| Tom Senna has put together a 3 slot expansion board. He has one
installed on his 500, and I believe recently installed on on a 1000.
I have one of the boards and have sucessfully run a Hardframe,
ASDG Dual Ser Port board, and a 2052 mem board w/no problems.
I had been unable to run this configuration in other expansion
boxes (2 board limit), and most would barf with the ASDG Ser board.
It seems like Tom has a good product here. The expansion box sits
at the end of a couple cables, there is a transition connector that
plugs in to the 86 pin bus and two ribbon cables plug into that.
This assembly protrudes approximately an inch or so on the left.
Currently, I have about 15" of cable to allow positioning of the
expansion in an unobtrusive place on my desk.
Some benefits of the board are:
1. Requires it's own power supply (+5, +12, -12) so it does not
load down the A500 supply.
2. Has 3 2000 style slots vs the normal 2 slot expanders on
the market.
3. Has built-in bus termination which cleans up the signals.
4. Connects to the 500 through cables; flexible placement of the
expander box.
Needless to say, I am happy with the performance of the board. I
use my 500 at work and was looking for a way to expand it without
having to buy another 2000. Tom mentioned an add-on board which
would allow a processor/video slot to possibly be added, but you
should talk to Tom about this (HPSTEK::SENNA if I remember right).
No, this hasn't been a paid announcement... It just seemed this
might be what some 500 owners have been looking for...
As an aside, I have tested the expansion with a CLtd Kronos, CLtd
2000, Hardframe, Phoenix, ASDG Dual Ser Board, A2052 Mem, Micron
Mem (sensitive). All work ok (Micron is sensitive in the 2000 also)
John
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