Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    The most popular seller is the "SupraRam 2000", I just bought this
    board for my Amiga 2000HD for $309.00 US from Abel Supply.  This
    included 2MB of 100ns memory installed by Abel.
    
    The board is fully socketed and has four layers, which most likley
    means it has a seperate power/ground layers which reduces noise.
    Nice thing about fully socketed vs. soldered in memory is that if
    one memory chip goes bad you don't have to unsolder 8 chips to
    replace the bad chip (this is only true when you can't get a 
    replacement chip of the same speed).
    
    The Commodore memory modules comes with 2MB soldered in with
    sockets for the additional 6MB.  The cost is also higher.
    
    -drew
    

    Also, don't only compare price!  Look at the service the company
    provides.  I originally was going to buy the Microbotics memory
    module, but discovered you have to PAY them just to look at a
    possible problem.
    
    Supra Corp (Albany, OR) provides much better service.

    Well, I have had the chance to look at both boards and I'm 
    more impressed with the Microbotics 8up. I can't say anything
    about the service of either company though. The 8up has fewer
    chips on it and runs cooler. I don't know the power usage of
    either though! The 8up doesn't use standard PAL's for the 
    Autoconfig stuff like most other boards. It uses SMT PLA's
    that have more gates and thus can eliminate other chips!
    The down side to this is repairability. Have you ever tried
    to desolder an SMT device? Just kidding of course...No Way!
    The up-side is that its more reliable than the socketed PAL's!
    
    Also the diags for 8up is much more impressive...the user interface,
    the flexibility, etc. BTW, both diags only test memory installed
    over the 1st meg! Bummer! 
    
    Anyway, for my money, its 8up hands down  8^)  (I crack myself up)
    

    Well, I just ordered mine from Computability for $319 delivered.
    Hope no one has Computability horror stories.

>    Hope no one has Computability horror stories.

I ordered PHASAR 4.0 from them a couple weeks back. Got it about 4 days
later.

John

    
    Last fall, I bough the Microbotics 8Up! with 0K.
    I finaly found few $$ and just bought few chips (4 megaBytes)
    
    	Works great, good quality.
    It comes with WB1.3 and some special test (MBRTest).
    The diag however do not work, I am NOT sure, but I beleive
    it is because the 1 Meg Fat Agnus chip.
    
    Can someone confirm this theory?
    
    Anyone saw a version that do works with the 1Meg Fat Agnus?
    
    I wrote to Microbotics, but this may take some time.
    However, the memory looks like very good.
    
    Vince.

    After almost 2 months, microbotics still haven't answered my 
    letter about their non-running diagnostic, but a friend just
    bought his 8up! and the MBRTest diskette now works with the new
    Fat agnus.  The new version is 3.11 if my memory serves me right.
    
       I wonder why they haven't shipped me the new version yet, if
    it is already in store.  Their service doesn't impress me.
    The diag seems pretty good.

    
    nit about the SupraRam 2000 - it has a jumper that must be set so that
    you can run the memory diagnostic (it disables the autoconfig)
    
    The 8up memory diagnostic simply reboots the computer so that it
    will come up with autoconfig disabled, then runs it's test.
    
    And yes, I've tried the 8up memory diagnostic on the SupraRam 2000,
    it said it couldn't find the ram board.  I suspect it is checking
    for the product id.
    
    -Dave

    I lookin at buying a SupraRAM 2000 with 4 meg for ComputAbility.  They
    have it advertised for $279 in DEC/90 Amiga World.  By far the best
    price I've seen.  Has anyone ordered from ComputAbility before?  Any
    problems or complaints?
    
    Does the SupraRAM 2000 come with diags to verify the memory or will I
    have to find a diag elsewhere?
    
    Thanks,
    
    ...Ed

re    <<< Note 3308.9 by CSSE32::SMITH "Reality, just a visible imagination?" >>>
>                        -< SupraRAM from ComputAbility >-

>    I lookin at buying a SupraRAM 2000 with 4 meg for ComputAbility.  They
>    have it advertised for $279 in DEC/90 Amiga World.  By far the best
>    price I've seen.  Has anyone ordered from ComputAbility before?  Any
>    problems or complaints?

	I recently (less than a month ago) got the Micro-botics 8-up
board from Abel, $233 with 2 Meg installed, I already had 2 Meg of
chips from a collective purchase that someone in the conference
organized, so now I'm up to 5 Meg total.  The Micro-botics board came 
with a diagnostic disk, the installation instructions were also on the 
disk.  I think the 1 meg by 1 chips are currently $98 per 2 meg from
Abel, so the equiv price from them would be $331 (+ S & H)  -  Yep,
sounds like a good deal. 

	In retrospect I wish I'd gone for a board with a SCSI
controller on it, then I'd be looking for a hard disk now - instead of
looking for a hard disk  AND  a SCSI controller.  I think that at the
time I was dreaming about getting a GVP 3001 package with 80 MByte 
Quantum sometime in the ......err, "indeterminate future".  So I'm 
sticking with 5 Meg in the Micro-botics board and hoping to get 4 Meg 
of 32 bit memory in the accelerator board - maybe when the price drops
a little, say in the new year, perhaps if dec stock climbs, it
depends, etc  (-:, (-: 

	R

    Yes, the SupraRAM board does come with diagnostics.  To use them, you
    move a jumper into diagnostic mode.  The board has been solid for me (2
    MB installed) although it is under-documented.
    
    Wes

I've ordered from Computability at least twice, if not more, and had no problems
whatsoever.

    
    One advantage to the Microbotics board, you don't need to move a jumper
    to run the diagnotics, they take care of that in software.
    
    Dave