Conference hydra::amiga_v1

I think Imtronics (was Ronin(sp?) Hurricane) makes a  68030 board for the
A500 now.

john

    Somewhere within these notesfiles I posted the benchmarks on my A500
    with the CSA midget racer and a 25Mhz 68882.  Generally the performance
    increase was between 40-120% depending on the application.  If the
    application was designed for use with a FPU multiply the above by 6 or
    7.  The midget racer works with all the programs I have, PD and
    commercial, although I haven't tried playing any commercial games.
    
    As stated above I haven't tried to boot up any floppy based commercial
    games because I do not think they will work with the '020 and, from
    what I've heard, if they do run they run fast.(no proof).  My only
    complaint is that I cannot switch between 68000 mode and '020 mode like
    the Hurricane 500 or Mega Midget racer ('030w32bit mem,etc...).
    
    mark

    
    CSA, maker of the aforementioned Midget racer, is now offering their
    MegaMidget.  This board has 16 or 25 MHz 68030 with or without the FPU
    and can accept up to 4(?) megs of fast 32 bit ram.
    
    What's interesting is the use of a special 512K bank of SCRAM that the
    ROM image is copied to for super-fast access.
    
    For more info, contact Steve Riker at CSA.  I don't have the address
    and phone at the tip of my tongue, but I posted a note long ago
    regarding a special deal to DEC employees.  A 'DIR/TITLE="*MIDGET*"'
    should get you the info.
    
    Ed.

    
    Re -.1
    
    I forgot to mention that the MegaMidget has the MC68000 onboard for
    complete fall-back compatibility with games and naughty software.
    
    Ed.

    
    
    	68030 and 68000 , 
    		Wait a minute.... I thought the whole idea of using the
    68030 in the A3000 , was because it was 100% compatible with the 68000
    wheras the '020 was not......
    
    	How much are the Processors and co-processors on their own..?
    
    
    				- Pete -

    
    	And Now from the people who offered the 20-Card :-
    
    	The A5000 card.......
    
    	It contains a 68020 running at 16,20 or 25 MHz price in England 
    �399,�499 or �599 and upto 4-Megs of 32-Bit RAM
    
    	Supports Co-Processor at upto 50 MHz and has a 68000 for fall
    back...
    
    Upto 30% faster than the 20-Card 
    
    Contact Solid State Leisure on 0933 650677
    
    	(All info taken from New Computer Express )
     Steve G

    The CSI accelerator board is still available (as is all of the CSI
    stuff) from DigiFeX.  I think that they are in Oregon City, OR.
    
    TOPGUN

    >>DigiFex == CSI
    		 ---
    
    CSI??? It should be CMI (Creative Micro Inc., I think....)
    
    Regards,
    
    	Kari

	A friend of mine in the UK called the other day asking about how to
take the clock frequency of the Amiga's master clock (28Mhz) and get it down
to 14Mhz.  It seems he has come across the following project and wants to
try and implement it.  It comes with a picture file also but I didn't
recieve that very well when we did a long distance Xmodem transfer (good
thing he was calling me!).

	I'd like to pass along your comments out there back to him regarding
this project.

	Another question - Is there a multinational service like set up like
GENIE or COMPUSERVE or do those services already have a means to send
electronic mail to the UK?  I'd like to avoid lots of long distance calls if
this means of communication proves habit forming.  If he only worked for DEC... 





          Amiga 500 processor accelerator project
                                        by Leslie Ayling
                                        p.o. box 334
                                        GLEBE 2037

     Welcome once again to cheapskates corner, where we try and buy the world
for a song. This time around we shall increase the speed of the processor to
just over 14Mhz, double the standard speed, for under $25 !!!!

     You will need the following -

1. an MC68000p12A 16MHz processor. These are available in Sydney from VSI 
   electronics, 16 DICKSON ave ARTARMON 2064 ph (02)4398622  cost is $18.90 plus
   tax ($22.68 tax inc.)
2. a 74F74 D type flip flop. Geoff wood at Lane Cove or Rod Irving should keep
   them.
3. a few short lengths of hook-up wire.
4. a SPDT switch.

