Amiga 1000 Escort 2 Zorro box questions

[save2600]

So I've got this external expansion box for the A1000 called the Escort 2 by Expansion Technologies:

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/search.pl?product=escort&company=

...looking in the manual and reading what Amiga.resource has to say, they mention either Zorro I or just plain Zorro. Thing is, inside the chassis are 2-100 pin slots. I thought the 100-pin Zorro slot is Zorro II and the 86-pin slot is Zorro I?

Reading a blurb on the BBOAH just now, it mentions that the 86-pin expansion bus of the A500 and A1000 are not officially Zorro I (news to me). But wait... then there's the A2000's accelerator bus or "Fast Slot" that happens to also be 86-pins. What a coincidence, huh? By way of an adapter, I bet they're compatible with A500 & A1000 expansion boards. Guess I could always look up their pin configs, but thought it might be easier just to ask if that's truly the case.

Real question though is about this Escort 2 box. If they're Zorro II, why in the hell did they design the box the way they did? Vertically... so no way a traditional Zorro II card could fit. I used to have this Dataflyer SCSI card that was this short/stubby thing. That would have fit inside the Escort.

[joekster]

My understanding (and I did have an asdg zorro-i chassis back in the day) is that zorro-i and zorro-ii are electrically and connerctor identical. BUT, the cards are different sizes. Zorro-i is square-ish and zorro-ii is rectangular...

[Terse]

Zorro expansion was always meant to be 100-pin. So your Zorro I backplane expansion is the same as the Zorro II backplane of the A2000.

The 86-pin edge connector was a quick and dirty cost reduction effort that can be brought back out into the full 100-pin bus.  

The card bay and slot layout likely looks odd becuse the early standard for Zorro had the cards in a different form-facor than the A2000 eventually got.

To see what Zorro was originaly meant to look like, check out a BytebyByte PAL expansion chasis.  It's a clone of the original miga design AFAIK.

[TheGoose]

Hmm, looking at the PDFs, easy to say it was more so design for memory cards. But I wonder the same, I have a similar box. Now I gotta go dig the thing up and take a look.

Dang you Save.

[save2600]

To see what Zorro was originaly meant to look like, check out a BytebyByte PAL expansion chasis.  It's a clone of the original miga design AFAIK.

Thanks Terse... yeah, weird. Never saw that before!

Okay, thanks for the info fella's. Looks like this expansion box will end up being more useful than I thought. Shouldn't be difficult to procure another little SCSI card to throw in there then.  

As an aside, the A1000 Microbotics expansion system I bought from LoadWB does have a handful of bad RAM chips so I took the ones off the Zorro I board inside the Escort 2 and sure enough, all is fine inside the Microbotics. Just wish there was an easy way to tell what RAM chips are blown so I could at least populate the board inside the Escort with some kind of 512k or 1MB config.

BTW: the battery backed calendar inside the Microbotics is completely useless. Doesn't accept years past 2010.  :mad:

[TheGoose]

Mine is a Pacific Peripherals but looks a helluva lot like yours. I have no power supply for it, but think I can get around that. What does your power supply say, the output, Save?

[save2600]

My case is sexier. :knuddel: :lol:  

Power supply reads: 5v DC (of course) 1 amp and the center being positive.

BTW: what's with the cooling fins near the back of yours?? Is there a regulator screwed to it or something? If that's the case, I doubt our power supplies would be compatible. The original that's supposed to go with yours probably outputs 12v DC... ??

[TheGoose]

My case is sexier. :knuddel: :lol:  

Power supply reads: 5v DC (of course) 1 amp and the center being positive.

BTW: what's with the cooling fins near the back of yours?? Is there a regulator screwed to it or something? If that's the case, I doubt our power supplies would be compatible. The original that's supposed to go with yours probably outputs 12v DC... ??

Yeah, she's uglier and has fins and stuff stickin out but, you know, I couldn't turn her out into the streets or nuthin. :lol:

Good point about the the power! I need more info, haven't been able to find it. Love to know how yours works out if you get a SCSI card or other thing working with it.

Very cool!

[save2600]

Yeah, she's uglier and has fins and stuff stickin out but, you know, I couldn't turn her out into the streets or nuthin. :lol:

:rofl:

[psxphill]

Real question though is about this Escort 2 box. If they're Zorro II, why in the hell did they design the box the way they did? Vertically... so no way a traditional Zorro II card could fit.

When it was designed there probably were no traditional zorro 2 cards.
 
IIRC The zorro backplane came out of one of the a1000 manuals. Whether it was an afterthought or a cost reduction to leave it out of the a1000 I don't know.
 
The zorro2 backplane in the a2000 was based on the zorro1 backplane, but commodore germany liked the PC form factor more. I thought they weren't 100% identical (like the 86 pin connectors aren't 100% identical) but they are close enough for most cards.

[pwermonger]

hard to tell if they "liked" the PC form factor more, or if it was because they intended to have ISA slots, or simply because they had the casework already designed for the never released CBM 900 Unix machine.

I have a feeling it was the ISA reason, because of the intended bridgeboard replacing the Sidecar and need for ISA slots it made sense to conform the Amigas sots to the same form made all the easier because Commodore never really released any ZorroI stuff. The intent to have ISA likely dictated the ability to use the existing 900 case more than the 900 case dictating the Zorro II change.