CompuServe Messages

Well, after some more experimentation I've found out why GVP '040 accelerators are slower than their 68030 counterparts: GVP's own non-standard engineering practice – AGAIN. It amazes me that every new priduct they come up with they seem to violate more and more standards then have to provide kludgges to get around them so the boards will work in an Amiga. If they don't like the standard CBM adopts or creates, maybe they should just build their owm machines, license ADos from CBM and hack away at it at will. The slow 040 is due to the library (68040.library) supplied by GVP, nominally to take care of trig and tanscendental functions (FLOPs not handled byt the on-chip 6882 emulation of the 68040). What they don't tell you is that apparently their apparently standard busting approach requires their unique code instead of the ADos cpu command to control things like burst/copyback mode, ROM image remapping and supervisor stack relocation. The last item there is the interesting one as it is necessary to move at the same time FastRom is turned on or the machine will end up running slower than an '030 (in fact slower than an '020). But, their default software installation does not use the options of their GVPCPUCTRL routine to move the stack. Even with the stack moved, the '040 is only as fast as an '030/882 combination with the undesireable side-effect that multi-taskin is not possible when the 68040.library math calls are being made. In the case of a rendering program this is a period of minutes to hours. It really bothers me that they can get away with tellin you on the phone and in their ads that the boards are "compatible" with all CBM stnadard compliant software when in fact it is not. CPU is CBM standard compliant software, but GVP in thier infinite wisdom had created a product that only responds to its cache/nocache option. You must use 68040.library called out of GVPCPUCtrl for FASTROM. And the only way to turn of the burst mode is to remove their library and reboot or move the jumper on the board. Yet nowhere do they makd a statement about the facat that their stuff is so nonstandard so that you can make an intgelligent buy decision. Ther extra serial port also does not work with any terminal software I have. AP, Platinum_Works, Platinum_Online… The SCSI that they provide externally is useless unless any devices connected to it contain thier own termination power (GVP hose not to implement pin 25 – they apparently know better than the standards makers and every other peripheral designer). But again, the only way for you or I to find this out is to buy their produt. On the phone they say "completely compatible" and the ads say SCSI compatible. Are PPS and RCS just as disreputable? Are there products asa kludgey? Man, it make me mad as H*%% to pay thousands for this stuff and then findout I've been had by some plaid-pants wearing nit-wit who heads off to a sleazy singles bar with my hard-earned money! wmc – via Autopilot!