Refer to the accompanying circuit diagram
Note: Keep the leads to the switch as SHORT as possible.
The circuit is relatively straight forward. the 74F74 is wired as a positive
edge triggered divide by two circuit, which provides the alternate clock
frequency of 14.18Mhz approxiamately. The old 68000 8Mhz processor is removed
and replaced with the 16Mhz version which has is clock pin (15) bent out
horizontally so we can connect our new circuitry to it. The SPDT switch either
connects the normal 7Mhz signal or the new 14Mhz signal to the 68000's clock
input.

The switch can be changed while the machine is on, however it will simply lock
up.Just reset as usual from the keyboard once you have changed speed.

I have a revision 5 board with new 1.3 roms which cope with the new speed quite
happily. Using the program CRAMDEN-SI from MEGADISC 10 to compare the
difference the mod makes : the standard position gives-

performance relative to amiga 1000 : 1.0
performance relative to ibm pc/xt  : 3.2

On high speed the performance is-

performance relative to amiga 1000 : 1.7
performance relative to ibm pc/xt  : 5.2

so roughly a 70% increase in performance.
Even though the clock speed is doubled to the processor, the performance dosen't
increase to 2.0 because the agnus and the other support chips are still running
at the same speed as before thus holding the processor up for a slightly higher
percentage of the total time than before.

This mod basically gives the same capability as the CMI accelerator board
priced at $399 in sydney, with the exception that it isn't software controlled.
However when it's only costing 1/16th the price one cant really complain!!.

If you have any queries or would like the mod installed in your machine, either
contact me direct or via Megadisc.

The machine should work on the 1000 and 2000 however the pin numbers may be
different.I suggest you compare the a500 schematics with that of your machine
and make note of the differences.

Hope this is of some help...........regards   Leslie Ayling.

#addendum#
One machine this mod was carried out on had trouble with the one of the disk
drives at high speed. It appeared to be trying to step the head of the internal
drive faster than the drive could physically move and refused to boot.When I
connected a drive with a 5ms track-track access time and booted off of it the
problem dissappeared.

I have a patch for this problem for normal DOS disks to slow down the step
rate which sits in the boot sector.It may be a problem however for protected
software or non-standard boot sector type programs.Don't despair however the
patch is very small and should fit in somewhere anyway.Just drop me a line.

If your machine exhibits the problem, the patch disk is available DIRECT from
me with various usefull disk speedup utils and a Trackdisk step-rate alteration 
program, plus loads of other priceless information on gurus, reset program
flow, diagnostics all on an ARP1.3 system disk for the princely sum of $5 !!

There should be no problem with HARD disks however if anyone encounters any
please let me know........thanks.

I think someone else has already tried this 'accelerator' out. I remember notin
that the originator of the design was from Sydney (get a buzz when I see
stuff originating from this end of the world).

I do seem to recall the person(s) that tried it did not have very satisfactory
results. Anyone remember who it was ?

Mike

    If you are still serious about trying it, I have one of those 16Mhz
    68000 on the shelf, cheap.
    
    Jean
    

    I was reading a review of the A5000 accelerator in Amiga Format (UK
    mag) the other day. It sounds nice.
    
    Anyone lashed out and bought one, and if so what is there impression.
    
    Mike
    	(who likes the sound of the MegamidgetRacer, but note the price)

Here's my thoughts on the A5000 . Also included are the results of 
running every benchmark I could find and any results of these benchmarks I 
could find for other machines for comparison. 

                    A5000 Review.

Let me start at the beginning .I was one of the origeonal people who purchased
the 20-Card from Solid State Leisure (A small company based in the north of
England). This card was the predicessor of the A5000. I ordered my card when
the ads for the 20 card first started appearing in Amiga Format magazine.
I spend about 3 months after the initial order ringing SSL every week to find
out the status of the board . The ads were in fact placed before the boards 
were ready to ship .They provided a variety of excuses ranging from "the
board is due to finnish cad layout this week and we'll have boards ready to
ship 2 weeks after that" to "all our boards are at an exhibition and they ship
next week ". I live in Ireland and I eventually received a letter from the
customs people saying my board had been siezed as there was no green sticker
on the out side of the goods. It took another month to get the board into
my hands.  I wouldn't mind but I explicitly told them in the order and on the 
phone not to forget the green sticker. If that wasn't bad enough they also left
the green sticker off the A5000 board that I subsequently recieved. 

