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Author Topic: For Sale: Vortex GoldenGate 386 with Monitor Master  (Read 3881 times)

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Offline bloodline

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Re: For Sale: Vortex GoldenGate 386 with Monitor Master
« Reply #14 from previous page: February 21, 2008, 11:24:11 PM »
If it hasĀ an FPU you should be able to get AROS to boot on it...

Offline keropiTopic starter

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Re: For Sale: Vortex GoldenGate 386 with Monitor Master
« Reply #15 on: February 22, 2008, 06:57:13 AM »
the card is still available  :-)
 

Offline Rabbi

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Re: For Sale: Vortex GoldenGate 386 with Monitor Master
« Reply #16 on: February 22, 2008, 02:55:47 PM »
Quote

keropi wrote:
the card is still available  :-)


Looking at the original message thread's picture, it seems that the optional FPU & FDC chips have not been installed.  The FPU should be available on eBay.  I've got an extra FDC (Floppy Disk Controller) chip for it for sale, which is quite a bit harder to obtain.  

I've also got the Golden Gate 486slc2 @ 50 MHz  and the optional FPU & FDC chips installed with the optional Monitor Master, which I find quite useful.

I have a spare GG 486slc @ 25 MHZ with the optional FPU & FDC chips installed, as well as RAM maxed out on both these boards, that I might decide to sell, since I'm not using it.
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Offline billt

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Re: For Sale: Vortex GoldenGate 386 with Monitor Master
« Reply #17 on: February 22, 2008, 03:09:21 PM »
Out of curiosity, what is the Monitor Master? (Yea I saw your link but it's not coming up here) Are those two empty sockets near the rear connectors? What could be put in them?
Bill T
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Offline Rabbi

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Re: For Sale: Vortex GoldenGate 386 with Monitor Master
« Reply #18 on: February 22, 2008, 03:20:12 PM »
The 2 empty sockets near the edge connector are for the optional FPU co-processor & optional IBM FDC (Floppy Disk Controller) chips.  The original price on these GG Bridgeboards were around US$800 for the 386slc & US$1100 for the 486slc2.  These chips, if included at the time, would've hiked the price up even higher, so the designers did not include them, although they gave you the option of having the capabilities there if you would buy them & install them yourself.

All the Vortex Golden Gate Bridge Board let you use your built-in Amiga drives for IBM emulation, but you're better off using a real external IBM floppy drive, as this was faster and could even support the PS/2-style 2.? meg floppies, reading & writing, which, even if you had an Amiga high density floppy drive, could not do because of its controller.

The Monitor Master allows you to use just one monitor for both the Amiga that the board is in as well as displaying its output when it is in use.  There's a combination of using one of the Amiga keys in combination with another keyboard key to allow you to software toggle between the 2 displays.

The Monitor Master connected to the outside of the GG's Bridgeboard, (a.k.a. an edge connector).  The other edge connection on the GG bridgeboard is for an external IBM-style floppy drive only if you've got the optional FDC chip installed.

The connector at the top right of the card is for an internal IDE (usually a hard drive disk) drive of some sort.

I don't know if you could run Windows95 on it.  Don't even try installing it if you don't have the optional FPU chip installed.  Windows 3.11 works, but a better & faster GUI would be the Breadbox Ensemble.  It's got all the web clients, too.  It used to be known as GEOS in its earlier incarnations.

Breadbox Ensemble  will crash PC-Task (I've got ver. 4.4) because it bangs the metal.
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In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?
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Computer used:     Amiga A1200 (NTSC version) with 128 MB ...
 

Offline Terse

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Re: For Sale: Vortex GoldenGate 386 with Monitor Master
« Reply #19 on: February 22, 2008, 04:19:39 PM »
The FPU can be had for $10 on ebay.
The FDC - I have no idea where to get.  I never use mine. I'd have to remove one of my Amiga Floppy drives.  While they run at half speed in DOS, it's a fair trade for having both drives avilable on both the Amiga and DOS side.
 

Offline keropiTopic starter

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Re: For Sale: Vortex GoldenGate 386 with Monitor Master
« Reply #20 on: February 22, 2008, 10:12:23 PM »
noone here? I will ebay it tomorrow then...
 

Offline Rabbi

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Re: For Sale: Vortex GoldenGate 386 with Monitor Master
« Reply #21 on: February 22, 2008, 11:16:37 PM »
Quote

Terse wrote:
The FPU can be had for $10 on ebay.
The FDC - I have no idea where to get.  I never use mine. I'd have to remove one of my Amiga Floppy drives.  While they run at half speed in DOS, it's a fair trade for having both drives avilable on both the Amiga and DOS side.


As I stated above - I've got one FDC chip for sale.  I had to order a minimum order amount from the vendor & that amounted to 3 FDC chips, 2 of which I used.
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In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?
===================================================================
Computer used:     Amiga A1200 (NTSC version) with 128 MB ...
 

Offline amigadave

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Re: For Sale: Vortex GoldenGate 386 with Monitor Master
« Reply #22 on: February 23, 2008, 12:00:08 AM »
@Rabbi

check your PMail
How are you helping the Amiga community? :)
 

Offline Krusher

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Re: For Sale: Vortex GoldenGate 386 with Monitor Master
« Reply #23 on: February 23, 2008, 12:12:53 AM »
Back in the day I have had Windows 95 installed with an AMD 386DX processor, and some serious overclocking and messing about with timings in the BIOS.. It took half a day! to install it, but when it was finished it was a lot better then Windows 3.11, especially the printing part (which was used much) FPU is useful indeed, and 32mb of ram.
But why would anyone do this? It's pure torture  :roll:  :crazy: