A600 4MB RAM upgrade board (was 8MB)

[Jope]

Ok, I renamed the thread.

[duga]

You renamed it wrong, it's "only" 4 MB. Not 4 + 1 MB.

[kipper2k]

yaa, the 1mb was in reference to the onboard ram

[prowler]

Okay, so I renamed it again.

[Methanoid]

Rename it again as Kipper's Awesome666 4Mb Ram Board (IMHO)

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

Hi,

The ram chips are not that expensive, if you had to buy 2 for yourself and pay the shipping, tax etc it would cost more. I think the cost for the ram chips for me works out to about $4 each which includes all the cost, ie taxes, shipping, duties and possible defective ram chips that i may have to chuck.

If you buy your own and the chips are defective then you have to troubleshoot the board. You would not be sure exactly what the problem is so before you decide to build your own then think about the pitfalls and let me worry about them. I cannot guarantee home built boards, only boards that i build myself and test before i mail out.

If people want to build them then that's fine and i'll try to give them support if they do have problems. Some board traces are 006" so excessive heat can easily lift the traces. Don't attempt building this unless you are proficient at soldering and have good eyes/aids.

Well, I'm pretty good at soldering, but I'm not seeing any massive savings here by getting a bare board, so I might just get one pre-assembled (and tested!) and that's it

[Jope]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

yaa, the 1mb was in reference to the onboard ram

What if you have another 1MB in the trapdoor slot. Won't it become 4+2 in that case. ;-)

[orange]

yeah, right. lets not forget pcmcia ram too.

[duga]

Originally Posted by orange

yeah, right. lets not forget pcmcia ram too.

I guess the PCMCIA RAM might slow down the machine once you have the 68k RAM expansion installed? Time (and SysInfo) will tell.

If you have a A600 with 2 MB chip and 4 MB fast it's time go get a PCMCIA network card to get Internet access for e-mail, IRC and Aminet file download.

[Lord Aga]

This speed thing is on my mind also.
PCMCCIA RAM actually speeds up A600 a bit. At least that's what Cammy's tests say (I haven't had a chance to test one). So I am very interested what this 4MB RAM upgrade will do. Hopefully Kipps will do a Sysinfo run with and without expansion so we will know

[Zetr0]

The A600 uses the Motorola 68000 CPU, this is a 16/32 bit device.

*fun factoid
(the atari ST is called ST because of the Sixteen Thirty-two bit nature of the CPU)

Now the PCMCIA SRAM is 16bit wide without any CHIP contention on the Amiga, hence this works quite well as dedicated Fast RAM for the CPU, the same as if it was added to the CPU socket - since that are both 16 bits wide.

You gain a speed boost in processing of about 30% (from 0.644 MIPS to about 0.975 MIPS) - same as with a CPU memory board.


Now, adding memory via the 16bit PCMCIA port to an A1200 will slow the machine down as it has to translate from its 32bit path-way to a 16bit path-way, doing this this slows the machines ability to process down by about 10% (from 1.1MIPS stock, to 0.91 MIPS)

I hope that helps.

[Lord Aga]

Wow, I was expecting less then 30% boost. Would have been perfectly happy with 10-20%. Can't wait for the boards to be finished

[Methanoid]

I'm getting one of these (when my A600 arrives ) - for the money its hard to beat.

[kipper2k]

back home tonight, there are actually 3 different project boards (not just for the A600)that should be here either already waiting for me or here tomorrow so hopefully should be a good weekend. more info later.

[Methanoid]

MORBO demands MORE INFO NOW!!!

[keitha1200]

Would be interested in two

[Redwood]

Count me in for one too!

[mikele]

can I have one, too?

[kipper2k]

Hi everyone, i intend on making enough to hopefully enable everyone who wants one to get one. I'll buy in batches so i don't get caught with too many unsold.

[kipper2k]

Good news,

Board is working, showing the 4mb , i'm off to bed, had 2 wrong traces i had to fix. more info tomorrow