The 20-card gave me 2 problems. Firstly it had no 68000 fall back mode which I
I was led to believe it would have and secondly it would not run with my HDA506
hard disk system. I got read write errors when trying to access my hard disk
which were apparently due to the 20-card not stretching the cycle long enough
when doing accesses to non-chip ram. I could "eventually" get the hard disk 
to work by making sure it's driver and buffers were loaded into chip ram .
This of course cut my hard disk access speed to a fraction of what it it was.
The solution I got from SSL was "Oh yeah we've heard of people with hard disk
problems , what you want is our new A5000 card . It's compatible with 
peripherals because this time is was designed for compatibility !".
It took several more months for the A5000 design to materialise and a couple
more for me to recieve mine.

The A5000 comes with one meg of 32 bit memory included in the price and with a
16Mhz 68020. It has sockets for an additional 3 meg of ram to be added to
bring it up to a total of 4 megs of 32 bit ram. The A5000 also has 2 problems.
First off , I have a pheonix 2 slot zorro-II expander hanging off the 86-pin
expansion bus on my A500. This has a microbotics 8up memory module populated
to 2 meg with Simms. This memory expansion will not work with the A5000 .
SSL say "we are aware of problems people are having with 8up boards , what you
need is the latest version of the A5000 , rev 3A." This is being layed out at 
the moment and will apparently be available in a couple of weeks. It seemingly
talks to things on the expansion bus through a buffer which will cure all these 
expansion troubles. I eagerly await it's arrival.

The second problem is when you try to expand the memory beyond the 1 meg
supplied. The memory the board is supplied with is Goldstar Cmos 256kx4 rams.
However when I populated the board with Nec Cmos 256kx4 rams I could only get
it to work with a maximum of 3 meg not 4meg. SSL say "oh you should have used
Goldstar rams , it works with 4 meg of Goldstar rams guaranteed. There is a 
problem with the rev 2 A5000 (the one I have) the autorouter didn't lay out
the board properly .It only joined the ground pins on the rams vertically
whereas it should have done them horizontally as well ,forming a grid .
what you want is our rev 3 A5000 it won't have this problem ."

After much trial and error and reading everything on ram I could find I now 
have my rev 2 A5000 working with 4 meg of Nec ram. I'm not sure which of these
things is responsible for the problem but I'm not undoing them one at a time 
to find out.

Firstly I carefully soldered wires horizontally between all the ram grounds.

Secondly I hardwired (with thick wire) the +5v and ground buses on the A5000
to those on my A500 to prevent voltage drops on the board.

Thirdly I added a microfan to the top of the board to cool one of the pals
which was hot.

and lastly I forgot to mention there are holes on the edge of the board where
pull up resistor packs were used to pull up the address lines and some control
signals such as ras and cas etc. These resistor paks had once been inserted
but were subsequently cut out at the factory. SSL say these were no longer 
needed as they went with  series termination instead of pullups. I found
however that I needed to solder in a 10k 10 way SIP into one of the five 
locations to get 4 megs to work properly.(in combination with the other 
3 fixes).

As an experiment I tried running the board at 20Mhz and 24Mhz as I had these
crystals and a 25Meg 020 lying around. The board worked up to 20Mhz with
2 meg of memory and up to 24Mhz with just 1 meg. I ran benchmarks at these 
speeds and have included them below. I'm going to get a loan of a storage scope
and find out just what is going on with the memory termination. I feel confident
that I will be able to get the board working at 20Mhz with 4 meg of memory
and perhaps up to 24Mhz with 4 meg also.

Here's some benchmarks .The ones for anything but the A500 A5000 or 20-card
are just copied from places on the net , and the table isn't full cos these
are the only no's I have access to.


Machine    A500  A2620  20-card  A5000/16  A5000/20  A5000/24  AdSpeed  Lucas

Mips       0.78  4.14    4.52     4.94       6.00      7.26       -      5.26
cpuspeed   98%   347%    495%     530%       634%      761%    
speed 2.0  1.01  3.44    3.32     4.08       4.9       5.89
DhRyr      111s  34s     33s      28s        23s       20s
sieve      45s   12.5s   12.3s    6s         5s        4s
SI2        1.0   4.6     5.5      5.6        7.1       7.8
AIBB
WritePixel 100%   -      249%     249%       256%       -       146%
Dhrystone  100%   -      291%     312%       373%       -       169%
sort       100%   -      333%     364%       426%       -       180%
sieve      100%   -      276%     425%       505%       -       178%
savage     100%   -      320%     408%       477%       -       164%
matrix     100%   -      324%     410%       490%       -       192%  


