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From: ridder@elvira.enet.dec.com (Hans Ridder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Bodega Bay
Message-ID: <2019@shodha.enet.dec.com>
Date: 20 Nov 90 20:28:21 GMT
References: <1990Nov16.071420.13334@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1990Nov16.211604.1609@evax.arl.utexas.edu> <12079@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> <1990Nov19.213059.2402@evax.arl.utexas.edu>
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In article <1990Nov19.213059.2402@evax.arl.utexas.edu> hill@evax.arl.utexas.edu (Adam Hill) writes:
>   As being the person that posted this I guess I should defer to the people
>who designed the 500. Anyone from CBM willing to explain potential problems 
>associated with a expansion chassis on the 500. Will the fact that it has no 
>BUSTER chip affect having a DMA SCSI card with a BridgeBoard and a memory 
>card on the Amiga side. What I want to know is can you get all of the signals
>from the 86 pin bus to drive a 030 accelerator?

Well, I'm not from Commodore, but I'd like to point out that there's
nothing magic about Buster.  He's just some logic on a chip, logic that
can easily be produced with a PAL or discrete gates.  The Expansion
Specifications show just what's needed.  With that, you should be able
to use any legal Zorro II cards, DMA and everything.

I sort of doubt however, that anyone will produce an expansion box with
IBM slots and a co-processor slot, etc.  Once you pack all that and a
power supply into a box, it would probably be too expensive for most
A500 owners (although it's probably technically possible.)  It might
cost as much as an A2000, considering what the sales volume might be.
If you don't believe, just ask Perry at ASDG about the A2001.

>   I just remember some of the expansion chassis from 2 yrs ago giving
>500 owners grief and explanation of how when you buffer the bus to
>reduce noise you make multiple things on the bus "unstable". Or am I
>just dreaming about these post?

I think you probably got that backwards.  As a long time A1000 owner,
I've followed all of Dave Haynie's posts on expansion bus stuff.  The
problem is with expansion boxes which *don't* buffer the bus.  Putting
multiple boards in one of these will almost guarantee problems.  A
properly designed expansion box should work just as well as the
A2000/A3000.

About a month ago, Dave posed the question (in c.s.a.hardware, I think)
as to why no one has taken the design straight from the Expansion
Specifications, and made an expansion chassis for the A500 (and the
A1000 :-).  I don't think he would've mentioned it if he did think it
was possible!  He seemed to think that there was some money to be made
there, and I'd have to agree with him.  I imagine that's just what the
Bodega Bay people did (I wish I'd done it!)

> adam hill                                 

-hans
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