iav1917%ritcv@cs.rit.edu ((alan i. vymetalik)) (12/07/88)
Rainbow folk:
Well, as far as I can tell, Suitable Solutions has begun to ship
their 80826/80287 accelerator card for the Rainbow 100B/+.
Y I P P I E ! Y E H A W !
Sorry. It was a little hard to contain myself.
The $595.00 board contains a 12Mhz 808286 running with a Norton SI
rating of 8.3 with room for a 80287 chip (all info is from their
latest mailing catalog). Well, if you want to keep your machine
from becoming totally obsolete, here's your chance. I also have
heard rumors that Windows 286 runs on the Rainbow with the Turbow-286
board. I can't wait.
What I am curious about is if anyone has received the board and
put it through its paces? I can't get a hold of one for a review
nor do I have the free cash (or credit) at the moment. So, if anyone
has one yet, "What do you think?"
Anyway, if you're interested in upgrading the power on your system
and you want to use the (now) expensive memory in your machine,
the Turbow board fits piggy-back between the motherboard and the
memory board (like the 8087 board does now). Of course, you loose
the 8087 board... Oh well, such is life. From the picture it appears
to be a well-thought-out board. There appears to be room for the 8087
on the Turbow board and you can switch between the two processors
with a software switch. Very slick looking overall. However, does
anyone know if it lives up to its claims.
To anyone interested:
SUITABLE SOLUTIONS
1700 Wyatt Drive, Suite 12
Santa Clara, CA, 95054
Phone: (408)-727-9090
FAX: (408)-727-0823
TELEX: 287174SUIT
Part #: TURBOW 12Mhz accelerator board $595.00 (US)
80287C 8Mhz 80287 coprocessor chip $280.00 (US)
Shipping $ 3.00 (US)
(Both should fit in the box)
International Shipping: $35.00 (US)/lb.
Weight 2 lbs.
In US: Shipped via UPS Ground (2 week delivery)
Add $5.00 for 2-day air
Add $2.00 for COD
3 percent discount if paying by check
MC/VISA/Money Order/C.O.D. accepted
Orders outside the US must be PREPAID by bank check drawn in
US dollars on a US Bank or through VISA/MC. Payments by non-
US bank check, add $20.00 (US) for processing.
Enjoy,
Alan
USnail: uucp:
Alan I. Vymetalik {allegro|seismo}!rochester!ritcv!iav1917
Prism Software Designs BITNET:
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the little, fat man putting crisp, $100 bills in my pocket.bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright) (12/10/88)
In article <798@cs.rit.edu>, iav1917%ritcv@cs.rit.edu ((alan i. vymetalik)) writes: > > Rainbow folk: > > Well, as far as I can tell, Suitable Solutions has begun to ship > their 80826/80287 accelerator card for the Rainbow 100B/+. > It is, in fact, shipping in _very_ limited quantities, due to the chip shortage. The on-board cache it uses is a variety of static RAM which has been hard to get of late and may not be available in large quantity until next year. We have obtained one and have been testing it. As you mentioned, it contains a 12MHz 80286 (CMOS) and room for an 80287. If the cache / high speed clock are turned on (this can be done from software) it does indeed give a Norton SI of 8.3, which puts it squarely in the AT category. You cannot install an 8088 or an 8087 with the Turbow - the 80286/80287 take their place. The software switch just turns on high speed mode for the 80286. In practice, we have found that very few programs have problems with the Turbow board, and have not found ANY compatibility problems if the accelerator switch is OFF. Most of the problems are with graphics programs - many graphics programs copy some code from the DEC graphics board documentation which has some bugs in it, and there are also some new timing problems with using the graphics board which never used to be possible. [Technobabble insert: The problems all revolve around the fact that it is possible to load the Graphics Display Controller (GDC) with commands faster than it can execute them. This is possible even on the old 8088, but it is even more of a problem on the 80286. Many programs don't check the GDC for busy properly, and (even worse) even if the GDC is not busy it is possible to execute certain register load sequences too rapidly which throws it into a tizzy. If you have access to the source the fix is usually pretty easy; if you don't you can always do a TURBOW OFF and we have yet to see a program which isn't fixed by this. I understand however that AUTOCAD and possibly a couple of others may still have problems and that there is a special version of the Turbow board which slows down the graphics board I/O just for AUTOCAD]. I have heard that there is a version of Windows that someone is working on and is "close" but I don't know when/if it will be available. All in all I would give it pretty high marks. As usual, I think Jerry Miller has done his homework pretty well on this one. Bruce C. Wright
OBRIEN%OBRIEN@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU ("James A. O'Brien 432-4382", 203) (02/28/89)
In article <Added.8Y20Bny00Ui3I2dE86@andrew.cmu.edu> GTHEALL@PENNDRLS.BITNET (George A. Theall) writes: > >Suitable Solutions in Calif. came out with MS-DOS v3.1 for the >Rainbow last August; in the fall the same company also began marketing >a 286-board for the Rainbow (for around $600). But the 286 board is only for the Rainbow 100-A, right? John Norman Department of English and American Literature and Language Warren House Box E-13 Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 617/495-2533 (Official business ONLY) UUCP: harvard!husc4!norman Domain: norman@husc4.harvard.edu BITNET: NORMAN@HULAW1 I don't think so - I believe it works on all Rainbows. Mine is a 100B, but I don't remember seeing anywhere that it only ran on the 100B. Jim O'Brien Department of Chemical Engineering Yale University 2159 Yale Station New Haven, CT 06520, U.S.A. +1 203 432 4382 (days) +1 203 322 7222 (eves) Return Addresses (both equivalent): OBRIEN%OBRIEN@YALEVMS BITNET OBRIEN%OBRIEN@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU Internet |--+-| |--+-| |-------+--------| | | | | | +--------| host network address | +--------| microvax node name +---------| userid on microvax
OBRIEN%OBRIEN@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU ("James A. O'Brien 432-4382", 203) (02/28/89)
Please pardon my brain-damaged ramblings earlier about the Turbow-286 -
I don't know why, but I didn't recall the fact that Turbow only works with
100B motherboards. Sure enough, there it is in the Turbow installation
guide. Sorry! Incidentally, RBDVI works with either 100A or 100B motherboards
. . . .!
Jim O'Brien
Department of Chemical Engineering
Yale University
2159 Yale Station
New Haven, CT 06520, U.S.A.
+1 203 432 4382 (days)
+1 203 322 7222 (eves)
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