WANTED: SCSI Kit for Blizzard 1230/IV

[Hyperspeed]

A lot of people will get away with EDO with no trouble, and I'm sure I
irritate a lot by saying FPM is the best way to go.

However, I have come across 3x websites that say EDO is to be avoided
and did some research into EDO on other platforms.

Some Apple Macs have been fried by EDO (the really older Quadras I
think) and a lot don't work at all. Phase 5 say you can use EDO but
their manuals were written back in '94?. EDO had evolved
over the years after the Blizzards came out.

The PowerPC boards should be fine as they allow you to utilise an
`early ESC menu' on bootup to switch on/off the pre-charges. This
should alleviate problems with cheaper memory (which is invariably the
mass produced EDO).

Problems occur particularly when in use with the SCSI-IV kit, random
crashing, locking and phase changes. I used to get my machine locking
a lot with EDO and now it doesn't do it with FPM.

EDO may be totally compatible in most instances, but FPM will always
be totally accepted by all older 68k machines and so I'd take it as
the lowest common denominator. Amigas can't use the speed increase of
EDO anyway, your only advantage is that EDO is cheaper and more
plentiful. EDO is also usually thinner in size, but do you want to
sacrifice reliability (or at least the potential for unreliability) to
save a few bucks?

:-)

[EnyGmaTiK]

I haven't had a problem since now, so my blizz must be a later batch of boards... don't know...

[EnyGmaTiK]

Bah!...

Just bought a 64Mb SIMM off e-bay and it doesn't fit on the board!  :pissed:

[Hyperspeed]

Haha...

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D ;-)

Is it a double sided?

The best 64mb SIMMs will have DRAM chips each of 8 Megabytes each
(64Mbit DRAMs).

This means that the best ones should be able to fit 8x of these DRAMs
on just a single side. The cheaper double-sided 64mb SIMMs will use
32Mbit DRAMs and fill two sides.

The odd thing is, some 64mb SIMMs that are single-sided will have the
DRAMs parallel, some will be positioned like lego-bricks side-by-side
and in heights of 2.

EnyGmaTiK: Please tell me what codes are written on your SIMM's DRAM
chips and I'll give you the details of your SIMM.

:-)

[EnyGmaTiK]

The SIMM is single sided.

In the chips is printed: ' USA 16X4E4KTW-SS '

On a sticker: 16X32 EDO, the code is 425210026635.

Here is the pic:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3489166963&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT

[Hyperspeed]

Hmmmm, apart from the obvious EDO bit (I'm not an EDO fan ;-)) that
SIMM looks okay.

It certainly does look `higher' than normal SIMMs.

I'm thinking it's made by Micron since it says USA, but it doesn't
conform to the codes I have. Micron usually have MT before their code.

I think the 66 may refer to a 64mb SIMM of 1k refresh (very fast but
power hungry) and the 3 may refer to EDO. The 5 could indicate a 50ns
speed.

It's possibly 1-bit or 16-bit internal organisation.

I think you may have a low quality straggler here, unbranded stuff is
to be avoided. I bought a SIMM almost exactly the same as this one a
month ago and the last 4MBytes don't work.

If you copied 60Mb of files into it, and then strayed into 61Mb the
Amiga would crash. Don't know why, maybe it's a Setpatch or 3.0 ROM
issue.

What is stopping it from fitting though, what accelerator do you have.
I'm sure it'd fit onto a Blizzard 1260 and also the SCSI-IV kit.

:-)

[EnyGmaTiK]

Ok... Then i'm selling it! since it doesn't fit on my Bliz 1230  :-D

[Hyperspeed]

Woo!

64Mb is quite luxurious for a Blizzard 1230 isn't it?

:-D :-D :-D

Combine this with your ChipRAM and you'd have more memory than the
X-Box!

:-)

I suppose now that memory is so cheap there's no harm, but it does
make you complacent when you have way more than you need. You don't
learn to improvise or be efficient.

Remember when we all had to learn to use 2Mb ChipRAM?

:-D :-D ;-)

I wonder if anyone has fitted their 1230 to the 256mb limit! :-) :-)

That SIMM you have looks like a keyboard/sampler memory. It seems
those and laser printer memory didn't measure up to the standards a
computer requires. Don't know why.

I'd say 16mb is the right amount for an '030 based machine, 32mb a
luxury. Remember - each time you go up you double the space so 64mb
really is caviar on toast.

:-D :-D :-D :-D

[EnyGmaTiK]

Ehehe... my objective was to get full 256mb with the kit... but then i reconsidered to get just 128mb 64mb+64mb  :-D .
If SIMM's nowadays are cheap why not push the board to it's limits?
I know that for my objectives (to run just WHDload Games/Demos) i don't need more than 32mb... but what the hell, why not?  :lol:

[Hyperspeed]

Yeah, I know... it's so tempting!

:-D :-D

Trouble is, in use I've never used more than 20mb of RAM and that's
with the web cache in Ram Disk: !!

Quake decided to reserve itself 50Mb but it runs no faster for it, and
works happily on 16mb.

One disadvantage of souping your Amiga up to 64Mb/128Mb/256Mb is you
lose the advantage of being able to say "Hey, I can do this with just
8mb of RAM!" or something...

But if you're not looking for a fight then I suppose plentiful memory
will banish forever the Error Requestor: Out of Memory...

:-D

Keep the faith Luke, the 64Mb FPMs are out there!

;-)

[EnyGmaTiK]

LOL... thanks...

But my guess is... if i'd turned to the dark side i would find 2x 128mb FPM ! Rotfl  :lol:

[EnyGmaTiK]

"ECC EDO SIMM memory"

Can i use this kind of SIMM's?

What does ECC mean?

[Hyperspeed]

ECC means Error Correction Chip I think, or Error Correction Code. It
checks the data passing through the chips and makes sure nothing goes
wrong.

I'm not sure what the difference between Parity and ECC are but I'd
avoid both.

Especially if they're EDO too!

You might get lucky though, but ECC will be a bit bigger than a
non-parity FPM and the Amiga can't use Parity, ECC or EDO so why
bother.

You might get it easier and cheaper, but then most rubbish things are
cheap and easy to get.

:-D :-D :-D

[EnyGmaTiK]

er...

Thanks for the info...  :-(