Fresh Fish 9/FreshFishVol9-CD2.bin/bbs/reviews/ports.lha/ports/SX-1

Internet Message Format | 1994-07-26 | 8.9 KB

Path: news.uh.edu!barrett
From: [e-mail] (Brian S Mogged)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: SX-1 expansion for the CD32
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Date: 26 Jul 1994 16:14:02 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Lines: 248
Sender: [e-mail] (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <313coa$[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Brian S Mogged)
NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu
Keywords: hardware, CD32, expansion, serial, parallel, IDE, commercial
Originator: [e-mail]


PRODUCT NAME

    SX-1 expansion


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    Expand your CD-32 to have almost all the specifications of an Amiga
1200.


AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

    Name:        Paravision, Inc.
    Address:    500 E. Arapaho, Suite 104
            Richardson, Texas  75081
            USA

    Telephone:    [phone]

    E-mail:        [e-mail]


LIST PRICE

    Unknown.  I was impatient, so I paid $249 (US) at a local dealer.


SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

    HARDWARE

        Requires a CD-32.

    SOFTWARE

        Well, it needs some version of AmigaDOS.


COPY PROTECTION

    None.  (Unless you call the SX-1 itself a big dongle. :-))


MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

    CD-32.
    1 MEG SIMM.
    Two Floppy Drives.
    A cheap AT keyboard.
    AmigaDOS 3.0.


INSTALLATION

    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.

    [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]


REVIEW

    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.


AT-PC KEYBOARD

    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.


FLOPPY DRIVES

    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.


RGB OUTPUT

    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.


PARALLEL PORT/SERIAL PORT

    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.


HARD DRIVE PORT

    This is a 37 pin IDE external hard drive port.  Very weird looking.
I have no experience with this type of connector!


KARAOKE MIKE/AUDIO INPUT

    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.


NOW BACK TO THE REVIEW

    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.


DOCUMENTATION

    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.


LIKES

    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!


DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

    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.


COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

    I have not seem a similar product, so I can't comment.


BUGS

    None that I found, except for lack of power, but I do not blame
Paravision for that problem.


VENDOR SUPPORT

    Didn't need it so I didn't call.  They do have a person active in
one of the CD-32 Newsgroups.


WARRANTY

    One year warranty.


CONCLUSIONS

    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.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

    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.

---

   Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
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