Phase 5 and the Blizzard PPCs

[Eddie]

>Which off-course has nothing to do with 604/603, >and all to do with the fact
>that the blizz was developed after the PS/2-SIMM->spec was upped with
>64 and 128MB modules,while the CS was done >before.
>
>Add to that,that a 604 will only work at full speed >when it has the simms
>in pairs (for 64bit-access).

I've read something about the reason for the 128mb ram limit is due to the memory address space of the CPU expansion.  

I think the biggest benefit of the CyberstormPPC cards vs Blizzard is the SCSI3, I also seem to remember people at the time complaining about the cost of wide scsi cables  ;-)   After spending 800 ukp on a accelerator card....

[Eddie]

>@Eddie
>....and the RAM-limit for the A1200-trapdoor is ?
>
>
>8 MB !!!  
>
>More RAM is possuble, it is just invisible for the >mobo and Z3-slots, which is
>only a prob with DMA-cards (like Fastlane/4091).

Yep, theres always ways of getting around standard limitations, but I can't believe that Phase 5 built the Cyberstorm boards with the belief that 64mb+ simms would be too expensive/wouldn't come out and then allowed the BlizzardPPC to use 128mb simms a few months later....

Sounds like they just thought "128mb is more than enough, no point defining any more address space", hence we lag behind the A1200's.

Personally I rarely use more than a few megs anyway, so its not a big limitation especially with the SCSI3 transfer speeds as anything bigger than 128 megs tends to be really big - 1-2Gbs, it would be handy for running Linux though.

[Eddie]

>Seems you misunderstoodmy 1st post.
>64/128mb weren't just not delievered, their pin-out >hadn't been defined yet.

That was not true though, as the ppc cards came out after the Blizzard 1260 and 1230 cards which already supported at least the 64mb simms, so they must have been defined by then.

I reckon the 128mb limit was just left because there was no big requirement for more...  Why put extra effort in supporting more memory when you already have enough.