lhoward@javelin.sim.es.com (Larry Howard) (06/05/91)
I'm interrested in purchasing a GVP 68030/68882/Ram/SCSI controller board, and I am hoping someone has some good information on it. What I'm mainly interrested in is its hardware and software compatability with other Amiga hardware & software. What doesn't it work with at all? What needs modification to work with it? Where does one get the SIMM32 chips needed by the board? How well does the SCSI controller work compared to the normal GVP Series I & II controllers? Any anything else you thing I should know before making a decision. Any and all information will be greatly appreciated! Thank you. Larry -- lhoward@javelin.sim.es.com Larry Howard Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp. Salt Lake City,Utah * It is astonishing that a collection of statements that are individually true can be used, in combination, to yield an effect that the truth
bobl@graphics.rent.com (Bob Lindabury - SysAdm) (06/05/91)
lhoward@javelin.sim.es.com (Larry Howard) writes: > I'm interrested in purchasing a GVP 68030/68882/Ram/SCSI controller > board, and I am hoping someone has some good information on it. Before I make any sweeping generalizations, I just want to state that my response here is after only 1.5 hours of playing with the new GVP Combo board in a brandy new A2000. > What I'm mainly interrested in is its hardware and software > compatability with other Amiga hardware & software. > What doesn't it work with at all? > What needs modification to work with it? > Where does one get the SIMM32 chips needed by the board? > How well does the SCSI controller work compared to the normal > GVP Series I & II controllers? > Any anything else you thing I should know before making a decision. First of all, the board we purchased was the 22mhz version with the Quantum 52lps drive. So, we get a 22mhz 68030, 68882 math chip, DMA SCSI controller with external port as well as up to 16 meg of 60ns ram. Our board (actually our clients board) was populated with 5 megs of 32 bit ram and we were running WB 1.3.3 direct from Commodore which came with the new A2000. The system we are *trying* to setup is a turnkey Toaster setup for a local cable company. We installed the combo board per instructions and set all jumpers accordingly. Prepped and formatted the hard drive and loaded WB 1.3.3 onto the drive. All ran smooth. We did some tests with the GVP software and all seems to be fine. We then installed the Toaster and it's rev. 1.0 software as per the installation program for turnkey startup (boots into the Toaster on powerup). All seemed fine once again. The Toaster initialized just fine and seemed to work just fine. Here is where our problems began however. It seems there must be an incompatibility problem with the new Combo board. I am assuming the previous at this point in time until we can figure out *exactly* what is causing the problems. Everything for the Toaster works just fine except for ToasterPaint and Lightwave 3D. These programs begin to load and then they just crash. We don't see a guru or anything. The system just locks up. I imagine there is a guru somewhere in there but we can't see it. When I press the left mouse button the system reboots as if there were a guru. We also did a test with Imagine. A scene that rendered just fine on my Commodore 25mhz based 030 system rendered with garbage in the image on the new system with the combo board. At this point in time, I am assuming the problems lie with the combo board until we can further research and test out the problems. The Toaster software and Imagine both run fine on our other stock 2000 systems as well as on our 030 based systems such as the old GVP and the Commodore 030. I would have to say at this point there may be incompatibility problems associated with the 22mhz combo board but I wouldn't bet my life on it. It just seems that way from our initial inspection. Just for your info, we don't add *anything* to the startup-sequence and we don't have anything else running in the background. Just the straight Toaster software and WB 1.3.3 are loaded on the harder. As for performance, the combi board seems to work well as a SCSI controller. It is blindingly fast with the 52lps drive. The RAM installation is a snap, literally with the 4megx1 SIMMs. We got ours right from GVP. As for the 030/882 performance. A scene I rendered on my A2500 with 25mhz 030 rendered in 3min 49 seconds. On the combi board it took the same scene 4min 43 seconds and the image had garbage in it (with Imagine in scanline mode). I don't have an explaination for the garbage. The speed difference could be from the fact that we *didn't* run setcpu 1.6 on the Combi system and did on the 2500 system but I'm unsure about that. GVP claims that thier 22mhz board will beat most 25mhz boards due to thier special design and ram speed/paths. That remains to be seen. > Any and all information will be greatly appreciated! > > Thank