Re: TWGS Lockup

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

In article joko@crl8.crl.com (Joe Kohn) writes...

>As others have pointed out, having a fan on a system with a TWGS is a good
>idea as the TWGS does generate a bit of heat.

    Most any slot card will generate a bit of heat, the TransWarp GS OTOH
gets extremely hot, a fan is almost a requirement (I should talk, I often
run my ROM 01 with with an 8087 equipped PC-Transporter, stereo/digitizer
card, parallel card and 4 MB board without any fan, talk about creating a
mini oven! ;-)

>Unfortunately, with AE long out of business, short of building one yourself,
>I really have no idea who might be able to supply replacement TWGS ribbon
>cables. Perhaps you should check with the Applied Engineering Australian
>site on the world wide web.

    Bill Shuff builds replacement TWGS cables with gold-tip connectors
for about US$12/ea. Unfortunately I've lost his e-mail address, but he
is well known enough where someone here can probably post it (I recall
he did have a Genie account when I last spoke to him, and he does drop
by csa2 and csa2.marketplace from time to time).

    A second source would be ABC Direct, they sold a 3" CPU cable which
would allow the TWGS to plug into slots 3 and 4 (not just 3). I would
assume at was at least as good as the replacement cable AE offered as
a free replacement years ago. The cost was US$9, though I've no idea
whether ABC still sells Apple II products or if they even still exist.

>I also don't know of any quick way to determine _if_ a problem cable is the
>cause of the TWGS problems you are having. But, your message brought back
>some memories about having to get a replacement TWGS cable at some point,
>and as I remember it, the symptoms you describe sound real similar to the
>problems I had with my TWGS long ago. Those problems, by the way, went away
>and never returned after replacing the ribbon cable.

    Same here, I have a TransWarp 6/8 with the original flakey cable and
it too would has problems like he described (well, I'm sure the fact that
pin-1 on the cable is broken off added to it, I only tested it with a bit
of loose metal wire to temporarily test it). I would like to find a new
cable one day, my TWGS is currently sitting in a box unused. :/

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca