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Re: ZIP GSX 1.0.1 vs 1.0.2
Henry S. Courbis wrote:
Hello Bill.
Accelerators for the //e are impossible to find.
I wouldn't say 'impossible'. You can find some good deals for TransWarps on
eBay. Every now and again a ZIP CHIP does come up for sale though.
I realize that they are not
trivial. What is to prevent you or Henry from reverse-engineering an Apple
//e zip chip and doing a production run?
Nothing really. Reverse-engineering is a major pain in the rear though. At
some point I may decap a dead ZIP and see how they did what they did.
Just look at the IIc+. It's exactly a Zip Chip without the potting.
;-)
I
still think the best way to go is cloning the TransWarp II though. Since
they are so rare though it's going to be hard to convince an owner to part
with the board and then let me do some tinkering. Of course if a few other
projects I have in the works turn out well then I may try to convince some
owners to let me 'study' their board for a cut of future sales.
It's a much higher-power design, though modern logic may help with that.
What do you think it would cost if you had a run of 100 or so and took
pre-orders?
Costs on 100? Probably $6k. Feel like investing? ;-) And that's not even
counting the research costs. Add probably another $1000 on to that number
then.
And the packaging is non-trivial if you want it to plug into the
processor socket and not interfere with cards, like the Zip.
Keeping the total power well under a watt is a *huge* advantage in my
book.
-michael
AppleCrate II: An Apple II "blade server"!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."