Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: Re: Rejuvenator Message-ID: <14456@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 14 Sep 90 19:24:46 GMT References: <5555@eklektik.UUCP> <1990Sep14.025106.20615@psuecl.bitnet> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 50 In article <1990Sep14.025106.20615@psuecl.bitnet> d6b@psuecl.bitnet writes: >In article , mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (My Watch Has Windows) Meyer) writes: >> Do it right. There are a couple of expansion boxes that accept a pair >> of Zorro II cards. Buy one of those, then add a memory card and hard >> disk card. Viola, everything you asked for. That's a much more stable >> configuration than two SOTS cards. >I saw one of those expansion boxes (open) at an AmiExpo last March. It >literally just passed the bus signals to the 2 or 3 slots that it had - >no buffering, no nothing. It's identical - perhaps worse, actually - >than two SOTS cards! I haven't looked at any of these, but I sort of figured there might be some cheapness in the logic going on. Which really is a shame; we're only talking about $10-$15 parts cost for a full, 100% compatible Zorro II backplane; any design has to pay for circuit board, connectors, power supply, case, etc. One of these days I should really design a 2 or 3 slot circuit that's proper and write it up as an article or something. I don't have the time, but it seems that no one's willing to take our 5 slot example as a starting point for these smaller boxes. An A500 isn't really much different than an A2000 plus an expansion box; I designed the A2000(b) by taking the A500 schematics at the time and adding extra logic (which became the original thin Buster) to perform the expansion bus functions. >A chat with Bill Seymore (hardware guru...hope I got the spelling right) Bill definitely seems to know his stuff. He's a guy to be trusted. >confirmed that **there is no ZorroII expansion backplane available for the >500/1000**. Buyer beware. I don't personally know of any still in production that are full Zorro II compatible, or even close (there are a small number of Zorro II features which you don't have to implement in a backplane to be 100% compatible with what exists today, since a few Zorro II features weren't fully supported by the OS). If anyone making such boxes think they have one, I would be more than willing to look over the design and give it my personal Okey Dokey (I can't speak for Commodore itself of course) if it looks OK; we could certainly use such a box to help eliminate some of this multiple SOTS nonsense going on in the A500 market. >-- Dan Babcock -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Get that coffee outta my face, put a Margarita in its place!