news@massey.ac.nz (USENET News System) (03/23/91)
I have a Prodigy board in my SE and am very happy with it. About a year ago I upgraded the RAM directly from LEVCO. Now I'm interested in the bus transition adapter but can't get a peep out of LEVCO either by FAX or by e-mail. Are they still there? (Phone calls from this distance get very expensive very quickly.) Has anyone connected a full-page monitor to a Prodigy SE board? With what results? Thanks in advance for your help Rod.
kanala@sc2a.unige.ch (03/25/91)
In article <1991Mar23.041957.8268@massey.ac.nz>, news@massey.ac.nz (USENET News System) writes: > I have a Prodigy board in my SE and am very happy with it. > About a year ago I > upgraded the RAM directly from LEVCO. Now I'm interested in the bus > transition > adapter but can't get a peep out of LEVCO either by FAX or by e-mail. > Are they still there? (Phone calls from this distance get very > expensive very quickly.) > Has anyone connected a full-page monitor to a Prodigy SE board? With what > results? > Thanks in advance for your help > Rod. I bought one of the very first Mac SEs available in Switzerland just because Mac II came here only eight months after the introduction in the US. I was very disappointed with its performance and bought immediately the best card available, and then, it was the Prodigy SE. It gives me 4 Mb RAM, both 68000 and 020/881 modes, coprocessor and cache on/off option, 16/32 bit mode, and so. Now, when MPW 3.2 needs at least 2 Mb RAM and I definitively need a big screen, there are two solutions: 1. to add RAM or at least the virtual memory AND a bigger screen, 2. to add a new Mac with NuBus, much RAM and a big screen. Inquiry at SuperMac gave the following results: Prodigy SE is no more manufactured since a while, as well as the bus adapter and other accesories. Memory (RAM) upgrade were done directly by Levco, but the upper limit is 4 Mb. Today, even Levco no longer does Prodigy upgrades. The large screen displays compatible with the Prodigy SE are: E-Machines BigPicture Sigma Designs LaserView MegaGraphics MegaScreen SuperMac Technology SuperView SE (revision E or later) - no more manufactured Orchid Technologies ColorVue SE with Apple Color 13" The Prodigy SE does support the addition of a 68851 PMMU chip, and there is a version of Connectix Virtual that should work with. For details, Connectix should be contacted. So far SuperMac. Levco provided me with the latest version of the cdev 1.5 and RAM disk software 1.31, but it was more than one year ago and I no more heard of them. MegaScreen by MegaGraphics has been replaced by Rival, and MegaGraphics has not called me back about the compatibility as they promised. Technical support at Sigma Technologies informed me that there is no Prodigy compatible screen in their actual product line. E-Machines Big Picture, 17" 1-bit screen is still available, but can be used only with a BusTransfer for the Prodigy SE. Maybe still there are some BTs somewhere, it's only a question of chance. I have the latest Virtual with 68020, and I have System 7.0b4 CD-ROM, so the only thing I need is to install the PMMU on the Prodigy board and to try if the virtual memory comes to me, but I do not know how to install the PMMU. I do not have the chip extracting tool and have never worked with hardware, except for installing SIMMs or adding a HD. Comments, advices about the availability of Bus Transfer and PMMU installation? Any help would be appreciated. Adding the PMMU will not cost me anything, I already bought it. Adding a Big Picture will cost me about $1800. Adding an fx would cost me considerably more. Please use E-mail, I will summarise. Roman Kanala, CUEPE, University of Geneva, Switzerland, kanala@sc2a.unige.ch