---------------------------------------------------------------------
(take into account some of these comparisons are with a 68030's)

Sysinfo V1.94
                                                 
A5000 relative to this machine                |   A5000 @16Mhz @20Mhz @24Mhz
                                              |
A500 (no expansion - has chip ram contention) |         4.87   5.79   6.93
B2000 with extra ram                          |         3.71   4.41   5.28
B2000 with GVP A3001                          |         0.45   0.54   0.65
B2000 with A2630                              |         1.20   1.43   1.71
B2000 with A2620                              |         1.41   1.68   2.01
A3000 @16Mhz                                  |         1.30   1.55   1.86
A3000 @25Mhz                                  |         0.76   0.91   1.09



some of these numbers look a bit dodgy to me so they should be taken with a 
large pinch of salt.


I have to say after all the hassle I've had it's been worth it. The speed
up is great. Things are so much smoother , even my hard disk zips along .
I got an updated driver for my HDA-506 so it's sped up in 32 bit mode.
If I give my hard-disk 500 buffers of 32 bit ram I can get speeds of
up to nearly 1.7 and 1.8 MEG a second write and reads according to diskspeed
3.0 . While I doubt these numbers .The whole system including the hard disks 
really does go like lightning .

Some points I didn't mention .The fallback mode on the A5000 is software
controlled .You have no hardware switch. When you want to use the 68000
you boot up and click the fallback icon , this reboots the machine with the 
68000 .Allthough this isn't as convenient as a switch it does work reliably.

Another point to mention is the quality of construction. The A5000 is a hand-
soldered double sided PCB .It most definitily never saw a solder bath. 
I think this is inline with the nature of the company , this is their first 
project of this kind and the're on a steep learning curve. I think the quality
and reliability of their products will improve as they learn from their 
mistakes. (Although I do resent being used as an unpaid design verification 
tester).
I think this is an important consideration , especially when trying to weigh 
the A5000 against something like a megamidget racer. The midget racer is a 
mature product of quality SMT construction. I have also had many dealings
with Bytes and Pieces who I think are the sole distributors for midget racers 
in the UK , they are a very professional outfit .They send out stuff quickly
and provide good customer support .


At the end of the day I'd have to say I think you get what you pay for
the A5000 provides a very cheap entry level accelerator . It's becoming
much more stable but as I say there are other important considerations to
take into account.

Hope this helps...

Steve.

If you need any more info you can ring me at DTN 826-2321

Thanks for the full in-depth review Steve,

You get what's you pay for I supose.

Still, I would assume they are sorting out some of the design issues, though
one of you hacks sounds a bit extreme - the microfan. Does that indicate
a bad basic design, or a poorly implemented one.

I'll certainly keep the product in mind, but at the moment I don't have the cash,
and after your comments I would be very unlikely to mailorder a board from the
UK. Matbe if they get an Aussie distributor.

I like the sound of it over the original MidgetRacer as that didn't have the
68000 fallback, and I don't really want to go to the expense of a '030 based
accelerator.

I supose will I'm waiting the products will mature, new ones will come out etc.

thanks again
	Mike - Adelaide, Australia

	p.s. Love to call you, but down have access to DTN)

    Hi,
    
    anyone had any experience with the MicroBotics VXL 30 ?
    
    The "Information Release" sheet I have would seem to indicate that it
    is a MegaMidget Racer copmetitor. 
    
    It includes socket for the 68000 for fall-back mode, the ability have
    another board tacked on for 32 bit memory etc.
    
    thanks
    	Mike

          <<< FRSOLD::IS$NOTES:[NOTES$LIBRARY]AMIGA_REVIEWS.NOTE;1 >>>
                     -< comp.sys.amiga.review - postings >-
================================================================================
Note 24.0              REVIEW: Microbotics VXL 68030 Card             No replies
FRSOLD::ZIMMERMANN "[email protected] (Da" 93 lines   6-OCT-1991 13:44
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article: 61
Path: nntpd.lkg.dec.com!news.crl.dec.com!deccrl!caen!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!menudo.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu
From: [email protected] (David Gilbert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: Microbotics VXL 68030 Card
Keywords: hardware, accelerator, 68030
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 3 Oct 91 22:52:18 GMT
Sender: [email protected] (Jason L. Tibbitts III)
Reply-To: [email protected] (David Gilbert)
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Jason L. Tibbitts III
Lines: 78
Approved: [email protected]
 
 
    First thing I'll say is... wow! $429 cdn (Electronics 2001, Toronto).  This
little card is a 68EC030 (optional full 030) at 25Mhz.  It has a socket for
math (although it's PLCC), and attachments for 32bit ram.
 
