 2 Meg/card with no wait states. Comes with "RAM-disk that survives resets/reboots". ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ They're also advertising Side-ARM ... a 6/12 slot backplane that passes the bus; Side-Track ... an ST-506 compatible Hard Disk controller (with built-in clock); Side-Band ... a MIDI interface; and Side-Port ... a serial, parallel, and SCSI interface. All products are said to provide full Zorro compatibility, auto-config, 6-month warrenty, etc. No prices are given. Anybody had anything to do with these products? Are they vaporware or available? /kim -- UUCP: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,seismo,oliveb,cbosgd}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25 [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ]
kim@amdahl.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn) (12/15/86)
In article <2200@well.UUCP>, perry@well.UUCP (Perry S. Kivolowitz) writes: > > Two slot FULL Zorro. With power internally (for *both* slots - some > people!). Does not pass the bus (but...see further down). ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ ... ] > Hope this clears things up. Almost, Perry. I didn't see anything "further down" about passing the bus ... did you mean that your 4-slot boxes *will* pass the bus? Also, anything you can say about larger expansion boxes ... say about 8-12 slots? /kim -- UUCP: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,seismo,oliveb,cbosgd}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25 [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ]
eric@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Eric Lavitsky) (12/18/86)
The ASDG .5M board is upgradeable to 2Mbytes. - if you buy the board socketed, it is a painless job, otherwise you will need to solder chips and bypass caps (or sockets and caps) into the motherboard. No extra PAL is necessary for the upgrade - our boards use standard 256K x 1 DRAMs, 150ns access time or better (but faster chips won't do anything more for you). Eric -- ARPA: Lavitsky@RED.RUTGERS.EDU UUCP: ...ulysses!eric ...caip!topaz!eric ...hplabs!well!lavitsky
perry@well.UUCP (Perry S. Kivolowitz) (12/19/86)
A .5M can be upgraded to a 2M by the addition of 48 256Kx1 150ns DRAMs. A .5MS upgrade is trivial, just insert chips. A .5M upgrade requires by pass capacitors also. (Recall, a .5MS is a .5M with everything that requires soldering replaced with sockets). ASDG can be reached at (201) 540 - 9670.