Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Help! What's wrong with my Ronin Hurricane?
Message-ID: <6830@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 11 May 89 16:49:28 GMT
References: <24odY54ZYK1010owcU2@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 46

in article <24odY54ZYK1010owcU2@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>, kevin@uts.amdahl.com (Kevin Clague) says:

>   I really wanted a 68020/881, so I took it to Ronin in San Fransisco.
> They keep it for two weeks and the answer is "We don't know why it
> doesn't work."  Good engineering eh?  They tried two different MiniRacks
> with 2 Megs and couldn't get either one to work.
...
>   BTW Leo has a 1000, MiniRack with 2Meg board and a Ronin and it works
> fine.  Just lucky I'd guess.  He must live right!

One thing I should point out is that this kind of expansion, plugging
something into the 68000 socket, it's a method of expansion supported by
Commodore-Amiga, and one of the big reasons for this is that WE can't
guarantee it'll work.  Even if Ronin did a fantastic job at desigining
their card (I haven't seen their A1000 card, so I really have no idea on
how good that specific one is) there's a chance that something like this
isn't going to work, especially with an additional SOTs on the side.  The
only form of expansion that's supported on an A1000 is a single SOTs box,
which of course could be a whole expansion chassis like ASDG's or some of
the others. 

Anything that plugs into the 68000 socket is looking for trouble.  Such a
board probably has long header pins, which add capacitance and a chance at
noise.  There's probably not enough power or ground pins to make something
like this real reliable.  There's also not likely enough drive capability
on the A1000 local bus, and certainly no spec on what loads such a
socket-sitting device is allowed to have. 

On the other hand, you can't hardly knock it if it works good.  I'd just
like to have a fighting chance of any arbitrary combination of '020/'030
board, motherboard, and expansion goodies all working together.  The
A2000's CPU slot was specifically intended for accelerator boards.  The
load of a board that follows the published CPU slot specifications is taken
into account.  Etc. 

The Ronin '020 board for the A2000 that I looked at worked just fine in
that slot, in combination with all kinds of other stuff.  I personally
recommend A2620s, but I do admit to being biased. 

>>	-ranjit (aargh!)

> UUCP:  kevin@uts.amdahl.com
-- 
Dave Haynie  "The 32 Bit Guy"     Commodore-Amiga  "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: D-DAVE H     BIX: hazy
              Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession