Path: utzoo!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!bmers58!atreus!keithh
From: keithh@atreus.uucp (Keith Hanlan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Getting Amiga 2000
Keywords: Amiga 2000 purchase
Message-ID: <589@bmers58.UUCP>
Date: 5 Dec 89 00:03:57 GMT
References: <47166755.17c4e@robin.engin.umich.edu>
Sender: news@bmers58.UUCP
Reply-To: keithh@atreus.UUCP (Keith Hanlan)
Distribution: na
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 65

In article <47166755.17c4e@robin.engin.umich.edu> gilgalad@caen.engin.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes:
>Well, I've finally worked up enough cash to get an Amiga 2000.  I now
>have several questions for those of you out there who already have
>one:

	I may not quite qualify but I just spent the last few months working
	on the same problems: I'll be getting mine in the next couple of weeks.
	I put a down payment at WOC on a 2000 and picked up a harddrive and
	controller. (How's that for doing things backwards? :-))

>  - What is the best autoboot SCSI?
	
	I was hoping to find the new 2091 at WoC but I had no such luck. I
	was originally planning to get the GVP drive with the sockets for 2M
	of RAM. However, after attending closely to Dave Haynie's comments
	on controllers, I decided that I really wanted a good quality DMA
	drive. The only candidate was the Microbotics Hardframe and I picked
	up one for CDN$360 (a little less than US list which is pretty good
	for Canada) If the 2091 was available I would have seriously
	considered it - especially if I could have found Dave to grill at
	the show ( I tried to find you Dave but I had no luck - thanks again
	for your commentary on DMA/non-DMA et al)

	My reason for avoiding the GVP controller was that I plan on making
	heavy use of the Amiga's multi-tasking.

	I also decided to get a kick-a** drive to go with it and picked up
	a 105Quantum with 11ms access time for CDN$1049. Again, this is
	(seemed) a real bargain since another place was asking 1300 for a 80Q.

>  - How much is the 2630 card?  What does it come with for that price?
	Don't know the price or speed but it has an '882 and a '851 and 2M
	of 32 bit RAM. The CBM board will support 2,4,6,8M arrangements
	while the GVP board will only support 4 or 8M arrangements.

>    ... can I stick a 50 MHz 68030 in there and still have it run?
	No but you can get the FPU up to 33MHz by replacing the crystal and
	chip.

>  - What is this nibble mode DRAM?  
	Nothing too special - it just takes advantage of an '030 addressing
	scheme that gets one 32bit longword in ?3? T states and then the
	next 3x32bits in ?1? T state for an average of 0 waitstates instead
	of having to take 2 T states for each longword (4x2=8 -> 1 waitstate)

>Are they giving some strange name to
>    something we already know and then jacking up the price?  
	No, I think that it is a legitimate design tweak but not something
	that can't be used on other 030 boards. I am not the best qualified
	to answer this question.

>If so,
>    can I buy the RAM board unpopulated?  Also, what about the 2630
>    and RAM.

	You can buy the GVP 030 board with no memory. You will get a pretty
	decent speedup. Of course, to really fly you need the 32bit RAM. I
	may very well buy the board and then wait 6-12 months for the price
	of memory to come down. I was quoted CDN$1700 for the board with no
	memory.

	Good luck,
Keith Hanlan
Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada 613-765-4645
uunet!utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!bmers58!keithh%atreus or keithh@bnr.ca