A4000, 060, Cyberstorm MK-I vs MK-II

[Brian]

Whats the difference between Cyberstorm MK-I and MK-II?
Are there any advantages to MK-II?

Thanks.

I've had both and I'd say the MK2 is slightly faster but not much. What is a big difference however is that the MK1 have memory and CPU on separate boards connecting to a 3'rd "bridge board" where's the MK2 have this in one package... I had the missfortune of having the MK1 in a 3'rd party towerconvertion and the memoryboard didn't feel secure... also in the original chassi the memory rubs up against the zorro busboard and to brevent shorts you got a peise of paper to put in between the two. A minor thing is also that nightmarish jumpers for memory on the MK1, minor in the way that today you populate it to max and be done with it but I remember back in the day when upgrading simms one at a time and had to change jumpers alot.

[Brian]

what would you rather have, MK-I with SCSI or MK-II without it ?
I presume MK-I SCSI board cannot be used on MK-II ?

thanks.

The SCSI boards have the connectors with the key on opposit side so the different mark SCSI controller won't physicaly fit the wrong CS card.

I'd go with the MK2 any day... and get a FastATA or Zorro SCSI card if I needed it and couldn't dig up a MK2 SCSI fast enough (which would be likely since they rarely surface). Both MK1+SCSI that I've owned I've eventually sold but I still use my MK2+SCSI today and keep some of my CSPPC's in storage.

[Brian]

Ha, yeah, I ended up acquiring for a mighty hefty price, the MK1.  Had 64mb on it, so I upgraded it to 128mb with 'Printer memory' modules.  the memory bridge board is kind of a pain to get in there fully, and then having to slide that piece of paper in so it doesn't short out the zorro board (in my case a Mediator) is all sorts of fun.

But I'll say as far as old hardware goes, it's freaking fast.  

slaapliedje

Yah, the MK1 is no slouth by a longshot, I just realy dislike the CS memorymodule wobbling about, especially when I had it in a tower conversion but even in my A4000D I wasn't too happy.

I put a custom plastic isolator much like that found for the HDD in place instead of the paper since my paper was scratched and made me unconfortable. That way I could screw the isolation in place with the front two empty screwholes on the bar. I made it long enough so the CS mainmodule would keep the platic in place and I could make a small part of the plastic curve (after heating, cutting and bending) around the edge of the CS memorymodule closest to the CS CPU module to keep it in place.

[Brian]

I had a MK-II in my A4000 with a CV64/4091 card in it and had absolutely no problems with it, but a friend way back when had the MK-I and was always griping about the RAM setup.

Once you've upgraded the memory to max the jumpering is a noneissue... jumpering before that is hell. I also remember having issue with EDO simms and bought old FastPageMode simms that worked fine. With that said the MK2 doesn't have this problem and is rock solid and one of the reasons I still use it today.