CompuServe Thread

I received my Techni-Soft 2MB RAM board Saturday via Federal Express Saturday delivery. It came packaged in an imposing box, at least the size of the Amiga CPU. The board itself was in a plastic slipcase, which made it somewhat difficult to remove without spraying plastic "peanuts" all over the place. I was mildly surprised to find the letters "RAM-BOard" printed loudly across the front of the unit (I heard about the board via CIS and didn't see the magazine ads until recently). With the board were a manual, a registration card and a disk. The manual was 4 single-sided sheets of typeset or laser printed paper, with sections on installation, configuration with KickStart/WorkBench 1.1, problem software, adding additional RAM, and a short description of all the software on the disk. It also gave their technical support number (which is their main number). I found the manual fairly clear and concise, but I've been steeped in the stuff for too long to be a really good judge… After I got the board next to my Amiga, I scared up my tools. Removing 6 cover screws revealed a large circuit board and a small power supply. The main features of the board were a bank of 64 SIP RAM chips (single inline package — I >think< that's what they were…), a daughterboard labeled "Refresh logic" and 3 sockets for adding additional 2MB units. There were 3 or 4 patch wires on the board. Reassembling the unit, I squeezed it into the crawlspace between my Amiga and my monitor/TV. It was slightly narrower than the Amiga, maybe 20% less deep, and about 1.2" high. The side-bus adapter was an exposed T of 86-pin edge connectors, dangling from two thick straps of ribbon cable. I removed the plastic plate from the Amiga and inserted the bus connection easily. Then I plugged it in with the provided power cord. The manual warned me to power the RAM-BOard on before the Amiga, so I did that. Booting with 1.2 (beta 7), the WorkBench started to boot, but then crashed. I tried again, and this time it reached the WB screen, showing just under 2.3MB free. Unfortunately, it crashed before I could do much more. I figured that I would be able to boot 1.1 because it wouldn't try to use the memory unless I told it to. 1.1 came up just fine. I put the Techni-Soft disk in DF1: and listed it. There were configuration programs config2, 4, 6 and 8; addmem; a refresh test and memory tests for each size; and some CLI scripts for configuring the board under 1.1. The 2MB memory test came up and immediately started printing errors. It seemed that the $10 bit of some words it tested was being forced to 0. Those words were patterned in a way that made me suspect a single chip. That was about all I recognized, though. The test also kept going after it hit $400000. The refresh test wasn't any happier. I called T-S and left a message on their answering machine, describing the problem. On Sunday afternoon I received a call from Robert Briggs of Techni-Soft. He explained that two changes had been made to the board since they had sent it, one of them having to do with the mounting of the refresh daughterboard. He offered to send me a reconfigured board UPS blue on Monday, and to have UPS pick up the other one later next week. He also said that the other group purchase orders would be shipped starting Tuesday and possibly running through the week. T-S seems to be having their fair share of problems, but they have reacted well given the apparent size of their work force. They are also offering a bargain that may give a considerable boost to the Amiga community. The company offers a 30-day money back guarantee and a 5-year (I think) warranty. I think this is going to work out pretty well. – Bela