WTB: 030 for A1200

[meega]

This sort of thing might be more in line with your budget, atm. I've got one I'll let you have for £35, or a bit less if the community insists, but we might have to run a worthwhile poll on that. ;-) It was sodding expensive when it was new. Or keep saving for a while, and once you can throw £50-100 at it you should be able to get something quite nice.

[meega]

Gwion wrote:
Does your card have the FPU? If so what speed is it?

Yes, it looks very much like the top one of those illustrated.

It has the FPU, 68882 @ 33 MHz.

It originally had 4MB FPM RAM, iirc, with gold connector pads - I still have it and will include it. It currently has 8MB EDO RAM fitted - it has been that way for years. Again iirc, it accepts 1/2/4/8 MB, option being set by the jumpers.

It does not have a battery in the holder - but I could probably rustle one up. The clock works fine as long as the machine has power - the battery just means it doesn't forget the time when you switch the A1200 off.

If you use more than 4MB then you will find conflicts with the PCMCIA slot, due to 24bit address range using the first 4MB for the PCMCIA interface. I have no PCMCIA devices.

[meega]

The FPU lets you run Maths functions in hardware... If you need sine and cosine and e^x and logarithms etc., etc. It doesn't half ease the load on the 'main' processor.

N.B. most games just do approximate maths using integer operations - which are usually fast but inaccurate. The FPU won't help there, but it will still 'lift' any generic maths routines away from the 68020 (it automatically ties itself into the system through microcode) so it does maths while the processor carries on with program logic. And it is clocked faster too.

The 'simple' ram boards - like this one - often cause fewer conflicts with games. With 4MB fitted, you should be able to run nearly any classic era game.

If you don't want/need the FPU, then get the cheaper board as it is unlikely that you will also need the extra 4MB of ram.