Subject: REVIEW: Blizzard 1240 T/ERC accelerator for A1200
From: [email-masked] (Mauro Fontana)
Date: 12 Feb 1997 15:23:16 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Blizzard 1240 T/ERC

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	The Blizzard 1240 T/ERC Accelerator Memory Board is a 68040 40
MHz accelerator that features autoconfig RAM expansion that accepts
till 128MB SIMM 32 or 36 bit, 70ns or faster, an optional SCSI-2 DMA
module that has another SIMM socket connector and supports throughput
till 10MB/sec. The module is the same as the Blizzard 1240-IV or 1260.

	The 68040 is complete, that is it has MMU and FPU built in
fully working. I don't know the real meaning of the Eco Recycled term
(the ERC in the name of the board), but I could read the original
Motorola specs on the 040 chip as the heat sink covers only the bottom
part of them: the chip is declared as XC68040RC40Mzh so it is NOT a
overclocked one.

COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Phase 5 Digital Products
	Address:	In der Au 27
			D-61440 Oberursel
			Germany

	Phone:		(06171) 583787

ITALIAN DISTRIBUTORS

	There are quite many distributors in Italy of Amiga and
Blizzard products. I have purchased mine at NewVideo, Limbiate
(Milano), though due to their lack of professionality I would not
recommend. If they were available I would have bought it from DBLine
srl. - V.LE RIMEMBRANZE 26/C - 21024 Biandronno (VA) - Tel: 0332/76800
- Fax 0332/767244 - 768066 - Vox onFAX 0332/767360 - bbs

LIST PRICE

	The price ranges from about 630,000 LIT (US $410, 630 DM) to
660,000 LIT (US $425, 660 DM).

	SCSI-2 Module: about 250,000 LIT (US $160, 250 DM)
	
	All prices include 19% IVA 

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		An Amiga 1200 mounted in a tower house or wherever,
		but not in the standard A1200 case.

	SOFTWARE

		68040.library to patch the 68882 FPU functions not
		present in the 68040.

COPY PROTECTION

	None. (Does that mean you are allowed to clone it? 8) )

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

Amiga 1200 model from Commodore, revision 1B, 2MB Chip RAM,
16MB 70(?) ns 72-pin, 32-bit SIMM, single sided.
Kickstart in RAM, V39.106. Workbench 39.29.
2 floppy drives.
Western Digital Caviar 1.6GB 3.5" EIDE HD
External A1000 Keyboard
NEC Multisync II 14" monitor
Tried a GoldStar 8x IDE CD-ROM for some time.

	The computer has been mounted into an old big PC desktop. The
original stock Amiga power supply just powers the motherboard and the
accelerator board, while all the rest (HD, floppy drives, keyboard,
CPU fan and the monitor as well) is powered by the desktop 200W power
supply.

INSTALLATION

	Provided you have a towered house A1200 the installation is very
easy. As the 68040 becomes very hot a heat sink and a fan are provided
as standard. All you need is to plug the power connector of the fan
into a 4 pins connector that is equal to those used to power the HDs.
There are quite lots of them spare coming from a PC power supply so
there should not be problems.

	Before closing everything you have just to choose if you want to
disable the MAPROM feature that automatically maps the Kickstart ROM
into RAM just by setting the unique jumper existing on the board.

	The memory SIMM must be inclined so a double faced SIMM is not
usable.

	The good thing that differentiates this board from similar
ones like the Apollo one, for example, is the fact that all the
surface mounted components, the SIMM socket and the CPU as well are
all positioned on the bottom side of the board, that is they are
upside down looking at the ground. This means that, with some caution
and small efforts it can be installed into a normal A1200 case without
worrying about the heat produced.

	For mounting the board in a standard A1200 case see later.

	The manual, for the following surprise, will explain the
installation of the board in the normal A1200 case. However it
explains very well all the steps to do before you can power up your
Amiga. The addendum sheet, that you must read before the user manual,
states that the fan MUST be connected and checked for proper function
and that operation without cooling is not possible.

