jkh@meepmeep.pcs.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) (09/14/90)
NOTE: I don't work for these folks or represent them in any way, I'm
just another A500 owner searching for the legendary Fast Lattice
Compile (and maybe some way to run GNU Emacs in my lifetime :-).
I just talked to SSL today and got some facts on their 68020 and 68030
boards for the A500 and A2000 (both are supported since the upgrade board
simply daughters onto the motherboard by plugging into the 68000 socket).
The system is now called the A5000, which is a bit pretentious, but
no matter. There was an earlier product called the "20-Card" which was
about L50 cheaper (about $96USD), but that seems to have been superceeded
by the A5000. They also claim that the A5000 works better than the 20-Card
since some timing incompatabilities have been fixed. Since I'm primarily
interested in upgrading my A500, I asked questions mostly pertaining to
that (you A2000 owners have too many upgrade possibilities for your own
good anyway, so who cares anyway? :-)
The guy on the phone said that they were getting very good results with
the ALF SCSI ctlr (and transfer rates of around 700K/Sec) but not-so-good
results with any of the newer GVP controllers. I forgot to ask about the
Supra controllers, so I don't know how well they work; you should ask them
before purchasing one of these. The basic card is a 16.7 MHz 68020 with
1 MB of RAM. 3 MB of additional RAM, as well as an FPU, can be added on the
board once your bank account recovers from the initial outlay :-).
The cost for this basic board is about L400 ($775USD / DM1200). It's also
available in 20Mhz and 25Mhz versions with the cost increasing in L100
increments.
Starting at L699 ($1350 / DM2100), you can also get a 16 Mhz 68030 card.
This is also available in 20 and 25Mhz versions, though the cost starts
getting rather high at this point (pushing past the $1800 / DM3000 mark).
All things considered, however, it looks like a fairly cost effective board
at the lower ranges. While beefing your A500 up to a 25Mhz 68030 with 4MB
of RAM _would_ be cheaper than an A3000, you probably would be far better off
just buying the 3000 for all the extra goodies anyway. The A500 is a low-end
machine, with limited expansion capabilities, and there's only so far one
would realistically want to push it. I can certainly see the following
upgrades in my future, however:
1. 16.7 MHz 68020 + 4 MB of RAM. L400
2. ALF / Supra / Whatever SCSI controller. L70
4. 80 - 150 MB disk drive. L200
This would cost an aggregate of around L670 (about $1290 US / DM2010) and
provide enough "oomph" for running AMIX and/or Minix 1.5 at some point
in the future, should I decide to go that way. Since everything else I
currently have does, or will, run Unix, this isn't such a far-fetched
idea.
I also recently upgraded a 16.67 MHz 68020 based Unix workstation with a 25Mhz
board and really couldn't tell that much difference, so the 25Mhz board is
probably (IMHO) not worth the extra L200 that it would cost. I would recommend
the 16.7 MHz upgrade (spend the extra $$$ on a bigger disk drive; that's
extra muscle you *WILL* need very quickly!).
Hope this small review helps some poor A500 owner in the decision making
process.
Oh yeah, these folks are:
Solid State Leisure Ltd.
80 Finedon Road
Irthlingborough, Northants NN9 5TZ.
Tel: (0933) 650677 (Europe: Add 00-44 and drop leading zero).
They were very kind to me on the telephone (if you ask, they will send
you an information packet) and seem like knowledgeable folks, even
though they are located in a part of England that no one has ever
heard of before ("Irthlingborough, Northants" sounds like an information
placard at the Terra Exhibit in an alien zoo). :-)
Jordan
--
PCS Computer Systeme GmbH, Munich, West Germany
UUCP: pyramid!pcsbst!jkh jkh@meepmeep.pcs.com
EUNET: unido!pcsbst!jkh
ARPA: jkh@violet.berkeley.edu or hubbard@decwrl.dec.com