THE PACKAGE, AND INSTALLATION OF SAID.
    Well... documentation is sparse... three sheets of 8.5X11 paper... but I
don't think they could have written much more without getting too verbose.
The installation of the card is easy, but they used the type of socket that
consists of little round holes surrounded by little beads of plastic.  I had
trouble getting the 68000 into them as they could be a micron wider... :)...
Actually, my 68000 was not in good enough shape to fit into the card, so I
installed my 68010 instead.  The card didn't seem to mind.  I'll probably pick
up a 68000 at the Commodore show in December... they're usually about $7!
 
FIRST IMPRESSION.
	Holy boot time batman!  Damn thing booted before the monitor warmed up!
...even floppy access is faster.
 
CURRENT SYSTEM.
	-Microbotics 68030@25Mhz - no ram - no math
	-GVP series II hd w/ 105meg 19ms drive.
	-4.5meg of ram (1meg chip) on ICD board.
	-original IBM XT power supply ($30!!!)
 
WHAT IS IT, DAMN IT!?!
	There was some confusion among programs as to what the darn thing was!
Xoper thought it was a 68020/68881!  GVP's little system thing correctly
identified the 68030 with inactive MMU, but it let me look at all the 
non-existent MMU registers anyways!  It also was under the impression that
both caches were always on, but you can check it out correctly using the
cache control register query.  SetCPU, and SetVXL (both included with the
package) identified everything correctly, and performed predictably!
 
THE FIRST GURU!
	Well, all was not right in Amigaland last night.  I tried turning on the
data cache, and neither my HD or any of my software seemed to have any problem
with it.  So: I put it into my startup sequence!  What a spectacular crash!
AdRAM (included with the ICD RAM thingie) was under the impression that I had
ram all over the place!  It started adding ram that I never knew I had 
(ended up with about 10 meg I figure!)... anyways... it turns out that it's
having the data cache on that confuses this little program... so the fix is
to have SetVXL (or SetCPU) after AdRAM in your startup sequence.  There is,
by the way, no physical conflict between the AdRAM daughter board for the Gary,
and the VXL 30 board.
 
OVERALL...
	Compile time of TeX went from 30mins to 7mins, but Manx's asm crashed
on the last file (where it didn't before...) with a pointer out of range... 
I'll have to talk to Manx about this.  Professional Page zips along, and
floppies seem to have a perceptible speed increase of icon display.  LHArc was
pleasing, but I just can't wait for LZ now!
 
LEMMINGS...!
	You probably did a double-take at this last heading... well it just has
to be said that Lemmings works better with an '030!  No, it doesn't run at
speed 78... (that could be fun!)  But it does load faster, and the pauses
between screens are almost instantaneous!  And... when you nuke 'em... they
blow up faster!  Hat's off to Psygnosis for creating a game that works
well on another processor!  (and I'm not talking '286 trash, either!)
 
Documentation: 		B
Software: 		B+
Hardware: 		A
Cost: 			A+
Overall:  		A+
 
Dave.
-- 
David C. L. Gilbert                        |   Something witty should here.   |
[email protected]                        |                                  |
[email protected]          |-->Only Amiga makes it possible   |
    Environment Canada                     |                                  |
-- 
Jason L. Tibbitts III  | Moderator: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
"Blob Shop Programmers:| Send submissions to [email protected]
 Because We're Bored!" | Check comp.sys.amiga.reviews for submissions
Disclaimer: Opinions...| guide, disclaimers, etc.               Fnord.

Article 64 of comp.sys.amiga.reviews:
Path: sousa!nntpd.lkg.dec.com!datum.nyo.dec.com!pa.dec.com!decwrl!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!menudo.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu
From: [email protected] (Barry McConnell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: Solid State Leisure A5000-16 68020 Accelerator
Keywords: hardware, accelerator, 68020
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 31 Oct 91 05:43:14 GMT
Sender: [email protected] (Jason L. Tibbitts III)
Reply-To: Barry McConnell <[email protected]>
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Jason L. Tibbitts III
Lines: 280
Approved: [email protected]

[The Solid State Leisure A5000-16 is an affordable 68020 accelerator with
many of the standard features such as 32 bit expansion RAM and 68000
fallback mode.  It does have its quirks and shortcomings, though. JLT3]

[This review previously appeared in comp.sys.amiga.[hardware,misc], but I'm
reposting it here for the sake of those who are interested but don't follow
those groups.  JLT3]

Here is a review of Solid State Leisure's A5000-16 68020 accelerator board,
which I got for my Amiga 500 a week ago. Before I start, I just want to
mention that I had to wait almost ten weeks for it to arrive, and
telephoned them (long-distance) seven times during that period. What
happened was that they sent out one board by registered post, which never
got to me. Since it was insured, they sent me out a second one, as they
would be able to claim compensation for the first one. The second one never
got to me either. In actual fact, both were eventually sent back to SSL by
Irish Customs (I live in Ireland; SSL are in England, which is the country
next-door to us; look at a map...), who for some unknown reason, refused to
send it on to me. I can only assume that SSL made a mess of the Customs
declaration docket on the parcel, as I have received a lot of other goods
from England in the past, including a hard drive, with no problems at all.
Anyway, they finally sent the third board out by courier, which did get to
me.
 
 
The hardware:
-------------
 
16.67Mhz 68020, with space for 4Mb of 32-bit RAM (comes with 1Mb as
standard, uses 256*4 80ns DRAMs, which is handy if you have some in your
A590/A2091), space for a 68881/2 maths coprocessor, but no MMU. All this
sits on one small board, which plugs into the 68000 socket in your
A500/A2000. The original 68000 chip fits onto the accelerator board, and is
used in the 68000 fallback mode.  You don't need a new PSU to use this
board, even if it means you'll end up with 5Mb inside your Amiga, as the
extra RAM chips take a minimal amount of power.
 
There is an option to copy your Kickstart ROM into fast 32-bit RAM, and the
board will automatically remap all the Amiga's ROM accesses into RAM, so
anything which relies on the OS routines (including windows) will run much
faster. This currently only works with 1.2/1.3 Kickstart ROMs, but an
update to the software supplied will support KS2.0, and will be available
soon.
 
The memory is *not* autoconfig; you must run an AllocMem program in your
Startup-Sequence, which searches for 32-bit memory, and adds any found to
the system's memory list.
 
 
Installation:
-------------
 
Probably not for those who don't feel confident about ripping chips out of
their Amiga (I got a friend to do it for me). The first time we switched on
with the '020 installed, the screen went a worrying shade of green, but
this was probably because the board wasn't properly seated in the socket.
(As an aside, ever wanted to know what happens when you turn your Amiga on
with no 680x0 chip at all? - Absolutely nothing! (You see a grey screen.)
8-) )
 
I was able to use some of the RAM chips from my A590, and these go into the
4 1Mb banks on the board, so you can have from 1-4Mb of 32-bit RAM. (I have
a total of 3Mb of 32-bit RAM, 1Mb of 16-bit fast RAM, and 1Mb of chip RAM,
giving 5Mb altogether.)
 
 
Speed:
------
 
SSL claimed a 500% (5 times) speed increase, and true enough, most
benchmarks will give this. Mips gives a result of 4.969519 (as opposed to
0.847750) which is almost six times faster. AmigaBench gives a result of
3561 Dhrystones/sec (as opposed to 1012), but the optimised 68020 version
gives 5694. The various benchmark programs included with the board (CalcPi,
Ronin CPU speed, Whetstone, another version of Mips) give 4-5x speed
increases.
 