you. > > Larry You're welcome. I would like to point out that this was just a quick test and by no means an in depth evaluation. However, due to the initial problems associated with the setup and running of the board, I must say I have a sour taste in my mouth for the product. I hope the problems we are experiencing are easily remidied and I would love for this board to work out as it seems to be a very good deal. -- Bob The Graphics BBS 908/469-0049 "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!" ============================================================================ InterNet: bobl@graphics.rent.com | Raven Enterprises UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl | 25 Raven Avenue BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc | Piscataway, NJ 08854 Home #: 908/560-7353 | 908/271-8878
rcj2@cbnewsd.att.com (ray.c.jender) (06/06/91)
In article <1991Jun5.005239.27258@javelin.sim.es.com> lhoward@javelin.sim.es.com (Larry Howard) writes: >I'm interrested in purchasing a GVP 68030/68882/Ram/SCSI controller >board, and I am hoping someone has some good information on it. > >What I'm mainly interrested in is its hardware and software >compatability with other Amiga hardware & software. > What doesn't it work with at all? > What needs modification to work with it? > Where does one get the SIMM32 chips needed by the board? > How well does the SCSI controller work compared to the normal > GVP Series I & II controllers? >Any anything else you thing I should know before making a decision. > >Any and all information will be greatly appreciated! > >Thank you. > >Larry Well, let's see what software I have that works with the Combo-33: ProPage 2.0 ProDraw 2.0 Deluxe PhotoLab (1.0?) Express Paint 3.0 Digi-Paint (3.0?) PixMate PenPal 1.3.? PageRender 3D ?.? Design 3D 1.0 Pixel 3D 1.1 VT100 (comm program) As far as stuff that don't work: NoClick v2.? ( You'd need v3.6 I've heard...) That's it as far as I know. As far as the memory goes, Safe Harrbor has them for $499.00/4meg.... kinda steep to me. Don't know anything about the GVP Series I or II controllers. I'm using a slooowwww Harddrive (ST157N) so I can't say too much about disk access speed.
rbabel@babylon.rmt.sub.org (Ralph Babel) (06/07/91)
In article <9716@cognos.UUCP>, alb@cognos.UUCP (Al Belyea) writes: > 1. The ads say that the 22MHZ comes with 1 Meg and the 33 > MHZ comes with 4 meg standard and both are upgradeable 4 > megs at a time. Is this correct? Yes, a maximum of three user-installable SIMMs for an on-board maximum of 13 MB on the 22-MHz version and 16 MB on the 33-MHz. The 22-MHz board also supports 1-meg SIMMs. > 2. Does the board come with an external SCSI connector? Yes, it includes both an internal (50 pin) and an external (25 pin) SCSI connector. > If so, is it possible to only use the external SCSI > connector? (ie. no internal drive hooked up, but an > external drive hooked up) Sure, why not? > 3. Has anyone tried using a SyQuest with the board? Was it > successful? The SQ555 has been tested successfully. > 4. Will it work with a Rev 4.4 motherboard It should. > with the 1.2 ROMS Sorry, no! > or do I need to upgrade to the 1.3 ROMS? Since the combo board requires an autoconfig ROM, you have to upgrade to at least 1.3 (1.2 expansion.library doesn't support autoconfig ROMs). Ralph
alb@cognos.UUCP (Al Belyea) (06/08/91)
I also need info on the GVP '030 Combo board: 1. The ads say that the 22MHZ comes with 1 Meg and the 33 MHZ comes with 4 meg standard and both are upgradeable 4 megs at a time. Is this correct? 2. Does the board come with an external SCSI connector? If so, is it possible to only use the external SCSI connector? (ie. no internal drive hooked up, but an external drive hooked up) 3. Has anyone tried using a SyQuest with the board? Was it successful? 4. Will it work with a Rev 4.4 motherboard with the 1.2 ROMS or do I need to upgrade to the 1.3 ROMS? Thanks in advance for any info! -- Allan Belyea UUCP: 3755 Riverside Dr. Cognos Incorporated alb@cognos P.O. Box 9707 (613) 738-1338 x3822 uunet!mitel!cunews!cognos!alb Ottawa, Ontario "... when in a Desparate situation, challenge." Sun Tzu CANADA K1G 3Z4
niklas@appli.se (Niklas Hallqvist) (06/12/91)
There has been a lot of talk of a GVP card that is both an accelerator (68030 at different speeds), memory expansion (up to 16 Meg) and a SCSI-controller. This card sounds great... but expensive. Is it? Where can I get such a card? Do they have E-mail addresses or FAX-numbers? Are there any representatives in Europe, perhaps even in Sweden. Are there any technical material available? At what price? (What I mean with technical material is: enough info to write my own hard-disk driver, e.g. in MINIX or AMIX) Are there any plans to support Amiga Unix System V.4? Niklas -- Niklas Hallqvist Phone: +46-(0)31-40 75 00 Applitron Datasystem Fax: +46-(0)31-83 39 50 Molndalsvagen 95 Email: niklas@appli.se S-412 63 GOTEBORG, Sweden mcsun!sunic!chalmers!appli!niklas