Subject: REVIEW: Trumpcard 500 Professional
From: Steve Snodgrass <[email-masked]>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

Summary: The Trumpcard Pro is a high-performance SCSI controller that is
available for the A500 & A2000.  The setup software has a beautiful user
interface and is extremely easy to use.  It can autoboot directly off FFS
partitions and also works well with A-Max, the Mac emulator.  It supports
removable media and is also compatible with AmigaDOS 2.0.  Manufacturer: IVS

I happened to come into the possession of a Fujitsu 140 Meg SCSI hard drive, so
I set about looking for a controller so I could use it on my A500 system. 
After so deliberation I settled on the Trumpcard 500 Professional by IVS
(Interactive Video Systems).  The Trumpcard 500 Pro lists for $399.95, but I
got mine for about $230 mail order: this seems to be a typical price.

The Hardware:

The Trumpcard Pro is actually a half-length A2000 card that plugs into the
Trumpcard 500, a box which attaches to the SOTS (Slap On The Side) connector
on the left side of the A500.  This means that if you ever upgrade to an A2000,
you can pull the Trumpcard Pro out of the Trumpcard 500 box and slap it into
one of the A2000 slots - a nice feature.  The card was already installed in the
500 box so you don't have to worry about that step.

The Trumpcard 500 also has another slot for IVS' Meta4 4-Megabyte RAM expansion
card.  Like the Trumpcard Pro, this is another A2000 card that has 4 sockets
for SIMM memory (you can use either 256K or 1 Meg SIMMs).  I don't have the
Meta4, however.  A half-height 3.5" hard drive can be mounted internally in the
Trumpcard 500, the screws are included with the package.  I didn't go through
this step since my Fujitsu is an old beast (5.25" full height!).  There is also
a connector on the back of the Trumpcard that allows for an optional power
supply (the IVS Sourcer), and jumpers on the card allow you to select either
power from the 500 or external power from the connector.  I'm not sure how well
the A500's power supply does with a hard drive - it works fine for the
Trumpcard but I'm powering my drive with a 230 Watt IBM power supply I happened
to have lying around.  (Hooray for weird setups. :-)

The physical dimensions of the Trumpcard 500 are 7" wide by 9" deep by 3" tall
(at its tallest point).

The Setup:

I got my Trumpcard connected to the side of the 500 without to much trouble. 
If you have 1.3 ROMs or greater, you need to change a jumper position on the
board so you can autoboot - this is explained in the manual and is well-labeled
on the card.  You also have to plug the connectors for the two LEDs on top of
the case (DISK & POWER) into the card - I had no trouble with the DISK light
but I did run across a problem with the POWER light - the way the connector at
the end of the wire is, you can only plug it into the card one way, but the
manual specifies that you should plug it in in the opposite direction, and it
doesn't light when plugged in the other way.  Since the power LED is hardly
crucial, I've just left it unplugged, but this is a bit strange.

Connecting the drive wasn't too much trouble - they give you a 10" 50-pin
ribbon connector with the card.  Of course, my poor Fujitsu is sitting bare
behind the Trumpcard, and the lid on the Trumpcard is open so I can run the
cable out the back of it, but that's what I get for having a 5.25" drive. :-)
3.5" users shouldn't experience this trouble.

I booted the TCUtils disk you get with the controller, and was highly
impressed.  It has a wonderful mouse-driven interface, with a 3-D 2.0 look.
You can go with the default configuration (a single-partition FFS volume) and
not have to do much of anything at all.  I decided to create 3 partitions, one
for WorkBench, one for my other stuff, and one for A-Max, and it was extremely
easy.  The software is one of the best reasons to purchase a Trumpcard.
The software reads the SCSI parameters of the drive right from the device, you
don't need to know a things about the drive.  I never had to touch the CLI to
get the HD up and running.

The manual is relatively decent and explains each step of the setup process in
detail.  It's written for both the Trumpcard 500/2000 and the Trumpcard
500/2000 Pro, so you find yourself hopping around a bit to find the procedure
for you, but it's not a major problem.

Performance:

I DiskPerfed the drive and got about 365K/sec reads, which isn't terribly fast,
but this spec doesn't mean much since I have no idea how fast the Fujitsu is -
the drive is circa 1988 though, so it's probably not a speed demon.  Anyway,
here are IVS' speed specs for the Trumpcard Pro:

Drive                     Read/Write per second
                       8 MHz 68000    25 MHz 68030

Seagate ST2383N         926K/487K     1917K/1213K
Quantum 40              657K/433K      751K/ 695K
Seagate ST157N          316K/222K      497K/ 445K
Syquest 40              491K/255K      549K/ 403K

Additional Notes:

The Trumpcard Pro has a few other features which are probably worth mentioning
- it supports SCSI-Share networking, so multiple computers can use the same
hard drives, though only 1 computer is allowed write-access to a particular
partition, others have read-only access.  I haven't done anything with this
feature, since it's just my A500 here.  As I've already mentioned, it seems to
work fine with A-Max, and the TCUtils software directly supports setting up
A-Max partitions.  It is also compatible with my BaseBoard RAM expansion (a 4
Meg board that goes in the A501 slot & plugs into the Gary socket - I have 2.5
Megs on it).  It supports automatic DiskChange with removable media (like a
Syquest), and uses Commodore's Rigid Disk Block standard to store the partition
information of the drive.

Conclusion:

I'm quite happy with my Trumpcard 500 Pro and would recommend it to other A500
users (or the card to A2000 users).  It's a nice way to add a hard drive and/or
extra RAM to your system, and everything is portable right into a 2000 if you
ever upgrade.  The software is great and you'll find yourself flying along with
the HD in no time.  Thumbs up to this one!

Interactive Video Systems (IVS)
7245 Garden Grove Blvd.  Suite E
Garden Grove, CA  92641
Phone: (714) 890-7040
FAX:   (714) 898-0858

I have no connection with IVS except as a satisfied customer.

<*--------------------------------------------------------------------------*>
Steve Snodgrass == just some weird guy == [email-masked] == Tigger
"I don't believe in the stars or the planets/Or angels watching from above/
 But I believe there's a ghost of a chance/We can find someone to love/
 And make it last"   -Rush