Re: ZipGS purchase decision

[JJeffries@psu.edu (Jason Jeffries)]

In article <4g7gt7$gs9@zap.io.org>
crownmi@zap.io.org (Myles Fudge) writes:

> I will be purchasing an accelerator (finally) for the first time and I'd 
> like some help deciding on which one to get.  I have found only two so far:
> ZipGS 7MHz/32K cache for $159 and ZipGS 8/16 for $189 (including shipping).
> I intend on making the modifications to up the card to 12-14 MHz after 
> the purchase.  So how do I decide which to go for? ...the extra 16k 
> cache, or the extra 1 MHz?  Is there another flavour of ZipGS I should 
> consider?  Thanks for any help on this.

Find out what speed processor came with each card. It should be printed
on the chip. If one of those cards came with a 10mhz processor (ignore
the crystal speed), that's the one you want. 

The Zips that came with the 10mhz processors have newer ASICs (the big
chips that control the Zip's functions) that support higher speeds
better than the older ones. They are desireable.

If neither of those came with a 10mhz 65816, get the cheaper one.
You'll want to replace the cache RAM anyway (with the processor,
crystal, and 7400), so cache size is not a factor, and if you want to
speed it up a few mhz, a crystal swap will do the trick with either
card. (I ran a 7mhz processor at 9 or 10mhz for quite a while with no
harm done.)
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