However, benchmarks like these are not what it's all about, so I did some
"real-world" tests, as these are the ones you will find useful/interesting:
 
 
                                             68000   68020   Speed increase

Time to LhArc DPaint to RAM:                 3m00s   1m06s   2.7
Time to un-LhArc it                          1m09s   0m22s   3.1
Time to PowerPack a 200K file                1m53s   0m34s   3.3
Time to 'echo' a 400K sound sample in AM3    2m43s   0m50s   3.2
Time to decompress a disk using DMS          4m20s   1m26s   3.0
Time for HamSharp to convert a pic GIF->IFF  1m35s   0m30s   3.1
Time for TurboGif to display a GIF pic       11.2s   4.3s    2.6
Time to open a dozen windows on Workbench    26.7s   18.0s   1.4
Time to close them all                       29.1s   14.0s   2.0
Time to draw a Mandelbrot set                26.6s   5.9s    4.5

 
Oi! Where's my DMA gone??
-------------------------
 
There is one serious problem with the board: you can't DMA from your hard
drive into its 32-bit memory. There has been some discussion of this
problem on Usenet, and apparently while the FileSystem manages to get
around it, it doesn't do it very well. Just to show what I'm talking about,
here are the results from DiskPerf2, running first in normal 68000 mode
(DMA-ing into ordinary 16-bit fast RAM), then in 68020 mode (failing to DMA
into 32-bit RAM, so it reads 512 bytes at a time into 16-bit RAM, then CPU
copies them up to 32-bit RAM). My hard drive is a Quantum LP52S - a very
fast SCSI HD - in an A590.
 
 
DiskPerf2.   Testing Files:
 
Create Files:    23 files/sec.	  Directory Scan:   117 entries/sec.
Delete Files:    62 files/sec.	  Seek/Read Test:    94 seek/sec.
 
Read/Write Speed Test:  (bytes/sec.)
 
Buffer:  512     Read:     30,169     Write:     22,036
Buffer:   4k     Read:    221,405     Write:    169,892
Buffer:   8k     Read:    325,644     Write:    255,252
Buffer:  32k     Read:    382,691     Write:    445,823
Buffer:  64k     Read:    476,625     Write:    562,540
Buffer: 256k     Read:    576,140     Write:    695,342
 
(Note: This was on a slightly fragmented partition; I sometimes obtain
speeds of up to 800-850K/sec.)
 
 
DiskPerf2.   Testing Files:
 
Create Files:    15 files/sec.	  Directory Scan:   125 entries/sec.
Delete Files:    61 files/sec.	  Seek/Read Test:    80 seek/sec.
 
Read/Write Speed Test:  (bytes/sec.)
 
Buffer:  512     Read:     26,211     Write:     19,772
Buffer:   4k     Read:     39,954     Write:     29,049
Buffer:   8k     Read:     40,398     Write:     29,293
Buffer:  32k     Read:     40,249     Write:     27,643
Buffer:  64k     Read:     39,991     Write:     27,902
Buffer: 256k     Read:     40,077     Write:     28,352
 
 
As can be seen, this problem occurs when manipulating large files; you
won't notice any difference when loading/saving small files, such as small
utilities, text files etc. But for large files, you're talking about a 3-6x
speed _decrease_. I copied about 600K of data (mostly one big file) from my
hard drive to RAM: before installing the 68020, and it took 6.9s. With the
68020, it took 21.7s. Copying from one partition to the other was twice as
bad: 8.5s for the 68000, 50s (!) for the 68020. Reading 2Mb sound samples
in AudioMaster is now a joke. For some operations, I have timed speeds of
as low as twice that of a floppy, cough, choke...
 
This problem is something which you can live with, as of course even the
worst cases are faster than floppy, and it won't affect you very much
unless you like messing around with large files, or frequently boot very
large applications (such as ProPage). But it is something to bear in mind
if you are considering purchasing this board. Before I ordered it, I asked
SSL about the DMA problem, and the man I was talking to told me it wouldn't
really affect me as long as I left some ordinary 16-bit fast RAM in the
A590 (which you can DMA into) as a buffer for the FileSystem to use. Hmm...
I think he was wrong! 8-(
 
Just as an aside: I ran DiskPerf on the RAM disk, and was suitably
impressed by the results. First 68000, then 68020 with its 32-bit RAM...
 
 
DiskPerf2.   Testing Ram Disk:
 
Create Files:    14 files/sec.	  Directory Scan:    15 entries/sec.
Delete Files:    28 files/sec.	  Seek/Read Test:   360 seek/sec.
 
Read/Write Speed Test:  (bytes/sec.)
 
Buffer:  512     Read:    212,606     Write:    174,066
Buffer:   4k     Read:    840,205     Write:    548,418
Buffer:   8k     Read:    967,321     Write:    599,871
Buffer:  32k     Read:  1,092,266     Write:    647,269
Buffer:  64k     Read:  1,106,092     Write:    658,653
Buffer: 256k     Read:  1,125,081     Write:    668,734
 
 
DiskPerf2.   Testing Ram Disk:
 
Create Files:    39 files/sec.	  Directory Scan:    47 entries/sec.
Delete Files:    80 files/sec.	  Seek/Read Test:   370 seek/sec.
 
