Question: Why no new memory expansion cards?

[AltRN8]

So this might have been addressed before but I couldn't seem to find anything when I searched the forums and I am hoping someone knowledgeable might know the answer.

Why are there no new memory expanding zorro cards being made for the amiga? I am thinking something along the lines of a dkb3128. I have seen boards like these sell for quite a bit and it seems like there is some demand for it.

Is it nothing more than no one thinks there is a demand for them? Or is it that there is some technical challenge than is extremely non-trivial with the current ram in use today?

Any light folks could shed on this would help satisfy my curiosity.

[alexh]

There is a small demand for this product. Enough to boost the prices for individual sales on ebay. The demand is from people who do not have an accelerator which takes RAM and people for which 146Mbytes is not enough.

This is just a handful of Amiga users. Certainly not enough to produce a product at a sensible price with profit which would cover the R&D and initial product run.

Most people just wait till they have a bit more money and then buy an accelerator with a RAM interface.

The cost differential between a new Zorro RAM card and a second hand Apollo 4040 is almost non.

Separate the Amiga users who have a Zorro III capable Amiga, then separate out those who do not have an accelerator with RAM, then separate out those who want more RAM, it's not that many.

[AltRN8]

Okay this was so obvious I am embarassed. I completely forgot about ram expansion on the accelerators. Everything you said makes perfect sense. Once you factor in the those folks using better accelerator cards the demand would drop to a paltry few.

It most likely is in fact ultimate a demand issue in the end.

Thanks.

[alexh]

The market gets even smaller when you consider there are alternatives to a DKB3128.

Fastlane SCSI card, 64Mbytes RAM. These can usually be bought for about £70. They are not available new but one comes up on Ebay ever 2-3 weeks.

Zorro II SCSI card, 8Mbytes RAM. Again only second hand but these are about £10-20 and there is usually one or two on ebay every week.

82Mbytes or even 26Mbytes of RAM isnt too bad for an A4000. Enough for most games and demo's ;-)

[mike-]

Well you can never have too much memory. I'd certainly like to have a 256 meg zorro expansion. Say for linux, or os4. Running the entire os from memory or what have you.

Or could it map 512? i cant remember

[Jeff]

I doubt any memory expansions would work with OS4. Even my DKB3128 isn't recognized at all. You would probably have to write your own drivers for it.

-Jeff