Are 2MB SRAM PCMCIA Mem Upgrades woth the $$?

[XDelusion]

I've seen these on Ebay as of late, and was wondering if they are worth the near $100 they are posted for.

I own an Amiga 600 and would certainly like to have more RAM.

[NovaCoder]

Nope.

The PCMCIA interface is sloooow, hence this memory will be slooow.

Don't settle on 2MB, go for 8MB instead

[XDelusion]

How much do 8Mb cards run for? And are you saying this is too slow to be of any use with OctaMED sound studio?

[Cammy]

The A608 will be a great upgrade when they're finally available, but it could be quite some time before a second batch of them are made, and the first batch (which are already preordered/taken) is only just going into production now.

A 2MB SRAM card will in fact speed up your A600 very slightly, although it will slow an A1200 down. Here are some SysInfo results from a test I did:

A600 (2MB Chip, No FastRAM)
526 Dhrystones
0.54 MIPS

A600 (2MB Chip, 2MB PCMCIA SRAM)
699 Dhrystones
0.72 MIPS

Upgrading my A600 to a total of 4MB RAM has allowed me to play hundreds of WHDLoad games which wouldn't work before, as well as giving me more memory to work with when I have multiple applications running. I think they are definitely worth getting if you have an A600 and you don't want to wait possibly another year for a chance to grab an A608. But $100 is a lot! How about $39.98? That softens the blow a little doesn't it? You can buy them from Memory Ten, it's where I got mine from.

http://www.memoryx.net/bgz.html

I just hope nobody goes and buys them all up to resell, this is the cheapest place I've found in the world to get them and I think all A600 owners should have the chance to get one at a good price.

[XDelusion]

That is exactly the sort of information I needed. Thankx Cammy!

[Crumb]

AFAIK A608 design is based on Vadim's A600 8MB expansion design. I have the 2008 year model and it's great, I can use up to 5.5MB of fast ram with PCMCIA or 8MB without PCMCIA. http://lvd.nedopc.com/Projects/a600_8mb_2/index.html

If you have the chance to buy it do it! don't waste your time with pcmcia memory upgrades

[Cammy]

It's a shame the A608 can't automatically switch between 8 and 5.5MB when the PCMCIA slot is in use, or by use of a software patch like the DKB 1202. Changing the jumper all the time would get annoying for some people (probably not me though since my A600 is always unscrewed for me to open up and tinker with).

Still, the availablility of the A608 is the big problem. Get one if you can, but if you can't wait for it a 2MB SRAM card will do the job!

[TheGoose]

PCMCIA w/ CF card is faster than IDE:

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=51385

I do not follow the myths of PCMCIA, used as hard drive, fast. As memory, I dunno.

[motrucker]

Use PCMCIA "fast" RAM as a last resort. It is better than nothing - but not by much.
I tried one on an A1200 years ago, and was less than pleased with the results. The A600 is a different story though.

[a1200]

It's a shame the A608 can't automatically switch between 8 and 5.5MB when the PCMCIA slot is in use, or by use of a software patch like the DKB 1202. Changing the jumper all the time would get annoying for some people (probably not me though since my A600 is always unscrewed for me to open up and tinker with).

Still, the availablility of the A608 is the big problem. Get one if you can, but if you can't wait for it a 2MB SRAM card will do the job!

I couldn't see how to have the case open and closed several times on an A600 without the clips at the back breaking - bloody stupid design on the A600/A1200. I think screws would be much better!

[desiv]

Yes, and thanx again Cammy for the heads up on the $40 card.
Yes, I put one into my 1200.  Yes, it slows it down a bit.
However, it allows me to run many whdload programs that didn't work before at all.

At about $45 with shipping, I think it was worth it for now.

Would an RAM card be better?  Of course, but those are hard to find and seem to cost (so far at least) a lot more than double what I paid for for the SRAM card.

A processor accelerator with RAM would be great, but again, usually much much more.

So for now, I have the 2M PCMCIA SRAM card.  It's working for me now for what I need.  I do plan on getting some FAST RAM for my 1200 eventually.
But I can now afford to wait and see if I can get a really good deal.

And who knows, with the money I have saved, I might just keep my 1200 with the 2M PCMCIA and instead of a CPU/RAM card, get an FPGA Arcade or something???

desiv

[zombie10k]

It's a shame the A608 can't automatically switch between 8 and 5.5MB when the PCMCIA slot is in use, or by use of a software patch like the DKB 1202. Changing the jumper all the time would get annoying for some people (probably not me though since my A600 is always unscrewed for me to open up and tinker with).

Still, the availablility of the A608 is the big problem. Get one if you can, but if you can't wait for it a 2MB SRAM card will do the job!

interesting you mentioned this.. the A608 I recently bought from EBay is missing the jumpers, but has solder and some frayed wire on all 4 posts. I am wondering if the previous owner hooked up a switch to go between 8 and 5.5 megs during use of the PCMCIA slot.

I also have an 2Meg SRAM card from when the 600 was released. I'll have to do a speed comparision between the PCMCIA card and 608.

it's a shame most of the internal mods requires getting rid of the metal shield.

[Crumb]

@cammy

yeah, it would be nice to be able to configure the memory of the card using software... but it's great anyway. I talked with Vadim some time ago and he told me he was thinking about doing a similar card for A500 and also add an emulated Gayle IDE although I guess he's pretty busy with real life :_(

[Zac67]

While PCMCIA RAM is (nearly) fast enough for a 7 MHz A600 (16 bit bus), it puts a heavy brake on the A1200's 14 MHZ 32 bit CPU (<25% speed of trapdoor fast RAM).

In other words: it's OK for the 600 but it'll occupy the single slot that might also be useful for e.g. a NIC.

[alexh]

it's OK for the 600 but it'll occupy the single slot that might also be useful for e.g. a NIC.

A NIC on a 2Mbyte A600? Hardly useful.