whats the Deneb USB card like in day to day use?

[mboehmer_e3b]

i only have a base A4000/030, with 16Mb ram, 3.1roms, and rev11 socketed buster. (40Gb drive, CDRW drive, 33Mhz FPU)
the only other zorro stuff in there is a lone kickflash, so hopefully no DMA issues...

Well, as designer of that card I will answer only the technical part here. With this configuration (I guess it is an A4000D with no internal SCSI on motherboard, only IDE) you will no have any DMA issues.
Which CPU card is inside? The original ec030 one, or a Blizzard 4030?

For the "day to day" usability of the DENEB I hope some of the users will be able to answer your questions - my opinion is certainly biased, so to say :-)

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

Since it uses USB, will the Deneb read USB drives in other file systems, say an NTFS drive I use with the PC?  

Partially true.
NTFS support is read only, normal FAT file systems are supported read/write.

Check the README files here:

http://aminet.net/disk/misc/ntfs_0.6.readme

http://us2.aminet.net/disk/misc/fat95.readme

Otherwise it is very easy to transfer files now from PCs to the Amiga - an 8GB USB stick costs about 14EUR nowadays, and using FAT32 file system (you may need to format your stick on the PC side once to get FAT32 instead of NTFS) makes transfers in both ways possible.

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

yup, its the basic A4000 desktop with the Commodore 25Mhz EC030 CPU card, but with an added 33Mhz fpu. :-) no scsi or zorro scsi. if i get a warpengine/cyberstorm2/3 will it be a problem then?

CPU card based SCSI controllers are not a problem for Zorro III DMA at all. Only Zorro III DMA cards (A4091, Fastlane Z3) and the A(3/4)000(T) motherboard SCSI controller are known trouble makers.

but i think thats a quirk of the subway/A500 clockport combo :-)

Definitely clockport related. Clockport is 8bit SLOW PIO transfer, DENEB is 32bit FAST DMA on Zorro III.

i just hope it doesn't go out of stock before i finish saving for it!  :lol:

Keep saving :-)
Just let me note that I can't image that there will be a shortage around Xmas on DENEB cards. So to say.

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

what about other Z3 cards like graphics cards?

I have several Picasso IV here in operation, besides a CV64, and I would definitely recommend the Picasso IV (also due to its integrated Scandoubler, which is very handy).

The CV64/3D is also nice, but has a buggy Zorro III interface with some bad timing problems - which *can* lead to trouble with Zorro III DMA cards.
I had to fix this bug in the DENEB firmware some weeks ago, so it is not a critical issue (as there are almost no Zorro III DMA cards besides DENEB, A4091 and Fastlane Z3; and at least the first is being supported with firmware upgrades :-) ).

Michael