#Titel Hard- & Software / CD32 / SX1-Expansion #Logo gadget16:pinsel/AG.Hard&Soft #Font Losse 16 #C31 SX-1 Expansion #Font topaz 8 #C10 PRODUCT NAME #C21 SX-1 expansion #C10 BRIEF DESCRIPTION #C21 Expand your CD-32 to have almost all the specifications of an Amiga 1200. #Seitenende #C10 AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION #C21 Name: Paravision, Inc. Address: 500 E. Arapaho, Suite 104 Richardson, Texas 75081 USA Telephone: (214) 644-0043 E-mail: microbotics1@bix.com #C10 LIST PRICE #C21 Unknown. I was impatient, so I paid $249 (US) at a local dealer. #Seitenende #C10 SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE #C21 Requires a CD-32. #C10 SOFTWARE #C21 Well, it needs some version of AmigaDOS. #C10 COPY PROTECTION #C21 None. (Unless you call the SX-1 itself a big dongle. :-)) #Seitenende #C10 MACHINE USED FOR TESTING #C21 CD-32. 1 MEG SIMM. Two Floppy Drives. A cheap AT keyboard. AmigaDOS 3.0. #C10 INSTALLATION #C21 To install the SX-1 on the CD-32, you must remove the back plate of the CD-32 and gently slide the SX-1 onto the expansion bus. Very simple. #C10 [MODERATOR'S NOTE: If you are not comfortable opening up your Amiga, then you should have the work done by an authorized Amiga service center. Opening your Amiga yourself may void your warranty, and careless work may even damage the machine. - Dan] #Seitenende REVIEW #C21 First, a comment. This is a review after five days of actual testing. I wrote this review up very quickly because there is so much of a demand on the net for information about this product. If I made some technical error, please send me the information that I messed up. I do not have the SX-1 in front of me while I am writing this up, so I am writing most of this from the top of my head. If you disagree or don't quite think my opinion of this product is good, write your own review up. After calling the dealer many times, he finally confirmed that an SX-1 finally came in. After an hour drive there and a an hour drive back, I excitingly took a look at the SX-1. The SX-1 itself comes in a white box with just a sticker. The guys at Paravision should learn a little about product packaging. So I opened it up. Inside is a a square box covered on three sides with various ports. On the fourth is a connector for the CD-32 and a pass-through port to connect up the MPEG module. To place memory or an internal 2.5" hard drive into the SX-1, you must unscrew the screws and open the module. Inside, you will see two of our closest unchanged Amiga friends -- the CIA chips -- one socket for memory, and a 44-pin 2.5" IDE connect. The place to put the 2.5" hard drive is somehow supposed to fit underneath, but for the life of me I could not figure out how without causing possible physical problems. So after putting the one meg 72-pin SIMM in the SX-1, we plugged it into the CD-32 and were ready to go. #Seitenende #C10 AT-PC KEYBOARD #C21 The SX-1 allows an IBM keyboard to be used on the CD-32. So I took a standard PC keyboard and plugged it in. The left and right Amiga keys were placed on F11 and F12, and Help was on print screen key. Overall, it worked fine. #C10 FLOPPY DRIVES #C21 I plugged two floppy drives in and booted directly from them. They work as well as I thought. But I had problems when both floppies drives were on the system. One of them was a classic 1010 floppy drive by our friends at Commodore, and in my opinion, it was pulling too much power from the power supply. This caused some erratic behavior that was eliminated when I used only one drive. #Seitenende #C10 RGB OUTPUT #C21 Flawless -- it worked great. I connected my multisync monitor to it, and I was happy. Finally, Microcosm could be enjoyed on a monitor instead of a small television. #C10 PARALLEL PORT/SERIAL PORT #C21 I printed a few documents, and it worked like I expected. Now the serial port is interesting as it is a nine-pin serial port. This is slightly non-standard for an Amiga style serial port. I hooked up a modem and it worked fine. #Seitenende #C10 HARD DRIVE PORT #C21 This is a 37 pin IDE external hard drive port. Very weird looking. I have no experience with this type of connector! #C10 KARAOKE MIKE/AUDIO INPUT #C21 Why is this on here? It seems Paravision are trying to appeal to more than one audience with this product :-) I myself did not use the Karaoke