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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: adz on October 09, 2003, 04:15:06 AM

Title: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: adz on October 09, 2003, 04:15:06 AM
Hi all,

I'm probably getting way in over my head here, but here it goes. I was just curious as to whether a Zorro III ram expansion board actually exists for the A4000, and if so what are its capabilities. Thanks in advance.
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: Ilwrath on October 09, 2003, 07:03:12 AM
The only one I know of is the FastLane Z3 SCSI/RAM card.  You can add gazillions of 32-pin SIMMs to it.... In pairs.

Works quite well, from what I've heard.  I had one once, but I just used the SCSI -- never had any RAM on it.
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: adz on October 09, 2003, 07:45:00 AM
It would be good if I could get my hands on one that supported 72-pin EDO, I just picked up four 128MB 72-pin EDO sticks, a 512MB A4000 sure would be impressive.
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: Orjan on October 09, 2003, 08:18:09 AM
There is the DKB3128 also, but it supports a max of 4 32Mb 72pin SIMMs=128Mb. I believe this is the largest memory expansion board ever made by anyone...

Check them out at www.amiga-hardware.com.
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: manicx on October 09, 2003, 08:19:39 AM
DKB 3128

You can use 72Pin SIMMs with it.

http://wonkity.com/%7Ewblock/a4000hard/d3128ref.html
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: Piru on October 09, 2003, 08:46:37 AM
Type   Available    In-Use   Maximum   Largest
fast  1211115072  82594240 1293709312 1196603792
total 1211115072  82594240 1293709312 1196603792

Sorry, totally OT.. just boasting around :-D
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: Munchkin on October 09, 2003, 10:31:26 AM
Quote

adz wrote:
It would be good if I could get my hands on one that supported 72-pin EDO, I just picked up four 128MB 72-pin EDO sticks, a 512MB A4000 sure would be impressive.


I agree that it would be impressive but why on earth would you want that much memory in it? :)

I have 64 megs on my CS Mk-II besides the 16 on the mobo which means I have in total 80 plus chipram, and I have NEVER been close to using all that memory up. Though, I don't do things like rendering with Imagine for example. That is really the only time I can see a use for that much.  :-D
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: Lex on October 09, 2003, 11:11:29 AM
Two Zorro III RAM-only expansions exist: the DKB 3128 and the PP&S ProRAM 3000. Check out them at http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?intf=z3&cat=ram (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?intf=z3&cat=ram).

Alex
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: Framiga on October 09, 2003, 11:46:55 AM
-edited-

Hi Ilwrath

Fastlane ZIII, uses 30 pin SIMMs in group of 4.

30 pins SIMM are 8 bit one..

Expensive and hard to find

FastlaneZIII (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/fastlanez3.html)

Ciao

PS- on the same site, you can find other ZIII ram expansions.

Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: adz on October 09, 2003, 02:12:12 PM
Quote
I agree that it would be impressive but why on earth would you want that much memory in it? :)


Your right, it is likely that I will never use that much RAM, besides, I purchased the RAM on ebay for someone else, just put one of the sticks in one his A1200's. Never have I seen an Amiga with that much Fast RAM, so, out of curiosity, I would have liked to have seen an Amiga with the same amount of RAM as my Athlon. Oh well, looks like thats never going to happen  :-(

Thanks for your input guys.
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: Lemmink on October 09, 2003, 04:58:03 PM
Back in the old days there was an upgrade set for the FastlaneZ3 so it would accept 16MB Modules too. That way the card could be upgraded to 256 MB RAM. AFAIK no one ever tested this setup, not even P5 themself, cos` that much RAM was quite expensive back then.
I have nerver come across such a "gold" Fastlane. there were very few of those upgradekits sold and 16MB 8bit RAMs are today even harder to find then 16MB GVP-Simms and more expensive to boot.

I for my part have a fully loaded DKB3128 und a normal Fastlane with 64 MB. Together with the 128 MB on the MKII my A3000T comes to a total of 320 MB of Fastram.
RAM on a ZIII card isn`t really fast, it only reaches 80-90 % the speed of onboard FastRAM.

Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: adolescent on October 09, 2003, 08:51:33 PM
Remember, you can also run multiple 3128s.  Anyone know what the maximum addressable RAM space is on the A3000/A4000?
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: Lemmink on October 09, 2003, 10:42:24 PM
4 GB like with the harddrives (remember 32bit), so we don`t have to worry about this border ever.
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: TanZyr on October 10, 2003, 08:33:28 AM
Just imagine... an Amiga 3000D, 4 DKB 3128's, fastslot accelerator...

4x 128Megs = 512Megs on the 3128's, 128Meg more on the accelerator, not to mention the 16Megs on the motherboard itself...

656 Megs of RAM (and no room for anything else). A truly awe inspiring thought. :-)
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: Framiga on October 10, 2003, 09:26:15 AM


. . . .or better, an A4000D with an AmigaColdfire CF-4000 accelerator boards with 512 MB of PC100 SDRAM :-D

Ciao

Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: TanZyr on October 10, 2003, 05:24:21 PM
Aye, that could be a force to be reckoned with...
The ability to emulate 68000->060 at many times the speed. Whew...

Now combine our ideas - over 1Gig of RAM and a CPU with a little ass pushing.

Scary.
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: adolescent on October 10, 2003, 06:37:25 PM
Quote

TanZyr wrote:
Just imagine... an Amiga 3000D, 4 DKB 3128's, fastslot accelerator...


Or the 3000T and have 5 of them.  Or, how about 7 DKB 3128's (ok, so I can cheat with my Micronik busboard with 7 ZIII slots!).

Although, I tend to think that 64M is more than enough.  My A3000D has a PP&S Mercury 040/35MHz with 32M + 8M on the motherboard and I never ran out of FAST RAM.    
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: Lemmink on October 10, 2003, 09:26:23 PM
Sorry, but that won`t work, since the DKB3128 uses DMA and only 5 (or was it 6) of the slots are able to do DMA (like the commodoreguidelines stated), the others are non DMA. There were some Eagleboards that even had 8 Zorro III Slots.
I`m not sure how this ist handled, if there are up to 5 DMA-cards possible at once in any slot, or if simply Slot 1-5 can do DMA and the others don`t
Title: Re: Zorro III RAM board
Post by: patrik on October 12, 2003, 01:14:33 PM
@lemmink:

As the DKB3128 is a RAM-expansion-card, it wont be able to actively transfer data by itself over the ZIII-bus (doing DMA) - it is not a DMA-card.


/Patrik