From: harley@tt.com (Scott Drysdale)
Subject: Re: Questions regarding AT BB
Organization: Telecommunications Techniques Corporation, Germantown MD
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 15:24:26 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.184544.1079@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> abs0@coos.dartmouth.edu (Kelvin Leung) writes:
>Hi everyone,
>
>	I have been using my trust 'o A2088 for almost five years now.  I
>am thinking about upgrading to an AT BB.  Alas, I have been told the AT BB
>has several design flaws.  I wonder what they are (I know there's a fix to
>some of these problems, such as soldering a certain resistor to the board 
>to increase harddisk performance).

there is the bug which affects keystroke loss during amiga<->pc transfers,
which is fixed by lifting an ic pin and adding a jumper.  this also nearly
quadruples the speed of amiga<->pc transfers.

the other major bug is that you can lose keystrokes when the system is
switching between protected mode and real mode.

in general, the 2286 is more likely to crash periodically for no reason
whatsoever.  i've never had a 2088 crash out of the blue - the 2286
boards i've used (many, many!) tend to be a little unreliable.  the
problem is likely noise/temperature, since they're both based on the
same chipset for amiga bus interfacing, and similar chipsets for the
pc bus interface.  combine this with the rather cheap sockets used on
the 2088 and 2286.

>Also, since the AT BB is a "sandwich"
>board, I wonder if it will fit into a single ZorroII/ISA slot.

the 2286 physically plugs into a single slot, but the upper board overhangs
the slot to it's right.  ie, you lose a slot.  in the a3000, this is very
bad, since you have the choice of losing one of your two bridge slots or
losing your video/zorro slot.

>Basically, I wonder if it is worth it for me to upgrade. 

i'd suggest the A2386SX.  much faster than the 2286, has the above mentioned
bugs fixed, plus lots of minor hardware bugs fixed, and it fits in a single
slot without obscuring anything.  it also can share one of the amiga's floppy
drives (even one of those rare 1.76M jobs, which the pc will use as a 1.4M).
it provides for external floppy drives (like your 2088, and UNlike the 2286),
so if you need a 5.25" drive on your system and don't have any bays, the old
A1020 can be used.  by the way, you can replace the drive in the A1020 with
a 1.2M drive (of course, you can no longer write to 360K disks if you do
this).

if you do get an A2286, i suggest you look for one used.  they can be had
pretty cheap now that the 2386 is out.  you may want to call these guys
in NJ who are advertising an upgrade for the 2286, also.  i don't know
exactly how their upgrade works, so i don't know if they've fixed all the
2286's bugs in the process (it's possible - the two major bugs are on the
top board).

>I am also interested to know which is the latest version of BB rom
>and software.

janus 2.1 is the latest.  it comes with the 2386, and i'm told, recently
shipped 2286es.  you should be able to buy it from a dealer by itself, too.

there is a new bios for the 2286, but i don't remember the version, and
i don't remember if there's a part number for it or you have to yell and
kick to get it.

>Please respond to this posting if you have used an AT BB
>extensively, and tell me the pros and cons.  (Especially Mr. Drysdale, our
>beloved Mr. BB).  

>	I know the 386SX BB is *much* better (both the design and 
>performance) than the AT BB.  Nonetheless, I truly cannot afford spending
>>$500 for one--does anyone know if C= is interested in lowering the price
>of the 386SX anytime soon?  

supply & demand, my son :)

>	Anyhow, I am eagerly waiting for replies.  Thanks in advance.
>
>Yours Sincerely,
>Kelvin
>e-mail: abs0@coos.dartmouth.edu

  --Scotty
-- 
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scott drysdale (harley@tt.com, ...!uunet!debbie!harley), software mercenary.
formerly mr. bridgeboard @ cbm.  soon to be a seaman recruit in the us navy.
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.emulations