Wayde_Police@mindlink.UUCP (Wayde Police) (03/15/91)
> davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com writes: > > Msg-ID: <1991Mar16.033535.10379@sugar.hackercorp.com> > Posted: 16 Mar 91 03:35:35 GMT > > Org. : Sugar Land Unix -- Houston, TX > Person: David Martin > > ALL: > Has anyone tried to accelerate an XT Bridgeboard using > PC accelerators that are available? What kind of success > have you had? Recently I picked up a used XT BB w/ VGA > card and 128K RAM expansion. It works great but it > is slow would an accelerator make it run faster? Would > it be noticeable? > David > > -- > > David W. Martin c/o The OpCode Factory tm Seabrook, Texas, USA > Commodore might make the Amiga, but the Amiga makes it possible! > PLINK: DAVIDM CIS: 72510,3232 UUCP: davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com I have been using SOTA's 286i accelerator board for close to a year now, and am quite pleased. The 80286 cpu runs at 12Mhz, but since the system is going through an 8 bit bus (it takes 1 slot and a long cable plugs into the 8088 socket) the effective speed is somewhat less. I've tried various benchmark utilities on it and it seems to average out at an effective speed of 9-10Mhz. That means it is often faster than the 2286 bidgeboard! :) I've run quite a few software packages on it, including Windows 3.0 and for all intents and purposes it runs as an AT. Janus software is rather timing sensitive, so some janus utilities need the accelerators BIOS caching, etc, turned off while the janus function (ie. JLINK) is initiated. The accelerator can be turned right back on afterwards though. All is not perfect however. :( 2 things bother me. 1. The harddrive actually SLOWS down in throughput, again the 8 bit overhead problem. To compensate you most allocate about 16-32k for diskcaching using SOTACACH (a supplied program), then the disk performance is better than before, but 512k can't affort to loose anything if possible. Your 640K total can probably afford this. 2. I can't compile Turbo Pascal 6.0 in a jlinked drive to the amigas ram:. I haven't really looked into the problem yet however, and I can't say for sure whether this is due to the SOTA card. Yes, the speed increase IS noticeable! :) ps. I bought the SOTA286i for $435 Canadian, and have seen them on sale for as low as $349 locally (in Vancouver). I recommend it. -- +-----------------------------------+ | Wayde V. Police | Bridgecard + 2000 Amiga Hardware, | a774@mindlink.UUCP or | (MSDOS) ^ (AmigaDOS) Software, | uunet!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a774 | WVP & Wetware! +-----------------------------------+
davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com (David Martin) (03/16/91)
ALL: Has anyone tried to accelerate an XT Bridgeboard using PC accelerators that are available? What kind of success have you had? Recently I picked up a used XT BB w/ VGA card and 128K RAM expansion. It works great but it is slow would an accelerator make it run faster? Would it be noticeable? David -- David W. Martin c/o The OpCode Factory tm Seabrook, Texas, USA Commodore might make the Amiga, but the Amiga makes it possible! PLINK: DAVIDM CIS: 72510,3232 UUCP: davidm@sugar.hackercorp.com