robin@csuchico.edu (Robin Goldstone) (07/06/90)
I have a friend who is an elementary school teacher and owns a IIgs. She is interested in upgrading the memory and/or adding a hard disk. So please excuse a Mac user for intruding on your territory to ask a couple of stupid questions on my friend's behalf: 1) what options are available to increase the memory on a IIgs? Can standard SIMMs be used? 2) how 'bout hard disks? Can the IIgs support SCSI drives? 3) if one had to choose between more memory and a hard disk, which would be increase productivity more? 4) while I'm here, are there any good archive sites out there that have software that might be useful to an elementary school (2nd grade) teacher? Please include pricing information and vendor recommendations if possible for questions 1 and 2. E-mail responses are preferred since I do not normally read this group. Thanks! Robin Goldstone, Systems Software Specialist California State University, Chico Computing Services Internet: robin@csuchico.edu Bitnet: eesta1q@calstate.bitnet
toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) (07/07/90)
robin@csuchico.edu (Robin Goldstone) writes: >I have a friend who is an elementary school teacher and owns a IIgs. She >is interested in upgrading the memory and/or adding a hard disk. So please >excuse a Mac user for intruding on your territory to ask a couple of stupid >questions on my friend's behalf: Your questions are in no way 'stupid' -- lots of gs users have been asking this group exactly the same things. >1) what options are available to increase the memory on a IIgs? Can >standard SIMMs be used? The vast majority of memory options have used DIPs but I personally the SIMM options, of which there are two (jeez): The OctoRAM (eight 256k or 1 meg SIMMs) and the GSs Sauce (four 256k or 1 meg SIMMs). The OctoRAM may or may not be discontinued; I've heard too many conflicting rumors and I don't care anyway because I am buying an empty GS Sauce for about $70 or whatever the going price is when my next couple of paychecks come in. >2) how 'bout hard disks? Can the IIgs support SCSI drives? You betcha. The two best SCSI options right now are Apple's High Speed SCSI Card ($100 mail order) and the CV Technologies RAMFast SCSI card (about $200 mail order -- i think). Both cards peak at 1 megabyte/sec (halfway between an SE and a Mac II, if anyone cares) but caveat emptor: if your friend still runs a lot of non-desktop applications then the CV Technologies card is a better deal because it has a dedicated coprocessor and 256K of disk cache on the card -- meaning that it runs at full speed 99% of the time with ALL older software. Apple's card doesn't really perform for everyday use (according to reports which I haven't been able to verify) but this would be because of inefficient driver software, which can be replaced. >3) if one had to choose between more memory and a hard disk, which >would be increase productivity more? Depends on what she runs. If she is swapping disks a lot then the hard drive is probably better. If the programs are running out of memory a lot and she has two 3.5" drives, then the hard drive probably isn't as crucial. >4) while I'm here, are there any good archive sites out there that >have software that might be useful to an elementary school (2nd grade) >teacher? I'll pass on this. Todd Whitesel toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu