Apollo 1240 accl. card

[Anubis]

I heard that some users had problem with this cards.

I would like to know what kind of the problems and were they fixable.

[alexh]

1040? Never heard of it.

[T_hairy_bootson]

1240?

[killergorilla]

Yeah he means Apollot 1240 card

[Anubis]

Sorry!

It is 1240.

Apollo 1240 @ 32 mHz with 32 MB RAM accelerator

Can moderator fix the title?

[Paul]

Done

[Anubis]

That's what I call fast service!

Thank you Paul!

[alexh]

The problems that people have with their 1240's are due to incompatibilities with certain revisions of A1200 motherboards 1.D.4 and 2B

A1200 motherboard revision levels

When the A1200 was designed there were - as is common in designs of that complexity - some 'bugs' in the chip designs. Many of these were corrected by the time the main production runs started, but some were not, and in fact several bugs still remain in the latest revisions of the AA chip sets.

The main production board issued in the UK - Rev 1.D.1 - had onboard provision for hardware workarounds to fix the main bugs, notably bus timing problems in the Gayle and Budgie chips. In general these boards work fine with most combinations of expansion hardware and are the boards which we use to test A1200 expansion products on before shipment.

The later revisions of motherboards - particularly the revision 1.D.4 and 2.B are a different story however. These boards revisions were designed to take corrected versions of the Gayle and Budgie chips - and therefore were designed without provision for the earlier hardware workarounds. However, revised versions of the custom chips were never produced and as a consequence all but a few of the last of the AT/Escom manufactured motherboards were shipped without either bug-free chips or hardware workarounds.

In general these 1.D.4 & 2.B defects only make themselves felt when the A1200 is expanded by the addition of an '040 (or above) accelerator, high performance IDE hard drive/CDROM subsystems, Zorro slots or I/O expanders (PortPlus etc). Often any one such accessory will work, but two or more will not work in combination. Typical symptoms are an accelerator exhibiting instability problems, a graphics card failing to be recognised or a CDROM failing to show disk icons.

In response to these problems, and in conjunction with Amiga International, Eyetech has developed a set of hardware modifications applicable to 1.D.4 and 2.B motherboards. These modifications bring the 1.D.4 and 2.B boards up to 1.D.1 specifications and result in the correct and stable operation of the A1200 with most permutations of performance-enhancing accessories.

Also changes to the A1200's video circuitry to meet new EC interference emission standards means that some monitors exhibit horizontal 'tearing' of the screen image when using the PC-compatible screen modes of DBLPAL, DBLNTSC, Super72, Productivity etc. (Standard 15 kHz screen modes work fine). A modification to the A1200 main board to replace these suppression components with ones which allow the vast majority of PC-type monitors to function perfectly. However do check first - you may find that your A1200 functions fine with your monitor in these screen modes without further modification.

http://www.aminet.net/package.php?pa...1200_fixes.lha

http://www.ianstedman.co.uk/Amiga/am..._mobo_fix.html

[Zetr0]

To be honest Anubis, I have found Apollo cards to be more stable than blizzards (well those blizzards pre mark 4 i.e. 1's,2's and 3's) just an opinion based on 6 accelerators (4 Apollo's) 2 blizzards. Mk2 and Mk1

[alexh]

AFAIK there is only one version of Blizzard 1240

If you are talking about 1230 accelerators... it's kinda the wrong thread.

[Zetr0]

yeah yeah... eveyone loves a smart alexh

my bad, never had a blizzard 040 only 030's (as one smart alexh might of figured )

but still had Apollo 030, 040 and 060 all run as a dream with no issues.

I sold on the 040 many moons ago and the 060 got damaged in storage (waiting on Amiga Center to get back to my request)

so kinda the wrong thread... hmm yeah... but i still have you on my christmass card list

[alexh]

Breaking thread a little... Apollo 1260 is supposed to be a pile of poo... isnt it?

[Jope]

The apollo cards are unstable for some, also the SCSI doesn't work properly for everyone.

[JonSick]

When my bro and me had our amiga, we had tonnes of accelerator problems it almost put me off for life!

We had the Viper first and that card was absolutely terrible.

Next we exchanged for the apollo as gasteiner at the time wouldn't give us a blizzard (stoopid assholes!). But the apollo was a little better, but still very unstable.

We had some dude at the world of amiga show look over it. We were kinda worried when he started attacking our amiga motherboard with a solder pen, but dammit if it didn't fix the lot.

I have heard that the blizzards are the best for the miggys. I dunno. I got one on the way on an a1200 I've just bought so I'll know better then.

My mate has an apollo 1240 in his miggy, and it crashes all over the place - its in its box right now, amiga is just stock.

Anyone know what modification was made to our board to run this card properly? It didn't seem to make any difference to the miggy running stock, but the card was excellent afterwards.

Trying to remember, I think the guy who did it was either from Power Computing, or the guys who had the gold amiga 500. No idea of the name, though!

Jon

[Chain]

i had apollo 1240/40 long time ago, ansd i think it was really bad card, generates lot of heat, random resets and gfx bux even in pal screens (tried with 1d4 and 2b mobos). So I sold it! Now i have blizzard 1240 (old, from phase5) and it runs great...

[DDNI]

I have Apollo 1240 on a 1D4 mobo. No issues at all... It has been a fantastic card.

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by alexh

Breaking thread a little... Apollo 1260 is supposed to be a pile of poo... isnt it?

All i can honestly say my friend, is that for nearly 2 years my apollo 060 worked its little socks off

I used contsntly leave the machine on days even weeks downloading (on a 56k modem, where every byte was precious!!!) or rendering imagine scenes (some times both).

Point to mention though, the board revision was one of those that didn`t need a work around. the only trouble I have ever had with the 060 is that its was kinda fussy over the 32mb memory simm one puts in.

if it didn`t like the simm generally it wouldn`t boot, or would boot and show no other mem, but on the VERY rare occasion it would string up the ram but the whole thing would run like a pig and eventualy crash, reset.

I had about 4 weeks of trouble finding a compatible 32MB SIMM for my 060. thats really my only gripe. (2,4,8 and 16's most worked flawlessly)

I admit i never tried the scsi as i never had the module, it was a drat and blast it when i was just too late for one on ebay, it went for £15

[alexh]

But the Apollo SCSI was supposed to be very slow compared to a Blizzard. It had a Max RAM of 32-Mbyte opposed to the 128MByte of Blizzard. Memory accesses were supposed to be very slow.

But perhaps that made it very stable.

[Anubis]

Thanks all!

I had no idea that answers will be so mixed up.

[Zetr0]

LOL sorry Anubis..

@Alexh,
I did hear that the SCSI was slower from a couple of sources on IRC in the day, the MAX ram on an apollo (without scsi) is 64MB but you need add / solder another 72pin simm socket on the back of the card (like my 060 is going to have)

In all honesly the SCSI module doen`t have any way of adding more RAM to the card. so respectively the APOLLOS are cheaper in construction in that way as they have a limmited memory controller...

but realistically 64MB on an Amiga....

The Apollo boards for the 060 and 040 are identical with the excetption of a 3.5v regulater for the 060 bolted on the back as opposed to a straight 5v for the 040. I believe the firmware bios needs subtle upgrade but i could be wrong in this..

I know Amiga Center in Fance can actually do the modifcation that swaps out the 040 in favour of an 060 and updates any firmware