#Titel Hard- & Software / Hardware / Blizzard 1220/4 #Logo gadget15:Pinsel/AG.Hard&Soft #Font Losse 16 #C32 Test : Blizzard 1220/4 #Font topaz 8 #C10 PRODUCT NAME #C21 Blizzard 1220/4 Turbo Memory Board. #C10 BRIEF DESCRIPTION #C21 This expansion board for the Amiga 1200 includes 4 MB Fast RAM, a 28 MHz 68020 processor, a clock, and a socket for an optional FPU. #C10 AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION #C21 Name: phase 5 digital products Address: Homburger Landstrasse 412 60433 Frankfurt Germany Telephone: (069) 5481844 #C10 LIST PRICE #C21 List Price: 499 DM I paid: 469 DM (Includes 15% VAT, postage & handling.) DM is Deutsch Mark. 469 DM equals approximately $275 (US). #C10 SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE #C21 An Amiga 1200. #C10 SOFTWARE #C21 None. #C10 COPY PROTECTION #C21 None. #C10 MACHINE USED FOR TESTING #C21 Standard Amiga 1200: 14 Mhz 68EC020, 2 MB Chip RAM, AGA chip set AmigaDOS 3.0 1 internal 880K floppy drive Western Digital (Caviar2420) 405 MB 3.5" IDE hard disk (internal) 1 external 1.76 M floppy drive #C10 INSTALLATION #C21 Installation is quiet easy. There are no switches and no setup program. You simply open the trapdoor and push the device into expansion port. The manual explains installation in 2 paragraphs with 2 pictures. Unfortunately, I had a trouble with the installation. The metal cover of my A1200's main board did not allow me to install the board easily. Probably my 3.5" hard drive inside puts some pressure on the metal cover. I made some bendings on the metal cover near the expansion slot. Now it works without any problems. If you have a 2.5" hard drive in your A1200, this will not be a problem; otherwise, you will need a little effort to fix it. #Seitenende #C10 OVERVIEW #C21 When you open the black box, you will find a booklet and a Blizzard 1220 card in antistatic pocket. It is a good quality product with a well designed printed circuit board and electronics. The parts of the product are: * 4 MB RAM * Additional RAM socket * 28 MHz 68EC020 * Clock & calendar * Optional FPU socket Lets look at those parts individually. #C10 4 MB RAM #C21 There are factory installed 8 memory chips (DIP) on the board. Its access time is 70 ns, and it is 32-bit-wide autoconfig Fast RAM. (DIP - Dual inline pocket.) #C10 4 MB ADDITIONAL RAM SOCKET #C21 It is possible to add 4 more MB of RAM directly into the board. The booklet says you may order a BLIZZARD 1220/4/ADD4 memory module for this upgrade. But I think they are ZIP type RAM chips. (I didn't see any ZIPs before; I'm not sure.) You can upgrade your card to 8 MB maximum. (ZIP - Zigzag inline pocket) #C10 28 MHz 68EC020 PROCESSOR #C21 On this card, there is a 68020 processor faster than the one in your A1200. Your machine will run twice as fast with this processor and twice as fast again with 32-bit Fast RAM. The result is A3000 or A4000/030 power. It means your A1200 will be 20 times faster than an A500 on integer math. #C10 CLOCK & CALENDAR #C21 There is a battery backed up clock on this board. Its very useful for programmers, database users, and other people who have a need for files with accurate timestamps. It has rechargeable batteries. Batteries aren't included in the warranty. #C10 FPU AND CRYSTAL SOCKET #C21 You can add a PLCC type 68881 or 68882 FPU (Floating Point Unit) running at 14 to 40 MHz on this board. If you choose a 14 MHz 68881 or 28 MHz 68882, you don't need an additional crystal. There is a switch with "14 MHz" and "28 MHz" positions. There is another switch for an FPU faster than 28 MHz. In this case, you must add a crystal for it. For example, if you use 33 MHz 68882, you need a 33 Mhz crystal to support its clock speed. #C10 BENCHMARKS #C21 The board has really satisfied me with its speed. I wasn't expecting its power before buying it. Here are some benchmarks. AIBB 5.5 (020+ optimized code, and comparison base is A500 NFR) This Machine A3000/030 A4000/040 #C10 Write pixel 