port and probably never will! But this is useful for people who want to mix CD sound with live voice. Could be great at parties. #Seitenende #C10 NOW BACK TO THE REVIEW #C21 Like I stated before, I did not have a hard drive to check this unit with so we tried a huge amount of floppy based software. I took a selection of AGA euro demos, AGA games (Alien Breed II, Civilization AGA, Overkill, Klondike AGA) and some non-AGA games (Cannon Fodder), a terminal program, and a few other public domain programs. Anything that ran on my 1200 worked great with SX-1. No problems were encountered. I ran off my Workbench 3.0 disks from my 1200 and that was no problem. Overall, compatibility with software was high. Now that I had a floppy drive, I took some of my favorite public domain CD's and copied or viewed files from the CD-ROM. You can access the drive by using the disk name or CD0:. The CD-ROM access was transparent and quick. I then put together a quick Parnet system and pulled information from the CD-32 to my 1200 without a flaw. #Seitenende #C10 DOCUMENTATION #C21 A two-page, double-sided booklet. Not as bad my MBX1230 manual, but still very thin on information. I would prefer them to rewrite the whole manual from scratch, as it is very poor. For example, the manual should include what keys on the AT keyboard are where compared to a regular Amiga keyboard. The documentation does tell you how to install the SX-1, and the rest of the manual is very much a summary of features of the SX-1. #Seitenende #C10 LIKES #C21 Having some expansion for the CD-32 is great. It will definitely help the CD-32 sell. By having even just the floppy drive expansion, it allows CD-32 owners access to thousands of Amiga software programs. Cheap AT keyboards can be used, and that saves money in my pocket. Being able to use the CD-32 on a monitor is like a dream! Memory expansion just makes the CD-32 scream: play the Guardian demo or Frontier on CD-32 and you will see what a difference. According to SYSINFO 3.x, the system is 2.20 times faster than a stock 1200. This expansion makes the CD-32 into a real computer! #Seitenende #C10 DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS #C21 My first dislike is using a 9 pin serial port instead of a full standard pin serial port. It is very annoying for me to use the 9 pin serial port instead of 25. When you open the lid of the CD-32, the edge of the lid rubs the SX-1. I really don't like that. Also the SX-1 looks as ugly as sin; I mean, it is functional but it does not look very good. And the connection to the CD-32 just seems very flimsy, I wish it were a little more protected. A better manual and more attractive package should be considered almost as a must. And the other dislikes are lack of items on the SX-1. I wish it had a place to put a faster CPU and math coprocessor, a true 1200 expansion slot, a PCMIA slot, an alternate power supply, room for a 3.5" hard drive inside the expansion box, a SCSI interface, an internal bay for floppy drives, and include some version of WorkBench 3.1 with it. I would have just loved to have the ability to have a MMU-based processor on this and run NETBSD... it would freak people out. #Seitenende #C10 COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS #C21 I have not seem a similar product, so I can't comment. #C10 BUGS #C21 None that I found, except for lack of power, but I do not blame Paravision for that problem. #C10 VENDOR SUPPORT #C21 Didn't need it so I didn't call. They do have a person active in one of the CD-32 Newsgroups. #Seitenende #C10 WARRANTY #C21 One year warranty. #C10 CONCLUSIONS #C21 This product will bring a CD-32 owner up to specification with most other Amiga owners. Will it be the end all to CD-32 expansion? No. But it is very good and does what it claims. I would recommend this product almost as a must to the owners of CD-32 who have no Amiga. But, because of the current prices, I would tell other AGA Amiga owners to think about it before you buy. I give it 4 stars out of 5. #Seitenende #C10 COPYRIGHT NOTICE #C21 Copyright 1994 Brian Mogged. All rights reserved. Permission is explicitly granted to distribute this review freely in any manner as long as no modifications are made, apart from spelling and grammar corrections. #C10 --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews