#VXL-30 Accelerator?
6 messages in this thread
Anybody out there purchased the VXL-30 accelerator from Microbotics? I'm
interested in anything anyone can tell me about problems, quality,
compatibilty, etc.
Mark Kelley
70771,176
Mark,
I too am interested in the VXL-30 but like you cannot find any
useful information about them, but it does appear that they do not yet have
any memory boards actually available which limits thier potential greatly.
Also from what I have been told by dealers it seems that the boards that
are in development are 2 or 4 meg and that the boards cannot be expanded
i.e if you buy the 2 meg and want more you will have to throw it away and
purchase the 4 meg! not really ideal.
Another thing I would like to know is that if I purchased a 40mhz board
does the `882' run at 40 or 25 mhz?.
Looks like it has great potential Mark but as yet only seems like half a
system…..let me know if you find out more.
Paul
Paul
Plymouth,England
Paul,
I talked to a salesman at Briwall and she told me that 2 and 8meg boards
are available. She thought that the 2 meg board could be made into an 8
meg board by changing out the dram (of course that means wasting the 2 megs
already installed). Your correct when you say it is less than ideal. I'm
going to call Microbotics to get more details. I'll put your questions to
them also.
Mark Kelley
Mark,
Thanks , I will be very interested to know what you find out.
Paul
Paul
Plymouth,England
I called Microbotics today. They said they are not shipping yet. Dunno
what the real scoop is.
I have the VXL 40-MHz board. On balance, it is a good board, however, the
memory boards are not yet out (MicroBotics claims they are days away from
release, though) and that means the speed increase is not all that you can
expect (I figure I have about 5 wait states until I get the burst memory
board <g>). But they are pretty reliable and most commerical software
works just fine. Even the stuff that breaks often works if you turn off
the 68030 cache.
The coprocessors can run at any clock speed; if they run at a speed other
than that of the main chip, then you have to get a clock chip (about $10,
so no big deal). You need a PLCC coprocessor, though, which isn't as
common as the standard ones, but you can find them anywhere, it might just
take a bit longer to dig one out.
Bob