Read/Write Speed Test:  (bytes/sec.)
 
Buffer:  512     Read:    255,750     Write:    224,438
Buffer:   4k     Read:  1,899,594     Write:    916,587
Buffer:   8k     Read:  2,702,515     Write:  1,078,781
Buffer:  32k     Read:  3,912,597     Write:  1,248,304
Buffer:  64k     Read:  3,912,597     Write:  1,337,469
Buffer: 256k     Read:  4,599,017     Write:  1,351,257
 
 
Compatibility:
--------------
 
Very good, actually. Almost all productivity software runs perfectly under
the '020. There seems to be only one problem with the board with respect to
compatibility: while it doesn't have an MMU, some software thinks that it
does, and promptly crashes when trying to find out more about it. A-MaxII
crashes because of this, as does Nic Wilson's SysInfo. Both crash with a
"Coprocessor Protocol Violation" error (GURU 8000000D). Another program
once told me I had a 68020 with a 68851 MMU, but has crashed every other
time I tried to run it.  This is quite worrying...
 
Another program which doesn't like the board is HD-Toolbox. When you boot
it, you are greeted by a requester telling you that some drives have been
added/removed from the system, and to click on "Save changes to drive" to
tell other drives about this. But on clicking the "Partition Drive" button
first, you see that all your partition data has been lost, and instead has
been reconfigured to the default 2 partitions (25Mb each in my case). Click
on "Save changes", and 0.5 seconds later, you are left with one very empty
hard drive!!  You don't even get an "Are you sure?" requester! Since the
program works with the A3000, I can only assume there is something wrong
with the 68020 board to upset HD-Toolbox in this way. (It works in 68000
fallback mode, though.)
 
IntuiTracker and EdPlayer don't like faster processors, and screw up the
music slightly, but ModuleMaster works fine, as it uses the new ProTracker
play-routines. Apart from that, everything else seems to work fine.
 
I can't say much about games, as I don't exactly have terribly many of
them.  Two I did try were R-Type2 and F-18 Interceptor. The former seems to
work fine with the added speed (it crashes on the A3000, though), and the
latter *blazes* along if you get it into 32-bit RAM. If you've ever seen it
on the A3000, you'll know what I'm talking about!
 
Many demos don't work on the '020. I tried a total of nine. The ones which
worked perfectly were Coma, Dreamscape, Mesmerized, Neutron Dance and
Phantasmagoria (although the scrolly message at the start of this was a bit
upset). The ones which didn't were Angels (starts out OK, then there are
slight glitches, then finally it crashes), Mental Hangover (crashes after a
while), Seven Sins (crashes fairly quickly) and Substance (lots of
glitches, although their fractal routine runs much faster...).
 
There is also a 68000 fallback mode. You operate this by clicking on an
icon, which reboots the machine using the 68000. Unfortunately, there
doesn't seem to be any way of getting out of this mode, other than turning
the machine off then on again! And this doesn't suit me at all, especially
with the hard drive attached: once I left it off for 15 seconds, turned it
on, and was greeted by a yellow screen, which wouldn't go away. (How long
*should* you wait after powering-down when you have a lot of memory
installed, and an expensive hard drive??) Also, the board's memory cannot
be accessed in fallback mode, as it is outside the 16Mb address space...
 
 
Hey, Mr Bank Manager...
-----------------------

Prices... A5000-16 ... 295
          B5000-25 ... 595       
          B5000-40 ... 1162

(The B5000 is a 68030-based board, 25Mhz or 40Mhz. All prices are in
Sterling pounds, and include 17.5% VAT, which you can take off if you're
outside Britain.)

Address:
    Solid State Leisure Ltd
    80 Finedon Road
    Irthlingborough, Northants
    NN9 5TZ, England.

Telephone: (International)
    +44 933 650677

They'll send you out an information pack on request. Feel free to e-mail me
if you've any questions...

Barry.
[email protected]

--
Jason L. Tibbitts III  | Moderator: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
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Disclaimer: Opinions...| guide, disclaimers, etc.               Fnord.