OVERVIEW

	The board comes into the phase5 classic black box. As this is the
3rd phase5 board I have purchased I can say that the package is
similar to the other ones, that is of very high quality. The big white
stick on the box clearly states that you need a towered house A1200
to use this board.

	Opening the box reveals a surprise, and what a surprise. The
box contain the user manual, a registration card, an addendum sheet
and the anti-static envelop that contains..... a Blizzard 1260 card!
The board in fact is the same as the 1260 with just the CPU and the CPU
power adapter changed. phase 5 states in the addendum sheet that they
are going to provide a 68060 upgrade kit which will transform the
board in a full 1260 card.

	All the documentation provided is both in English and German,
which is a very good thing. However the manual is the same as the 1260
board and the differences are listed just in the addendum sheet. This
is not a problem as the only thing that changes is the fact that
there's no software to install before using the board. You just need
the 68040.library that should be present on the WB disks. I say should
because I didn't find it and I had to copy it from one of the many PD
CD-ROMs I have.

REVIEW

	So let's see how good this board is.
	
	Once installed everything correctly (remember to connect the CPU
fan if you don't want a hole in your tower case) I just powered
everything on.

	I have to admit that, before this board, I have been using my
A1200 in the basic configuration (only 2MB of chip ram) for many
months. It was amazing seeing a basic boot happening in 3 secs. But
what is most impressive is the update of the windows! Now all the gfx
functions are performed in an incredible speed, and even a 64 color WB
on a AGA machine is fast. Using graphics programs like DPaint in 256
colors is now really possible without falling asleep waiting for the
image to appear.

	The board comes with a battery backed clock so it is now
possible to have a permanent clock on the WB screen and use all those
programs that need to know the real date.

	The MMU finally allows programmers (like me) to use debugging
tools like enforcer or for those who really want to to install any
UNIX operating system (like Linux or NetBSD).

	The powerful 68040 FPU running at 40MHz allows the use of
intensive calculation programs (fractals, rendering and raytracing,
general math based programs) in a productive way without having to
wait a night of full calculations to see the results of the simplest
scene. The only problem is the fact that the 68040 FPU lacks some of
the most used 68881/2 FPU instructions. The 040 (and the 060 too) have
in fact the basic FPU instructions to build the other more complex (and
more used) ones, but these basic instructions are executed much faster
than in the 68882. The real problem is that the major part of the
software available, when compiled to use the FPU, is compiled for the
68882 and so an external library is needed (the 68040.library) to trap
all the FPU exception produced by the unavailable instructions and to
transform them in the right basic instructions that the 68040 can
process. This thing results in a big slow down of all the FPU
calculations, and sometimes the integer version of the same program
can be slightly faster. This, of course, affects only programs
compiled for the 68882 FPU, while programs compiled for the 040 can
take advantage of all the horse power provided by the optimized FPU.

	For old programs or games that do not want to run with the 040
there's the option to disable the board by pressing the "2" key on the
keyboard while booting, or, even though not documented in the user
manual, pressing the right mouse button. This gives you a real plain
A1200 as the board is disabled completely, that is CPU, RAM and the
optional SCSI controller are all disabled to assure complete
compatibility with the outdated programs.

BENCHMARKS

	AIBB 6.5 - 020+ optimized code - CP FPU code. All other
systems were set to their maximum (020+ code whenever possible, while
FPU is always set to standard CP whenever possible as the major part
of the programs use this optimization).  MAPROM function enabled (ROM
in FAST RAM). Comparison base: stock A1200 no fast.

                        1240/40     A3000/25    A4000/25

EmuTest                 15.87       2.72        8.66
WritePixel              4.23        1.19        5.16
Sieve                   6.51        2.14        2.70
Dhrystone               14.89       2.75        9.34
Sort                    12.53       2.65        7.31
EllipseTest             2.18        0.98        2.28
Matrix                  9.08        2.76        4.40
IMath                   7.84        2.11        4.86
MemTest                 3.92        2.38        1.27
TGTest                  1.84        0.91        1.79
LineTest                1.08        0.62        1.09
InstTest                12.57       3.12        5.73
Savage                  126.57      98.68       78.74
FMath                   200.13      13.87       124.16
FMatrix                 19.46       3.08        8.29
BeachBall               86.77       19.53       60.83
Flops                   312.85      33.53       193.75
TransTest               103.53      47.80       50.19
FTrace                  100.40      57.79       58.96
CplxTest                24.76       3.66        14.43

SysInfo 3.24 says:      MIPS 30.12
                        MFLOPS 7.71
                        Dhrystones 28855
                        
	The HD speed has also increased, seeing SysInfo results, from
1.3MB/sec to almost 2MB/sec.

