rajiv@ee.rochester.edu (Rajiv Arora) (08/15/90)
I know this was discussed a few months ago, but could someone tell me *what*
the Marathon is? I gather it is NOT an accelerator, but why not? Surely a 68030
at 16MHz will speed up my lowly 68000/8MHz Plus. What am I missing?
Rajiv Arora
--
Addresses:
UUCP: ...!rochester!ur-valhalla!rajiv
Internet: rajiv@ee.rochester.edu matt@pacvax.UUCP (Matt Kingman) (08/17/90)
The Marathon 030 *is* an accelerator. It's a 16Mhz 68030. It uses the memory that's already in your Mac and for those of you with SE's that use the slot for Ethernet or a video card, you'll be happy to know that the Marathon 030 does not use the slot (ie. you can keep your Ethernet or video card). At MacWorld, Dove had an accelerated Plus and SE and the speed was excellent. Both machines had 4MB of RAM but they were running 10MB with Virtual. Personally, I have used Dove's 32Mhz Marathon 030 in a Mac II and it's equally as good. IMHO, for the price, you can't beat them. Matt Kingman - Macintosh Software Engineer Pacer Software Inc. - Westboro, MA 01581 Disclaimer: I speak only for myself.....
gall@yunexus.YorkU.CA (Norm Gall) (08/17/90)
| The Marathon 030 *is* an accelerator. It's a 16Mhz 68030. | At MacWorld, Dove had an accelerated Plus and SE and the | speed was excellent. Now hold on here. We've seen many people on the net say that the Marathon is supposed to be positioned as a 030 upgrade rather than an accellerator. Clearly, there will be _some_ speed gain... but really HOW MUCH? 10%? 20%? How fast is 'excellent?' norm gall -- "It is not the task of philosophy to affirm or deny the existence of things, but rather to clarify what assertions or denials of existence signify, if anything." -- PMS Hacker
isle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Ken Hancock) (08/17/90)
In article <193@pacvax.UUCP> matt@pacvax.UUCP (Matt Kingman) writes: >The Marathon 030 *is* an accelerator. It's a 16Mhz 68030. It uses the >memory that's already in your Mac and for those of you with SE's that use No, it's NOT an accelerator, as many people on the net who have bought them know. The Plus and SEs use a 16 bit bus as apposed to a 32bit bus for the 030. When you put the Marathon 030 in, it uses the 16bit bus, effectively pushing the speed down to 8 MHz. The only speedup you'll get is from some optimization between the 68000 and the 68030. Ken -- Ken Hancock | This account needs a new home in MA... Isle Systems | Can you provide a link for it? isle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu | It doesn't bite... :-)
amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen) (08/17/90)
In article <193@pacvax.UUCP> matt@pacvax.UUCP (Matt Kingman) writes: >The Marathon 030 *is* an accelerator. It's a 16Mhz 68030. It uses the >memory that's already in your Mac and for those of you with SE's that use ,,, I just called them yesterday. I was terribly disappointed. They make and sell the marathon 020, which can use the motherboard memory, use it as a fast rom buffer, or disable it. It then can accept either up to 4 or 8 MB in board. Sounds great and is nice and fast too. But their applications person told me they were just about finished with the 020 and they the 030 was a much better deal. No rom buffering, only the old (slow) system memory, and it's limitations, and the virutual option that uses tha hard disk for swap space. So, I called up Mac Products and bought a RailGun 030 25 Mhz for $ 800. It will take the coprocessor too. al
long@mcntsh.enet.dec.com (Rich Long) (08/17/90)
In article <1990Aug15.144233.6988@ee.rochester.edu>, rajiv@ee.rochester.edu (Rajiv Arora) writes... >I know this was discussed a few months ago, but could someone tell me *what* >the Marathon is? I gather it is NOT an accelerator, but why not? Surely a 68030 >at 16MHz will speed up my lowly 68000/8MHz Plus. What am I missing? The Marathon is not an accelerator, though some ads say otherwise. It is a "processor upgrade". The board itself is absurdly simple--a 68030 and some support logic--and clips onto your existing 68000. The '030 itself runs at 16MHz (2x the mothership rate), but the board has no on-board memory, therefore it must access memory through the motherboard (16 bit data path, 8MHz). This is the bottleneck. I just bought one for my SE, along with Virtual 2.0. It works very well, except sound is "scratchy" unless the instruction cache is turned off. The speedup is negligible, but there is probably *some*. I don't believe in benchmarks anyway; seat of the pants feel is more important to me. Anyway, it comes bundled with SUM and SAM. Now if you don't care about those, you could sell them, I guess, which drops the real price of the board. It's a good way to get into cheap VM, and Virtual is wonderful. Nice job, Connectix! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ /~~) /~~ / | long@mcntsh.enet.dec.com | Don't take life too /~~\ /__ /__ | ...!decwrl!mcntsh.enet.dec.com!long | seriously; you won't Richard C. Long | long%mcntsh.dec@decwrl.enet.dec.com | get out alive anyway.
macman@wpi.wpi.edu (Chris Silverberg) (08/19/90)
In article <13963@yunexus.YorkU.CA> gall@nexus.yorku.ca writes: >Now hold on here. We've seen many people on the net say that the >Marathon is supposed to be positioned as a 030 upgrade rather than an >accellerator. Clearly, there will be _some_ speed gain... but really >HOW MUCH? 10%? 20%? > >How fast is 'excellent?' It's been said here before, and I've also asked Dove in person at the recent expo.. about 10-15% speed increase. ._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. Chris Silverberg AOL: Silverberg Worcester Polytechnic Institute GEnie: C.Silverberg INTERNET: macman@wpi.wpi.edu SYSOP: Main Street U.S.A. BBS FIDONET: 322/575.1 508.832.7725 (1200/2400)
amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen) (08/20/90)
In article <14668@shlump.nac.dec.com> long@mcntsh.enet.dec.com (Rich Long) writ >In article <1990Aug15.144233.6988@ee.rochester.edu>, rajiv@ee.rochester.edu ( >>I know this was discussed a few months ago, but could someone tell me *what* >>the M... is? I gather it is NOT an accelerator, but why not? Surely a 68030 >>at 16MHz will speed up my lowly 68000/8MHz Plus. What am I missing? > >The Marathon is not an accelerator, though some ads say otherwise. > The '030 itself runs at 16MHz (2x the mother), but has no on-board memory, >therefore it must access memory through the motherboard (16 bit data path, >8MHz). This is the bottleneck. > As you pointed out, all of that is true. However, the effective performance increase is dramatic. If somebody has a stopwatch to compare the difference, it MAY help. In other words, when you use one of these products (from any one of a variety of mfg's), you end up with a system that runs tons faster for a a small increment of $ outlay. You do, also, end up with a system that is somewhat ineffecient, (like a drag strip race car at tons of city stop lights) and not designed like a anybody would make a complete system. It does however, in many circumstances pay for itself in the time amd money it saves a person that can't afford to go out every 15 months, buy the newest system, all new software versions, etc, just to get some reasonable speed and performance running pagemaker or excel. al
matt@pacvax.UUCP (Matt Kingman) (08/20/90)
In article <13963@yunexus.YorkU.CA> gall@yunexus.YorkU.CA (Norm Gall) writes: > Now hold on here. We've seen many people on the net say that the > Marathon is supposed to be positioned as a 030 upgrade rather than an > accellerator. Clearly, there will be _some_ speed gain... but really > HOW MUCH? 10%? 20%? I don't know exact figures but I'd say 30-50%. True, it's not an SE/30, but then again, neither is the price. > How fast is 'excellent?' 'Excellent' is a pretty subjective term. The speed of an SE is unusable when I compare it to my IIfx. With the Marathon 030, the SE is quite usable. Matt Kingman - Macintosh Software Engineer Pacer Software Inc. - Westboro, MA 01581 Disclaimer: I speak only for myself.....