Path: news.uh.edu!barrett From: r.a.clubley1@student.lut.ac.uk (Robert A. Clubley) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Blizzard 1204 accelerator/RAM expansion for A1200 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Date: 24 May 1994 16:28:17 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 150 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <2rt9v1$qsq@masala.cc.uh.edu> Reply-To: r.a.clubley1@student.lut.ac.uk (Robert A. Clubley) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: hardware, accelerator, RAM, A1200, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME Blizzard 1204 [MODERATOR'S NOTE: This review was updated on May 26, 1994 to add author/company address information. - Dan] BRIEF DESCRIPTION The Blizzard 1204 is an accelerator and RAM expansion for the Amiga 1200. It contains a double speed 68020 processor, an FPU slot, and 4 MB of RAM, expandable to 8 MB. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Advanced Systems and Software Address: ??? Germany [MODERATOR'S NOTE: If anybody has more specific address information, please mail it to amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu so I can include it here. - Dan] LIST PRICE 230 UK Pounds. I paid 200 UKP, but the price has since gone up. The 4MB expansion board is 150 UKP. This may have gone up also. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE An A1200!! SOFTWARE None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 1200 239MB hard drive INSTALLATION Dead easy. Just insert it into the Amiga 1200's trapdoor slot. REVIEW Once I had sorted out my initial problems with the unit, I was VERY impressed. I think it is definitely the best expansion available for the price. Once installed, the unit is completely transparent, except for the speed increase, obviously. According to the SysInfo program, my Amiga now runs at 5 MIPS: nearly four times faster than a standard Amiga 1200, and 9.16 times the speed of an Amiga 600. The build quality seems to be very good, though I don't know a lot about such things. It consists of all surface-mounted components and is very small: about half the length of the trapdoor slot. The unit has a "disable" switch which you set by moving a jumper on the board. Now to the problems. I bought two 1204's at once: one for a friend, and one for myself. My friend's board worked perfectly, and mine did not. It turned out that the 1204 is incompatible with my 120MB Conner hard drive. I would like to praise the First Computer Centre at this point. They were very helpful and replaced both my 1200 and my hard drive free of charge, despite their having only 7 days warranty left. My new hard drive is a Maxtor that works perfectly with the 1204. After this it turned out that the 1204 was also faulty: no memory after a crash or reset. I got a replacement which was faulty too and crashed crashed my Amiga 30 seconds after switching on. I got another replacement which has worked perfectly for two months. I hope it was just that I had amazing bad luck with the unit, rather than poor manufacture. As I said, my friend's unit works perfectly. DOCUMENTATION The documentation is a brief leaflet, in English and German, explaining how to set the jumpers for the FPU speed, if you have an FPU. It has two blurry black and white photos as illustrations which are pretty hard to see. Could be improved, I think. LIKES AND DISLIKES I LOVE the speed! I did NOT like having to take the unit back 3 times (nearly 40 miles each way!). BUGS None. VENDOR SUPPORT Gordon Harwood Computers, Alfreton, are the sole UK distributor for the Blizzard range, or so they told me. They were quite helpful on my trips there, but they did not seem particularly enthusiastic. They also refused to refund any of the money I spent in petrol [gasoline] taking the unit back and forth. Also, I was promised a discount over the phone because I was buying two 1204s and paying cash. When I got there, I was told that I could not have a discount because the units were selling so well! I may as well have ordered by credit card and had the unit delivered free. WARRANTY 1 year back to base. CONCLUSIONS The Blizzard 1204 is, in my opinion, and excellent product, and I give it 9.5 out of 10 stars. As the sole UK distributors, I give Gordon Harwood Computers 3 out of 10 stars. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 Robert A. Clubley. All rights reserved. - Robert A. Clubley r.a.clubley1@student.lut.ac.uk --- 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