CompuServe Messages

Erik, Well, since you have Emplant you can almost tell what Amax IV is like because they are in many ways similar. I had an Emplant early last year and I'm sure the software upgrades have been significant since I had mine. Amax IV was very easy to install and set up. There is a chip replacement, if you have Amax II Plus, which is easy to do. The software installs with the CBM Installer, so that part is easy. Like Emplant, there is a small init-like program that must run in the startup-sequence. The preferences are set through the Amax startup program similar to Amax II, except that the preferences control interface is slightly different and there are a number of special options required, such as video, memory allocation, handling of Amiga/Scsimanager devices, etc. Amax IV boots up as did Amax II, except now you have 32 bit color support. Amax IV fools the Mac OS into believeiing it is a Quadra 950. Quicktime works as does color, but as I said before the color video is slow compared with Emplant. Swtiching between the Mac and the Amiga is as easy as Left-Amiga RightMouseButton. Memory mangement, etc. seems to be very much like Emplant. Amax IV is supposed to be 32-bit clean, but since I have a 3000 there is really no way for me to tell. The only memory management difference between Amax and Emplant is that Amax IV requires you to set aside an amount of memory into an INIT partition which the Mac will use to load inits during bootup. If you under-allocate the Mac will crash during boot. If you over- allocate any extra ram will be returned to the Mac's free memory pool. This is also similar to the allocation of ram for the Mac system. If you under-allocate the system ram parition, the boot may fail depending on the size of the system partition in the Mac. If you overallocate, the ram is still available. However, to multitask and have room for System 7.x and any big Mac program you had better install at least 12 meg of fast ram in the Amiga.