Re: //gs Memory 8 or 16megs?

[Wayne Stewart <waynes@intergate.bc.ca>]

Marvin Miller wrote:

> Hi Eric;
>
> I saw that and it might be just what I need ! I'm looking for more
> //gs stuff so......
>
> The issue I have is finding out what card to buy. My concerns break
> down like this;
>
> [1] I need more memory, preferrably 8 mg's
>
> [2] There's a bunch of different Applied Engineering cards out there
> as well as others. I want the best one naturally! But I do not what
> the differences are between them.
>
> Alltech sells an 8 meg card for 100.00 I'd like to pick it up BUT, if
> the Applied cards have more features etc than I'd rather go that
> route.

I'd suggest the Alltech card over an Applied Engineering card for a
couple of reasons. First you can get it new. It uses common 1mb SIMMs
so you can get any capacity of card and readily upgrade it.
Also many of Applied Engineering's memory cards needed the PAL chips
changed if you wanted to move the card from a ROM 1 to a ROM 3 IIgs.
Those PALs aren't available now.
Note that often Apple HS SCSI cards need  DMA turned off with memory
cards over 4mb.


> I understand Applied makes a ramKEEPER. I know not what it does....
> :-(

A ramkeeper is a card that 2 memory card can be attached to. That memory
is treated as a single memory card. That memory can be divided via a CDA
into regular memory(up to 8mb) and a ROMdisk(also up to 8mb).  It came
with power supply and battery. The idea is to be able to boot quickly off the
battery backed ROMdisk.
It too needed a parts change for the different IIgs ROM versions. It also only
worked correctly with some memory card combinations. I'd suggest against
using the battery and power supply as there were a number of computer fires
attributed to this arrangement, I know of a couple personally. I have several
of them, fun to play around with but really once you have a hard drive it
becomes a lot less than useful.
A lot of IIgs users couldn't fit their System folder onto an 8mb ROMdisk.


> I'm still trying to build/acquire 'best of breed' components for my
> soon to arrive //gs. I still lack knowledge to make an informed
> decision......
>
> I'd love to support your site by buying products, I'll also need a
> accelerator card, but I'm focussing on the RAM card first as I have
> zip for info on the accelerator card.
>
> Thanks for the reply!
> Marvin Miller