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From: ytsuji@wucc.waseda.ac.jp (Y.Tsuji)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Mega Mega?
Keywords: Mega RAM expansion
Message-ID: <5837@wucc.waseda.ac.jp>
Date: 13 Jun 91 02:07:26 GMT
References: <1991Jun12.183028.20305@chinet.chi.il.us>
Organization: The Centre for Informatics, WASEDA Univ.
Lines: 23

In article <1991Jun12.183028.20305@chinet.chi.il.us>, saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) writes:
> What with GNU Emacs, big RAMdisks, Scheme, Smalltalk, MultiGEM, etc. etc. it
> seems like a reasonable thing to want to expand a Mega beyond 4 MB.  Anyone
> done it?  Any possibility of a commercial expansion?
> 
>                                        Steve       saj@chinet.chi.il.us

I have done some preliminary probe into this matter two years ago and there
was absolutely no problem at all. Expanding up to 8 MB is rather easy if
you know how to build a RAM board for 68000 CPU. The reason I haven't done
it yet is that so far I couldn't persuade the DMA controller to handle the
upper 4 megabytes. I have recently heard that CRT controller (SHIFTER) can
be persuaded by poking their I/O addresses (Reflex board does this and
allows us to use any kind of monitor on TOS 1.4). I don't think using
a RAM disk of 4 MB is very fantastic (I'd rather use a hard disk). Another
thing I had to consider was using Standard SIMMS sockets...

Germans actually sell expansion boards, but they are VERY expensive at
least in England where I am based in a way. A 4 MB expansion module costs
Sterlng Pounds 689.43 at Atari Workshop in Windsor. It may not include
the actual chips which they charge StgL 275 for 4 MB. 

Tsuji