chuq%plaid@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (07/06/87)
I've gotten a couple of pieces of mail on my comments on the Dove upgrade that asked questions that I think are of general interest. >I recall that about 5-6 months ago you did a survey of 512k to 2M >upgrades, and concluded that you'd probably go with one of the most >reputable, reliable options -- Apple, or Levco. What happened? Dove >does have the best price I've seen advertised, but I have heard a few >complaints that these upgrades don't always work reliably. I changed my mind for a couple of reasons: o the majority of problems I heard about with Dove boards were from early buyers -- Dove has made some engineering changes and the later boards seemed to be pretty reliable and the folks were happy with them. I was able to go all the way to 2 megabytes for little more than the cost of a Mac+ upgrade. o I decided against going with an Apple upgrade because there is no upgrade path beyond the Plus (for good reason). I didn't see any real reason to upgrade via Apple when I could get the equivalent functionality cheaper by using a non-intrusive third party upgrade [non-intrusive meaning I can unplug it and nobody will be the wiser] >Other questions: can the 512K to 2M upgrade and the SCSI port be >purchased separately? We don't have any immediate plans to buy a hard >disk, and might want to delay this expense. A hard disk would be >lovely, but doesn't really seem essential. The way it is packaged, it looks like the SCSI is set up as a separate purchase -- I think the cost differential between the memory and the memory+SCSI was $79 at MacConnection, so it made sense for me to buy both so I didn't have to open the Mac twice (I won't have a SCSI hard disk until sometime this fall, myself). Folks who say that hard disks aren't essential tend to be those that haven't used them -- you won't know until you stop having to do the floppy shuffle exactly how much hassle it is -- even my Paradise, which is a serial port and relatively slow, is heaven compared to a floppy only Mac. >geesh, think twice before taking on a book). Where were you when I needed you? (grin) >Some (most?, all?) of the 3rd party memory upgrades I've noticed run >out of the new memory at 8MhZ, which gives some performance improvement >(like the SE, I suppose). Does the Dove MacSnap you installed do this >too? I believe so. >Curiosity: what it is about some Macs that requires mods to the Dove >memory board? There are two chips on the Mac motherboard that the MacSnap connects to. On some motherboards, Apple used a ceramic package that was slightly wider than some other components, which means that the board won't snap down on them without some minor modification. Apple evidently used two sources for this part, and the sizes of them vary slightly. >Oh, and have you had any >resonse to your post about treating the comp.sys.mac community as a >users' group? My fear is that software developers and publishers (1) >don't have much trouble finding beta testers, and (2) they prefer to >deal directly with individuals, who happen to have useful affiliations >with influential users' groups. Response has been slow, but I expected that -- one company is interested, and one I'm in active discussion with one other. Details as soon as I have anything interesting to say -- I don't want to take a chance of blowing something out of the water prematurely. > I just read your message re the dove upgrade. What I was wondering >was how good does the SCSI port act like a real Mac+ port? Also is it a 25 >or 50 pin port? I don't have a SCSI disk yet, so I can't do performance comparisons. It is a 25 pin D connector. chuq Chuq Von Rospach chuq@sun.COM Delphi: CHUQ Touch Not the Cat Bot a Glove -- MacIntosh Clan Motto
jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) (07/08/87)
Just an aside. One of my clients purchased the Dove (to save
money, natch) after a 100% guarantee by an industry pundit that
it was the right way to go. The next day, his machine would
not boot; this was Friday, and I haven't heard anything new.
I have no connection, etc., other than his dead machine may
(indirectly) cost me money out of my pocket.
--
Joel West, Palomar Software, Inc. (c/o UCSD)
{ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww or jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edujdschnit@elrond.CalComp.COM (Jeffrey D. Schnitzer) (07/09/87)
In article <3433@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) writes: >Just an aside. One of my clients purchased the Dove (to save >money, natch) after a 100% guarantee by an industry pundit that >it was the right way to go. The next day, his machine would >not boot; this was Friday, and I haven't heard anything new. I just installed a MacSnap Plus 2 in my system. At first I kept getting the Sad Mac. Each time I removed the upgrade, the Mac would run fine. When I put the upgrade back it would die. After checking the "trouble shooting" supplement out for the third time, I decided I wasn't applying sufficient force to seat the cards properly (although I was already applying much more force than I would even in positive-insertion-force situations. I tried a fourth time, applying a great deal of force (so much that I was concerned about breaking the connector). It worked, and has been running fine for the past two weeks. As an aside: I got the memory in order to be able to run Word and Excel together under Switcher. Unfortunately, I have also come to rely on Memorandum (a great DA). Memorandum becomes severely confused by the Swticher environment: It goes through its launch sequence each time you "switch" and loses track of its Notes file (and won't even let you re-select the proper Notes file because its already open). Ah, well... -- ============================================================================== Jeffrey D. Schnitzer, Calcomp Display Products Division, Hudson NH 03051-0908 jdschnit@elrond.CalComp.COM (I hate short unix names) MaBell: (603) 885-8156
ooblick@eddie.MIT.EDU (Mikki Barry) (07/10/87)
Add yet another MacSnap problem to the list... We added a MacSnap to a 512e (yes, it was the special "e" upgrade), and of course, it didn't boot. So, we checked the power supply reading. It was a bit under 4.9. We boosted it. It ran. It bombed. It ran, it bombed. We checked the power supply. It was under 4.9 again. Again, we boosted it. Same problem. No MacSnap, no problem. EXACTLY the same thing happned when we put a MacMemory 1meg on my Plus. We have a call into Dove to see what the hell is wrong this time. Meanwhile, of course, we are losing megabucks in productivity lost. Next time we pay more and buy from Apple. It ain't cheap, but it's less expenseive than a down machine. Mikki Barry
callen@ada-uts (07/14/87)
There have been a number of postings about adjusting the power supply
on the Mac. Examination of the analog board reveals several pots that
one could twiddle. SO -
- Which pot(s) controls the voltage level, and
- Is any particular test point best, or can I just look at any
+5 pin?
