CompuServe Thread

<<If i find a used expansion board here with an 030 or even an 020, what should i look for? I know it will be an board to replace my 68000 chip, but is there an certain kind for an A500? Will one made for a 2000 work?>> For about $400 you can get the CSA Derringer 030/50 mhz accelerator with a 50 mhz FPU. It plugs into the 68000 slot and was designed for the A500, but also works in the 2000 (which I have mine in.) I bought mine mail order from DeVine Computers 1-302-738-9046. M-Tec makes an 020 for the A500 for about $100. If an accelerator is made for the 2000 to plug into the Processor Slot (like the Magnum 040 or the upcoming MacroSystems 060), then no it won't work in the A500—-cause it doesn't have a processor slot. There are plenty of things out there to plug into the A500, though. I'm surprised you couldn't find anything in Europe; I understand that they still make a lot of things for the 500 over there for gamers. Waiting for the MacroSystem's 060 accelerator to be released. Chris Shepard: 030/50 Toaster A2000 & MacIIfx via Emplant.

only 2000 models that work on the 500 are the csa derringers and platinums amiga users can get the cheap o mtec 500 turbo <100> it's a 020 with mmu i think

>I'm not willing to pay the overseas shipping charges and their VAT tax in Britton.< If you're a USA citizen, you don't have to pay VAT! It's only for CE citizens. Hope this helps Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80 >…olive oil is the way to go.<

Stephen, basically, the first thing you need to establish is exactly how much money you want to spend. (I pound this point a lot!) One you have established that, pick up a copy of Amazing and start asking questions both here and of the mail order houses about the characteristics of the various options at that price point. Since you probably want to spend as little cash as possible, you'll probably want to look at one of the boards that plug into where your current CPU is located. They tend to bypass a lot of the bus logic problems that plague the daughterboard slot. One thing to pay particular attention to is that if you are serious about wanting acceleration is that the board absolutely MUST have onboard RAM. I don't care who makes it or where it goes, without its own RAM chips clocked at near the same speed as the CPU, you can forget any real speadup in your computer. Onboard cache is sweet, but it lasts only for the first loop, unless your program is by Khalid. It simply takes too long to get something from inside the normal machine memory to make any other kind of acceleration worthwhile. Essentially what you want to have is to do most of the processing in the CPU and memory on the board you install and minimize the amount of processing that takes place off of that board. You should turn the rest of your machine into a big I/O (Input/Output) processor, just as the "big guys" (mainframes) do. So look at how many applications you run at a time, how much memory they occupy, and that should determine exactly how much 32 bit memory you should buy. And then, add half again, since we ALL overload our machines <g>. Anything less, and you'll be dissappointed. I hope this helps. Brian Been there…. Done that…. Better.