mark@infolog.se (Mark Plotnick) (11/13/90)
I use a PC-ELEVATOR 386 card (Applied Reasoning Corp.) in a DN4500 for development of PC/MS-DOS applications. I would like to increase the usability of this "386". For example, is there anyway to add exteneded memory? Currently it can only be emulated by the Apollo which is extremely slow. Is there anyway to get this card to work decently with Windows-3? I suppose the main problem is screen drivers. According to the users manual (July 28, 1989) there are limitiations to how far the ega/hercules emulation will go and it is slow. I can't use the EGA anyhow since I have a B&W monitor. Does anyone know the status of support for these cards from HP/Apollo and Applied Reasoning Corp? Is there any hope for better integration and drivers in the future? I would also like to hear from any other users, especially if they think using this card is worth the trouble or that they would be better off with a separate PC connected to the apollo via a network. Is there hope or is the PC-elevator a dead-end? Mark Plotnick, mark@infolog.se Infologics AB BOX 91, 191 22 Sollentuna, SWEDEN Tel. +46 8 92 20 63 Fax +46 8 96 08 46
RBNTJC@ROHVM1.BITNET (Thomas J Cozzolino) (11/15/90)
We have 3 PC-ElevATor cards in Apollos (3550s) and we like them pretty well. However, I think that the only way to get good expanded/extended memory performance is to purchase memory daughter cards for the 386 (they cost $1K for 2 MB, or $1.7K for 4 MB). We don't have any of these daughter cards, so I can't say how good the performance is. As far as Windows 3.0, I'm told that Applied Reasoning is working on a fully- supported Win 3.0 driver, and that it will be full-screen. I don't know when this will be available. Don't count on HP/Apollo to support these cards. Applied Reasoning provides pretty good support (ask for Howard Marshall if you need technical help). All in all, a pretty nice product if you need PC/Apollo integration.