11.57 4.10 26.12 Matrix 10.64 10.14 16.22 Sieve 9.95 9.28 11.88 IMath 20.06 18.29 41.66 Dhyrstone 6.43 5.96 18.96 MemTest 8.34 6.70 11.54 Sort 7.13 7.13 19.67 TGtest 3.36 1.62 2.93 #C21 As you see, with this board, the A1200 slightly faster than an A3000. AIBB doesn't have results for A4000/030, but they must be similar. Another good point is my hard drive operations have gotten faster. Before, I could read a maximum of 900 K/sec with a 256 KB buffer from my 3.5" IDE hard disk. Now, results are much better. DiskSpeed 4.2 (WORD aligned, MEMF_FAST, 70 MB partition) #C10 File create 45 Open file 112 Dir scan 439 File delete 284 seek/read 797 seek/sec 4 K buffer ..... Create 470 K/sec Write 632 K/sec Read 988 K/sec 16 K buffer ..... Create 616 K/sec Write 921 K/sec Read 1011 K/sec 64 K buffer ..... Create 833 K/sec Write 1164 K/sec Read 1407 K/sec CPU rate: 1164 CPU available: 36% CPU avail index: 420 #C21 As you see, with this board the IDE driver speed is very close to SCSI speed. #C10 DOCUMENTATION #C21 It comes with printed documentation in both English and German. Only you have to know how to install and how to add a FPU. The booklet has enough explanation for both. #C10 LIKES #C21 An AGA machine behaves differently when you add Fast RAM. A 256 color Workbench has acceptable speed now. I have 2 Meg free Chip RAM for graphics. Image processing programs run much faster. I can make a 25 frame morph without leaving the machine half an hour. Compression and decompression are not painful any more. I can see a moderate JPEG picture in 3-6 seconds. Hard disk operations are much faster, and icons appear in your windows without any waiting! I bought it primarily for the 4 Meg RAM and the clock, but I couldn't imagine how fast it is with a 28 MHz 68020. I like it! For this price, I get the the power of an A3000. It's very interesting. Adding a 40 MHz 68882 will give an acceptable speed for floating point arithmetic and 3D rendering. #Seitenende #C10 DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS #C21 I would like some luxuries! There should be a software switch for 14/28 MHz and to disable/enable board features. Also, I don't like its RAM expansion. I prefer SIMM upgrades, which are easy and cheaper. #C10 COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS #C21 I didn't see any other 68020 accelerator for the A1200 on the market. There are a lot of 25 Mhz 68030 accelerators that give the same result, but they are twice as expensive. #C10 BUGS #C21 No bugs encountered yet. #C10 VENDOR SUPPORT #C21 Producer has technical support lines via telephone. Here are international support/sales services. UK -- Gordon Harwood Computers Amiga Support Department New Street, Alfreton, Derbyshire DE55 7BP ENGLAND USA --- Advanced Systems & Software International Group Amiga Support Department 1329 Skiles Dallas, TX 75204 USA International technical support line: 214-821-7776 #C10 WARRANTY #C21 It has a 1 year warranty. #C10 CONCLUSIONS #C21 It's a very good product. Well designed. It has the best price/performance ratio if you compare it with similar products. In my opinion, you don't need highly expensive 68EC030 cards for this speed. If you use your A1200 for programming, desktop publishing, graphics, painting, animation, and video work, you need some speed and some Fast RAM. The Blizzard 1220 is very affordable solution for it. If you are a 3D artist or you need a rendering machine, you should add a 40 MHz 68882 FPU and 4 more Megs of RAM. (Or better to buy an A4000/040!) I can't understand why Commodore (RIP) didn't put a 28 MHz 68020 and 2-4 MB Fast RAM on A1200 as standard or as an A1200+ model. It gives really acceptable processing speed for a home computer. It doesn't cost too much, and 3rd parties could survive by producing faster 68030, 68040 and 68060 boards. #C10 COPYRIGHT NOTICE #C21 Copyright 1994 Cem Turgay. All rights conserved B-) tur@eurocontrol.de #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