Re: ZipGS vs TransWarp?

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article RKFAIRCLOTH@unca.edu (Rhonda K. Faircloth) writes...

>Which one is "better", the ZipGS or a TransWarp?

    Overall, when you consider all factors, I would definitely
say the ZipGS is the better of the two products. Incidentally,
I own both Apple IIgs accelerators, a 6 MHz/8K TransWarp GS 
and a 15 MHz/64K ZipGS (I'm not simply judging based on the
speed differences of my two cards of course, they're at the
complete opposite ends).

>What are the advantages/disadvantages of the one that you use?

TransWarp GS:
------------

    The TransWarp GS was the first available IIgs accelerator 
product on the market, appearing in late 1988. It did the job
it was meant to do, but had a few drawbacks (besides pricing).
First the board was a clutter of chips and components, and it
caused a large drain on the powersupply and generated a great
deal of heat (more than most cards). As well, it never did do 
DMA quite correctly, so if you have one in your system you'll
usually be forced to disable DMA (i.e. RamFAST SCSI).

    Upgrading it's cache (32K maximum) required swapping a 
daughterboard which contained the SRAMs and ROM firmware 
(there were some different ROM versions as well). Upgrading 
speed usually involved changing some custom GAL chips; both 
the above were only available from Applied Engineering. It
is no longer sold, but some people claim it was more efficient
in terms of caching methods and speed (only in certain cases) 
over the ZipGS.


ZipGS:
-----

    This was introduced about two years later (1990), by 
Zip Technologies, the same company who made the Zip Chip
for Apple IIe/IIc. By comparison, the ZipGS design was 
much cleaner, having less than 8 chip components on-board
(most of the logic was put into in a single ASIC chip).
For this reason, it drew little power (about 1/10th that
of the TWGS) and ran fairly cool. It was fully DMA and
could use up to 64K of cache. It even had a nifty socket
to hold your old DIP 65C816, so to avoid losing it. :)

    Price was also much more affordable, although this is
now moot since the TWGS is no longer available. It is still
sold and supported today, one major plus alone. Also, it
seems to get along better with other cards and the computer
in general (it is less "noisy" than the TWGS). It is also
nice since it has 16 variable speeds, whereas the TWGS is
either 'on' or 'off'.

     One disadvantage, it has no firmware ROM, unlike the the 
TWGS. If you want to control the card (adjust speed, etc) you 
need to load special software from disk or install it on your
hardrive. The TWGS automatically installed a CDA that was 
accessible from the moment your machine is turned on (plus 
a fancy graphic and sound fanfare a startup, although that 
was just for fun :). Both were slot cards that had a CPU
connector cable (the "Zip Chip GS" never surfaced).

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca