Re: Apple IIGS and speech generation for handicaped

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <34DE602D.2B7@library.ucla.edu>,  <pubpc1@library.ucla.edu> wrote:
>Not true.  Consider that you have to buy an IDE controller or
>an SCSI controller for the PC in the first place.  The Ramfast
>is comparable to the prices for PC caching controllers.  

   Not sure where you've been shopping recently. Almost all pentium
and up motherboards have an IDE controller or two onboard. Adaptec
2940 boards (a *good* scsi controller, not some cheap junk good for a
scanner) start off about $150, and the ultrawide scsi 2940 is
$250-280.  [Drop by http://www.pricewatch.com for a bit of a
benchmark] And if you want performance, the DPT Smartcache
(www.dpt.com) is a Ramfast severely beefed up. (64MB of cache... mmmm)
at 5 times the price of the ramfast, not even beginning to count
cache.

   Real power always comes at a price.

>On the other hand, if you want to buy new products, many
>are rock solid like the Sirius and the Focus.  As for Second
>Sight, it is a video card.  Too bad we didn't get the one
>based on the Amiga's chip-set instead, what was it called
>again -- Turborez?  That one would have been nice.

   Not based on the Amiga's chipset, but had bitmap planes, blitter
and the like. [Such features in a video chip are why a $20 chip in a
game console like the SNES/Genesis could blow a GS or 68000-based
computer like an early mac out of the water in terms of graphics.]  3D
accelerators like 3dfx have finally leapfrogged the current round of
game consoles, simply by that roud of addon silicon.

>I'd recommend Sirius and Focus wholeheartedly, but Second
>Sight could use some bug-fixing!

   Focus is cheaper, but what if you want to add in a zip drive,
another HD or some other backup method? SCSI more expandable.

Nathan Mates

--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? -R.A. Heinlein