Eric Edwards <C506634@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU> (03/31/91)
[I sent this out via ucbvax last week but apparently that feed is still having problems. One of these days the original post will arrive. I apologize in advance for the duplicate.] Thumbing through the April issue of MacUser I've noticed that 105 meg Quantums are getting startlingly cheap. A couple of places have them for $349. This is only $94 more than the 40 meg drive. (A decent price by itself but the drive is probably too small for my needs) The prices of prepackaged systems, however, do not reflect this. Going from a 40 meg to a 105 meg Supra 500XP requires caughing up an extra $400. Soooo. The logical thing to do is to buy the controler and hard drive seperately. The trouble is, the venders are not cooperating. I've only found two places selling A500 controlers without the drive. 1) M.A.S.T is selling the StarBlazer for $129. The ad says it is an 8-bit interface. This has ominous overtones for performance but I need capacity more than speed so I figure I can live with that. I'm going to to need memory too so lets se what we can do. Ah, up to 8 meg of ram using 2 meg memory modules. And a two meg memory module is.. $199. Ouch! That's over twice the cost of the chips, barely better than a seperate expansion board. Also, the starblazer does not have a drive bay. This means I'll need to get the external version of the Quantum, which is $50 higher. Total cost for a Starblazer with a 105 meg quantum and 2 meg of ram is $727 2) Creative Computers is selling the IVS Trumpcard for $219 and the Trumpcard plus for $279. Equiped with the 105 meg Quantum they would be $568 and $628 respectively. Memory is an unknown quantity. The plain trumpcard supports a memory expansion board but I haven't seen one advertized. Does any one know if these can be had for a reasonable price? What's the difference between the trumpcard and the plus? What kind of memory expansion, if any, does the the Plus support? Does anyone know of any other controlers that are available seperately or of a better price on the above boards? I will be pushing my meager budget to the limits on this one so every dollar counts. Eric Edwards: c506634 @ "The 3090. Proof that by applying state of the Inet: umcvmb.missouri.edu art technology to an obsolete architecture, Bitnet: umcvmb.bitnet one can achieve mediocre performance."
macdona@obelix.gaul.csd.uwo.ca (magundi ( John A A MacDonald )) (03/31/91)
In article <22717@know.pws.bull.com> C506634@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU (Eric Edwards) writes: > >Does anyone know of any other controlers that are available seperately or of >a better price on the above boards? I will be pushing my meager budget to >the limits on this one so every dollar counts. One way to go is to get a XETEC controller. For $175 you get an autobooting SCSI controller. It is a small square box that fits on the side of the 500. It is not possible to have a hard drive inside the unit, it has to be external. For $275 you can get their controller and a external powered box to put a 5.25" or 3.5" drive in. They have a Ram card that plugs into the controller and has four sockets for SIMM's. The board costs $75 and the last time I bought 1 Meg SIMM's I could get them for $39 /meg. My setup right now is a xetec controler with 4Megs and a ST125N (21 Meg ) and a ST296N (82 Meg ) drive. Both drives have 20 Meg AMAX partitions. I am personally very happy with it and have had only one problem with it and that was caused by my 500 not the Controller. john macdonald amiga@uwo.ca
mac1@ra.MsState.Edu (Cheema) (03/31/91)
I am planning to get a Starblazer because : 1 : 32 bit, zero wait state, 8 megabyte RAM 2 : 68000 , 68020, 68030 accelerator option 3 : Doesn't sit beside my computer like an ugly SH*T 4 : Passes the bus for other applications. If I'm wrong somewhere or you have another suggestion then please let me know. Also I have a 40meg Quantam (internal) drive. Will it be a problem to hook it up to Starblazer (I know I'll have to get a power supply and case, anything else ?) Hell alot of thanks. -Cheema
jhensley@isis.cs.du.edu (John 'Hawg' Hensley) (04/04/91)
I called Supra last week and was told that they're planning on releasing the 500XP sans drive (I didn't ask whether memory was still going to come with it) in the near future. They're just putting together the documentation for this configuration. No word on pricing. ----- John Hensley "Every day somebody's asking questions, someone wants jhensley@isis.cs.du.edu to know if I know, all the answers or am I just guessing, guess we'll never really know" -- Huesker Due