Subject: REVIEW: Blizzard 1220/4 accelerator/RAM expansion for A1200
From: [email-masked] (Robert A. Clubley)
Date: 24 May 1994 16:28:17 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Blizzard 1220/4

	[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  This review was updated on May 31, 1994
	to add author/company address information, and on May 30, 1994
	to change the product name from "1204" to "1220/4".  - Dan]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	The Blizzard 1220/4 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:		phase 5 digital products
	Address:	Homburger Landstrasse 412
			60433 Frankfurt
			Germany

	Telephone:	(069) 5481844

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 1220/4'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 1220/4 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 1220/4.

	After this it turned out that the 1220/4 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 1220/4's 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 1220/4 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
  [email-masked]

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