Re: New ][ Hardware

[ltchean@iss.nus.sg (Lim Thye Chean)]

scraft@graphics.rent.com (Steve Craft) writes:

The prducts mentioned below seems very interesting.

: SUPER II
:
: Specifications:
:  
:      4MHz 65C816
:      1-16MB SIMM RAM on the board (uses standard 1MB SIMMs)
:      128K system ROM on board
:      plugs into an expansion slot
:      price: $170 assembled with 0 RAM (you order your own and plug in)
:      designed by Chuck Haight, editor of COMPUTIST* magazine

Why don't just upgrade to the IIGS? Besides the speed and memory enhancement,
it is no where near the IIGS.

A used IIGS is quite cheap nowadays... it has a much improved resolution,
colour, sound, toolbox interface, very well design operation system, etc.

: HYPER IIGS
: Turdnil at Fortress Citadel  (#69@#25)
: Monday, January 25th, 1993  19:03:07 CST
:  
:      First, the Hyper IIgs DOES exist. It has been built and tested by
: Chuck Haight and some local (Eatonville, WA) hackers. Hyper IIgs is a
: super speedup board set which employs a 12MHz 65C816 and two caches,
: one is 64KB (12MHz) and the other is 8MB (5MHz).  So, except for
: forced slowdowns (e.g. for I/O and accesses to banks $E0-$FF) the
: board screams along at 12MHz and, for fast cache misses, drops(!) to
: 5MHz. Chuck doesn't quote an average speed. My 9MHz 32K-cache Zip/gs
: averages about 7MHz; the Hyper IIgs is probably good for something a
: bit better than a 10MHz average. A very nice plus is that, when
: reliable 14Mhz (20MHz...) '816's become available, only the uP and,
: perhaps, the 64K cache should need to be upgraded.
:  
:      Hyper IIgs is not currently available for sale to users. Instead,
: those behind the project are asking IIgs 'speed freaks' to write and
: express interest. The explanation is cost. Hyper IIgs comes on two
: boards and, for small production runs, would sell for $500 assembled
: and tested.

First, why two cache? For the minor improvement in speed, the 8MB of 5MHz
RAM is not worth it.

64K cache should give you about 95%-99% of hit ratio, for the extra 1-5% of 
speed, would it really mind if it runs at 2.5 or 5 MHz? Please note that
8MB is quite a lot of money, relative to the price of the accelerator.
(That's why it is $500)

The Hyper IIGS is not as interesting as the Super II. If it would adds an
enhance video (even if it is not as good as TurboRez), stereo sound, it 
would be a hit for those GS user who have not upgraded yet.

I personally would like to own a GS with 15Mhz and TurboRez installed. 
Actually, all I want is Avatar, or a card that transform your GS to something
more powerful.

--
    %% GS Lover Loves GS %%    Author of Super Magic 3 & Mandelbrot II GS
    %%  and Avatar too.  %%   
          Lim Thye Chean: Lim is my surname. My name is Thye Chean.
     My address: LTCHEAN@ISS.NUS.SG, or 9, College Green, Singapore 1129