28 Jan
2010
28 Jan
'10
7:04 p.m.
On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 12:29 PM, brain at jbrain.com <brain at jbrain.com> wrote:
I'm not saying the design is bad, mind you, just trying to understand why
On January 28, 2010 at 1:09 PM Brian Lanning <brianlanning at gmail.com>
wrote:
Definitely. I'm not interested in 1000s, but the 1000 almost has its own
cult following. And hard drives for that are probably even harder to find.
A slingshot would allow the amiga A2091 scsi board (among many others) to be
plugged into either machine. It would also allow the more recent Buddha ide
controller to be used. There's also a usb 2.0 controller called Deneb that
would work in this case also, although that requires a 68030 or better.
Right now, the only hard drive options for 1000 users is something that goes
in the 68000 socket (I believe there were some expensive accelerators that
had scsi controllers) or an ide adapter that is now no longer available.
It's too bad we can't get two slots out of this. Both the 500 and 1000 need
more memory and a hard disk controller. There are boards out there that
have both, but since the 2000 had plenty of slots, most solutions were two
separate boards. The separate boards are much more plentiful.
If it's easy to add a simm socket to this, that would make it a lot more
interesting and useful. I'm not sure if you need a bus controller (buster)
for that.
That ide controller I linked to in the first email should be cheap to make
also, and it would free the slingshot for other things, like scsi, audio
boards, or more memory.
That's right. The expansion connector on the
500 and 1000 are
electrically
compatible, but since it's on the other side
of the case and backwards,
they
can't share peripherals.
It
wouldn't be too much of an issue to make a "flipper" for that issue.
Would
there be any value on allowing 500 peripherals on the A1000 or vice versa?
The slingshot would work upside down though.
Although you'd have a zorro
card (possibly with a hard drive attached to it) hanging out in mid air
on
the 1000 whereas on the 500 it would be flat on
the table. I guess that
would mean the pro version would have the card upside down on the 1000,
so
you'd have to elevate the 1000 off the desk.
What I don't understand with the designs is why the Slingshot puts the
right
angle connectors on the "bottom" of the board? I noticed on the pics that
what
I would call the "bottom" of the design (the part where all the solder pads
are,
is labeled "this side up". As well, anyone know why the design doesn't
just use
normal connectors that straddle the board edge? Right angle connectors are
almost always more expensive to buy as opposed to straights.
the
choices were made.
It's upside down for the 500 and right side up for the 1000 (or maybe the
other way around). It could have been that this was originally designed
before the 500 was produced, and just happened to work upsidedown on the 500
when that came out? I'm not sure. I'd label it clearly though. Putting a
card in a zorro slot backwards results in magic smoke.
I'm not sure why they used right angles. Maybe to make it compatible with
solder baths? Or maybe they just got a good deal on the connectors.
Apparently there's plans for the slingshot on aminet. I'll try to locate
them when I get home tonight.
brian