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From: perry@well.UUCP (Perry S. Kivolowitz)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Fraud And Deceit In The Memory Board Market
Message-ID: <1353@well.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Jun-86 12:56:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: well.1353
Posted: Fri Jun 27 12:56:12 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jun-86 09:03:13 EDT
Organization: Whole Earth Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 59
Keywords: A Buyer's Guide

Since there has been a  lot of discussion of memory boards in this newsgroup
it is important that this be the forum for some truths about memory products
for the Amiga.

(1) Power Availablility Is Limited To ONE AMP.

I have spoken to many memory board manufacturers who have said:

	``Our boards use the Amiga's power, so  there is no need for a
          costly power supply or messy wires.''
        ``Our boards can be chained together. For example, four of our
	  two megabyte boards  will  give  you  eight megabytes. Again
	  without messy wires or external power.''
	``Our boards consume <some number, usually MORE THAN 500 milli
	  amps> of power during normal use.''

These  manufacturers  are  stealing  your  money and slowly destroying your
machine. There  is a  HARD  limit  on the  current draw off the side of the
Amiga. Exceeding the limit  will  in  time lead  to premature death of your
machine.

Consult the hardware spec, consult AMIGA. The power tolerances off the side
is VERY tight.

BEFORE YOU BUY A NON-SELF-POWERED BOARD FOR THE 86 PIN CONNECTOR - FIND OUT
WHAT THE POWER CONSUMPTION OF THE BOARD IS!

The GUILTY parties of this FRAUD are  the LARGEST NAMES IN MEMORY BOARDS SO
WATCH OUT!!!

(2) All FAST-RAM Boards Are Not FAST.

	Again, manufacturers  are  misleading the public. Due to their lame
designs their boards incur  excessive  WAIT states. WAIT states are periods
in which processing is delayed due to memory hardware overhead.

	A competent designer  will  produce  a  memory  board  without WAIT
states.

	IT COSTS YOU NO MONEY TO ASK ``HOW MANY WAIT STATES DOES YOUR BOARD
INCUR AND HOW OFTEN?''

(3) Memory Boards Are Particularly Prone To NOISE

	And still again, these same manufacturer's are cutting corners with
respect to the quality of their boards. Memory boads should definately have
a ground plane to reduce susceptability to noise. 

	If the memory board you're looking at doesn't have one, dont buy it.

The ONLY memory products I've seen that pass ALL of the tests are:

	o	The mother board memory on the Byte-By-Byte expansion
		chassis.
	o	The Convertible(TM) series of memory boards by ASDG, Inc.
		(General Availablility: Late August).

Perry S. Kivolowitz
Author of Miga-Mania and Co-Chairman of JAUG