dsmall@well.sf.ca.us (David Small) (01/22/91)
I logged into the Well here and had the, errr, "experience" of finding 84 mailed messages to me, quite a few of them asking questions about the Gadgets 68030 SST board. (Details of that board have appeared on the GEnie and Compuserve networks, and are starting to get into paper press as well). This leaves me with a dilemma. I'm not that good at email; about 50% of my replies bounce, which is really frustrating. (Maybe I need an exorcist?) But the questions are all pretty much answered by the 68030 spec sheet, which explains what it is and why it's what way. However, I'm told it's tacky to post such things to the net as it's considered commercial advertising. In this case it's sheer self defense, but still, I don't want to hack people off. One way to handle it would be posted a condensed, quick spec sheet (a suggestion from a netperson more experienced than I), with some place that *interested* people can get more information, preferably FTP. Seeing as how I don't know *anything* about FTP (my UNIX box doesn't even have the software), that's a little hard for me. So, how's about this. The Gadgets 68030 board replaced the 68000 in the ST. It comes with a TOS compatible with the 68030, which means 1.6 or above. It has onboard 8 sockets for 1-megabyte SIMMs, which may be mapped to any address you want with the 68030's onboard MMU. They default to being mapped at the same place as the TT's fastRAM, which will help compatibility with TT-only programs. The board is announced with 16 and 33 Mhz versions, and with SIMMs, but we encourage you to get your own RAM because it will cost you less. The board currently only fits in a Mega or an ST "with no lid", because that's where we started; 520 and 1040 specific versions are definitely in the works. Benchmarks indicate the board easily outruns the Mac IIci in Spectre mode, Apple's #2 machine in speed. We see no incompatibilities in Spectre mode. In ST mode, we see around 20-30% incompatibility, but see a way of fixing a large majority of those that I'm working on now. The basic 68030 is available under $800, but there's a variety of options I don't want to get into on the net. (I am trying to keep this short). In general, we feel the burst-mode fastRAM ends up being *faster* than "cache RAM" systems, such as the 68030 board from the HyperCache people in Germany. I am not hardware literate enough at that level to understand the cycle timing, but the designers has worked it out and feels sure. The SST will allow you to have a 12 megabyte ST with a very fast CPU; your present memory is fully usable. ---------------------- More info can be had from: Gadgets by Small / 40 W. Littleton Blvd, #210-211, Littleton,CO 80120. Phone: (303) 791-6098, M-W-Friday, FAX (303) 791-0253 24 hrs anytime. ---------------------- We've already shown the board (last fall at WAACE) and it's not vapor. We expect to start mass shipping in 1st quarter, and that's a "real" 1st quarter, not an "Atari" 1st quarter. I hope this note, which is among my briefer ones on the net (I guess I got in this habit when I was paid by the word by magazines, *grin*), will be an acceptable compromise between a very long (15K?) announcement and me pulling my hair out trying to answer the netmail enquiries. Spectre GCR owners have already received a newsletter announcing the 68030 SST, MegaTalk, and Spectre 3.0, and so the news of the SST is out anyway. Thanks for being tolerant, Dave / Gadgets by Small