singer@endor.harvard.edu (Richard Siegel) (10/08/87)
Well, I recently got a Radius Accelerator installed into my Mac
SE at work, and I am impressed. Here are a few comments:
Installation: Tricky, but workable. BEWARE: the metal edges on
the inside of the SE chassis are VERY VERY SHARP, and I cut up
my left hand, rather badly. Fortunately, I didn't leave any blood
inside the machine, which was a good thing. The SE's system board slides
out easily, but with the Accelerator in place, will not slide in. You have
to work one edge in, and then pry out one side of the chassis, and pop the
board in. Easier to do than it is to tell about it, but not much fun.
It reminded me of service old HyperDrive macs.
Operation: Simple. You turn the SE on, and that's all there is to
it. If you hold down the mouse button when you turn on, you get a little
configuration panel, that lets you turn on or off the whole accelerator,
and also control whether the 68020 instruction cache is on, and whetherthe
built-in data cache is on. And you can ignore this step. You can tell
the board is installed at boot because it puts a little box in the lower-left
corner of the screen with "Radius Accelerator" in it, and a chip labeled
"68881" if the math chip is installed (mine does have the '881).
Performance: Amazing. If you're used to a Mac Plus or normal Mac SE,
there's nothing quite like it. I also have a Mac II at work, and I find
myself using the SE more. I ran a Dhrystone, and the Mac SE seems to be
about 8 percent faster than the Mac II. I'll post a detailed set of
benchmarks as soon as I run them.
Please note that this does not constitute a formal review, and this posting
was not solicited by anyone -- it's just that I haven't seen much on this
newsgroup about accelerator boards, and thought I might get something
started...
--Rich
**The opinions stated herein are my own opinions and do not necessarily
represent the policies or opinions of my employer (THINK Technologies, Inc).
* Richard M. Siegel | {decvax, ucbvax, sun}!harvard!endor!singer *
* Customer Support | singer@endor.harvard.edu *
* THINK Technologies, Inc. (No snappy quote) *mrh@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Marc Hannah) (10/09/87)
In article <2955@husc6.UUCP>, singer@endor.harvard.edu (Richard Siegel) writes: >... > Performance: Amazing. If you're used to a Mac Plus or normal Mac SE, > there's nothing quite like it. I also have a Mac II at work, and I find > myself using the SE more. I ran a Dhrystone, and the Mac SE seems to be ... You sure work differently than I do. To me the speed of the Mac II is not the only important part but the larger screen size (both monochrome and color) is so important. When I sit down at a Mac+ or SE I can't believe I ever could use it with the small screen. (maybe you are using a larger screen and didn't mention it). David Gelphman daveg%slacvm.bitnet@forsythe.stanford.edu
singer@endor.harvard.edu (Richard Siegel) (10/10/87)
In article <2081@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> mrh@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Marc Hannah) writes: >In article <2955@husc6.UUCP>, singer@endor.harvard.edu (Richard Siegel) writes: > You sure work differently than I do. To me the speed of the Mac II is >not the only important part but the larger screen size (both monochrome I guess I wasn't too clear... I do very much like the larger screen but the Sony 1302 that's on the Mac II at work is the world's worst; the Mac SE screen is so much clearer and easier to read that I prefer it. I'm hoping to get the screen fixed or replaced... it's bad. --Rich **The opinions stated herein are my own opinions and do not necessarily represent the policies or opinions of my employer (THINK Technologies, Inc). * Richard M. Siegel | {decvax, ucbvax, sun}!harvard!endor!singer * * Customer Support | singer@endor.harvard.edu * * THINK Technologies, Inc. (No snappy quote) *