-- Jerry Callen
...{ima,ihnp4}!inmet!ada-uts!callenklash@uvicctr.UUCP (klash) (07/16/87)
Hi.
I can understand your apprehension concerning 3rd party memory boards, but
I just thought I'd throw in my 2 bytes worth.
I've owned a Levco Monster Mac 2 Meg clip on board for about 6 months.
It's on a 128K mac, with the ROM/Drive upgraded. I had to remove the board
to have the ROM/Drive changed. Hardest part was convincing the Apple
technician that yes, I *really* wanted to put a ROM/Drive upgrade in
a 128K (-:
I've only had one minor problem with it. At one point, I was transporting
my mac a lot, and the jarring it received loosened the MonsterMac's "Clip
Chip", which secures the board to the motherboard's cpu. It took 5 mins
to correct, and continues to function perfectly (this was 3 months ago).
I bought the MM on the advice of friends who own them. One has been using
his for about a year and a half, and says "no problems".
I went for Levco because they had the best track record (least complaints,
problems, as far as I can tell). The board works great, and comes with
a SCSI port, so any machine with 128K ROM's will be able to use a SCSI
drive. I have yet to find a piece of software that works on a vanilla
mac, but not on my Monster Mac (in other words, so far, 100% software
compatibility).
The only down side: The Levco upgrades (there are several others, which
I'm sure you all know) tend to be a little more expensive than others,
but I think it was worth it, since I have had almost no problems with
it, and everything (software) works on it. The MM also came with
a piezo-electric fan (even with my ear against the vents, I can't
hear it). Although I have heard people slag these fans, mine keeps
the mac pretty cool, even when in use for 12 hours. Mind you, the
climate is not exceptionally hot here in Victoria.
I have no connections with Levco, etc, etc. I am just an extremely
satisfied customer.
PS: the MM comes in two flavors: clip-on and solder-on. If you consider
it, go for the clip-on. If your mac ever needs repairs, it's
5 mins to remove the entire MM, so no techie can refuse to touch it.
Ta!
k)
Orgbc@apple.UUCP (bill coderre) (07/20/87)
These experiences were at MIT, not Apple. I have no connection to Levco, either. I've used a Monster (solder on version) for 4 - 5 months. My only problem has been that one of the power supply diodes blew. Luckily, our fixit guy could replace just the diode instead of the whole analog board. Symptoms: at first, the right edge of screen memory would accumulate white bits. Rebooting cured this. Then, as the disease progressed, random crashes started happening. Increasingly frequent until I called service. The chip clip is probably the best "clip-on" technology. It has bolts that tighten it around the chip, actually biting into the pins. I did notice on our several Prodigies (which I installed, not too much trouble) that as good as these clips are, they don't like to me inserted/removed more than once or twice. I had a problem with that, and when I called Levco, they gladly shipped me some spares. No problem. The greatest incompatibility problem I've seen is that General Computer's external Hyperdrive 20 will not work with Prodigies. GenCom's driver code doesn't run right. Apple HD20SC runs like a bat out of hell, though not as fast as on a Mac II. My suggestion: cast about to find a service guy at some dealership that REALLY knows the product. Then get what he can maintain. I personally feel that Levco offers much better product than Dove (due to some bad experiences), but if you are going to rely on a dealer to install or remove the upgrade, or even just to service it when it breaks, that that will swing things..............................bc ps. Remember that you can install the Levco or Dove upgrades yourself, but a dealer guarantees the installation. Might make it worth the extra $.
zrm@eddie.MIT.EDU (Zigurd R. Mednieks) (07/21/87)
In article <1334@apple.UUCP> bc@apple.UUCP (bill coderre) writes: > >The chip clip is probably the best "clip-on" technology. It has bolts >that tighten it around the chip, actually biting into the pins. I did >notice on our several Prodigies (which I installed, not too much >trouble) that as good as these clips are, they don't like to me >inserted/removed more than once or twice. I had a problem with that, >and when I called Levco, they gladly shipped me some spares. No >problem. > I really can't agree that the Levco chip-clip is a good idea. If General Computer hadn't bought every low-profile test clip available, Levco would have used them too. The Levco chip-clip is a kludge of the first magnitude: the connectors that "bite" into the 68000's pins weren't made to do that -- they are wire-wrap pins and their sharp ends were never meant to be used as either permanent contacts or mechanical supports. No wonder they give out after one or two assemblies. Which is too bad, since in all other respects the Levco accelerator is/was an awesome product. -Zigurd
erik@hpsadla.HP (Erik Kilk) (07/23/87)
Why can't one go buy 1 Megabyte simm panels from TI and plug them in to the Plus? There must be a good reason why not because I haven't heard anyone do that. Apple lists $1000 for two of these. What's the difference between those and buying them direct?