| I bought an Escort-2 from Abel just this past week and I am quite happy
with it. After installing the 2-meg board which came with the box (the
board is in fact a Pacific Cypress board, the same as in the Xpander
II), I powered it up and it has worked flawlessly since. I also have
the Kickstart Eliminator, and they work together just fine. ASDG-RRD
works, too.
The box pictured in AmigaWORLD is horizontal, but the box I received
is vertical. It's about 8" tall and 2" wide.
The memory board article in the same AmigaWORLD issue says the Xpander
II board is zorro-compatible after you cut three traces. The Escort
2 instructions confirm this.
Anything else I can tell you about, please ask.
-Larry
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Let's see:
1. Does it pass the buss?
2. Does it have its own power supply?
3. The ad says it auto-configures, does it? Also did they provide
addmem for under 1.1?
4. Have you seen or done any bench tests which confirm it is a
no wait state design?
5. How close is it to Mouse Port #2?
I just noticed you said it was the same board as the Xpander
II. I think this was looked at in Amigaworld, so I'll have a look
tonight. This might answer some of these questions, but first hand
is better anyhow...
thanks for your help,
steve mcafee
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| 1. It does pass the buss (although I haven't tried it).
2. It does not have its own power supply. A second board mounted
in the box would require its own supply. The backplane has a
connecter at the rear (and there is a hole in the back of the
box) for a 9-volt power supply. The manual says that a power
supply comes with boards purchased from them. Dunno but you
might be able to use a regular old 9-volt adapter (the manual
says 9 volts unregulated @1 amp- 1 amp is a lot).
3. It autoconfigures. It comes with a disk with WB 1.1 on it,
including addmem and other utilities (a "memory grabber", etc.).
The box mentions something about ram disk software, which I couldn't
find. I just use ASDG-RRD.
4. I have not seen or done any tests to verify it is waitstateless.
5. The front edge of the box is a good distance back from the rear
edge of the mouse port 2 connector, maybe 1.5". I have a Mimetics
sound digitizer that attaches with room to spare.
Yes, the Xpander II is reviewed in the May/June Amigaworld.
I should mention that Steve at Abel said that an ST506 board is
due out this month (and if you believe that...). Presumably Abel
would match the board with a cheap, fast, dense drive we've all
been drooling over. He mentioned $350 for the board.
-Larry
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