U Lowell board question (was Re: AMIGA 3000UX)

[David S. Herron]

In article <2519 at amix.commodore.com> ag at amix.commodore.com (Keith Gabryelski) writes:
>logan at netxcom.netx.com (Jim Logan) writes:
>> # If there are any other tidbits of info. out there that I should know
>> # about, I would appreciate hearing them.
>> 
>> You will have to buy a U Lowell board if you want to be able to have
>> more than one 80x25 screen open at the same time.
>
>Wrong.  The A2024 (Hedley Monitor) allows up to 1024x1024 resolution.

?!?!?HUH?!?!?!?!?

**EVERY** description of the A2024 I've seen said: 1008x800.

?!?!?HUH?!?!?!?!?

One of my gripes about C= is that it focusses itself on providing
capabilities for doing Video.  I completely understand this attitude,
from their standpoint, because they are selling well into the video
market and want to cover that market Really Well.  However I do not
do video, I do programming.  I want to have a workstation at home.
Part of the requirement is: screen >= 1024x1024 and (because it's cheaper)
monochrome.  My understanding all along has been that C= did not
provide that resolution.

The only choice which I knew that C= would provide is the Lowell
board.  Forget, for the moment, that it's not available (yet).  It
is advertised as doing up to 1024x1024 & 256 colors out of 16
million.  This is fine, but I do not find color *necessary* enough
to justify the cost.  It also hasn't been clear that a normal joe-blow
multisync monitor would display that resolution.  At the only demonstration
I have seen it was set at 1024x768, which is just too small.  The
person giving the demo (a C= marketing person who didn't know the machine
very well at all) did not know if the drivers would ever allow greater
resolutions.

At any rate.. from here this route seems very expensive.  I've heard
prices for the board between $700 up to $1500.  I understand that equivalent
boards for PC's & Mac's are in the $500-$700 range so the $1500 price
should be way out of line (equiv board == 34010, enough memory, 8 bit color).
And the cost of required for a monitor sufficient to drive 1024x1024
is an unknown quantity, possibly requiring one of the >$1000 models.

This makes the price for a reasonable screen:

	<cost-of-system> + $2500

Compare to this that I can find SPARCstations for $4200 (an SLC, no disk,
and 8 Megs of memory) which is less than <cost-of-system> ... Why should
I buy an A3000UX??  Loyalty???





>> I'm still not 100% sure that the U Lowell board will work with my
>> 1950 monitor.  Does anyone else know?  Commodore?
>
>I does.

Ok, it should since 1950 is multi sync.  But at 1024x1024??

>> I'd love it if I could get 1024x768 (or whatever the highest
>> resolution of the board is) on my 1950 monitor with 256 colors. 
>
>You may change the oscillators.  There are two, actually, and you may
>switch between them.

This sounds like hardware hacking.  Can you explain in more detail?
Is it simply changing a switch that is on the outside of the cabinet
or does it involve opening it up and soldering?

-- 
<- David Herron, an MMDF & WIN/MHS guy, <david at twg.com>
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