As you can see the gfx tests are not that impressive, though I have
used the same mode and depth of the other standard modules provided
with AIBB. The problem is surely due to the slowness of the Chip Ram
and the fact that the board has to synchronize to the motherboard
clock before accessing the chip ram. Nevertheless, the Apollo 1240/40
board is a faster in the gfx tests and in many other tests, though the
module I have seen shows it has burst mode to fast ram enabled through
the installation of two SIMMs. CPU/Memory latency index is so lowered
from 6.1 of the Blizzard to 5.1. I don't know if it possible to have
burst mode with the Blizzard and the SCSI module which comes with
another SIMM socket.

A great boost in graphics performances can be obtained by installing
the FastWaitBlit patch by Dave Jones. Here the gfx tests with the
patch running:

WritePixel                    6.88
EllipseTest                   2.46
TGTest                        1.95
LineTest                      1.08
BeachBall                     100.12

LIKES & DISLIKES

	Likes: Lots. I like the speed provided by such a fast
processor, the fact that all gfx operations have been accelerated to a
decent usable level, the icon updating that is almost immediate. The
SCSI connector for the optional SCSI controller. The technology used
(no visible last second revisions and modifications). The fact that
the chips are mounted upside down looking toward the ground. The
PCMCIA is not disabled (though I could not test it as I don't have any
PCMCIA device). The complete memory autoconfiguration, though this is
now a standard thing even on PC compatibles. The battery backed clock
(that should have been mounted as standard on the A1200 like in the
old A500plus).

	Unlike the diffuse thought that the 040 becomes very hot and can
almost be used for warming your bedroom, the fan is able to keep it
cool (not warm, but really cool). Without the fan, however, I have
to agree that the chip becomes very very hot (I have once used it
without the fan for some minutes and when I have touched the top part
of the board, just over the CPU position, it was hot, while the
heat sink was just warm).

Very good is the lack of any jumper for configuring the board, but the
MAPROM one. I liked the fact that there's an hardware MAPROM (no pain
with software configurations, ROM files and slow boot) and that the
accelerator board can be completely disabled by pressing the "2" key
or the right mouse button on the keyboard during the boot.

	The fact that it is full 060 upgradable.

	The SCSI module's relative low cost (considered it supports DMA
transfers till 10MB/sec and comes with a second SIMM socket).

	The fact that the chip is not overclocked but works at its
native speed.

	It's price that is almost equal to that of a 030/50MHz
board+FPU but giving more than twice the speed of that.

	Unlike the Apollo A1240/40 card that has chip mounted on the top
part of the board looking toward the inside of the A1200, the Blizzard
can be safely mounted into the original A1200 case provided the
computer is kept raised from the desk and the trapdoor is always left
opened to provide the fan with fresh air. However, the 040 uses lots
of power, so the standard 25W power supply may not be enough to power
the board, the ram, the AGA chipset, an HD and the floppy (and the
fan). A more powerful power supply may be required.
  
	Dislikes: Not many, really. The less important is surely the fact
that the fan power connector is not a pass-through type connector and
need its own 4-pin connector. Not a real problem considering the fact
that in big cases where there's a powerful power supply those
connectors are abundant.

	The board length is also a negative thing as it fits into the
trapdoor with lots of pain, while there are not many cases able to
keep a 43cm long motherboard. I had to cut a piece of my already big
desktop to make the motherboard+accelerator board fit (while the
motherboard alone fitted perfectly).

	The single SIMM socket is also a big limitation, but it seems
it is now the standard on all A1200 accelerators cards. However, a
second socket comes together with the good SCSI module.

- Mauro Fontana
[email-masked]

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