BLIT vs AT&T 630MTG

[Jeffrey L Bromberger]

In article <1991Jun10.123747.21815 at cbnews.cb.att.com> mvadh at cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.d.hay) writes:
>In article <1991Jun10.032442.27620 at sci.ccny.cuny.edu> I wrote
>there is xcip for the 630.  i can't see any differences from cip, but
>it may have some subtle fixes/enhancements.
>there's also xtek4010, a terminal emulator; and xproof, for troff
>previewing.

Browsing the toolchest yesterday showed the whole schmeer (630_pkg) at
$100 for source and docs.  Not as bad as ksh88f :-(  It looks like
that's what I'm going to have to do.  I don't believe that anyone can
"sell" me their unused copies of the stuff.  And binary distribution
has been disallowed...

>the 630 can probably do everything the 5620 can, and more!
>you may also want to spend the bucks (~$200, i think) to upgrade your
>630 to a 730.  this buys you 6 roms with many, many enhancements and
>fixes...

But, will this break all the 630_dev (development package) stuff I
have?  As long as it will still operate, then that's a reasonable
option.  Right now, though, the 630 has a memory expn card (256K) and
an extra serial/SSI port card.

>"BTW: How to tell the ROM level on the BLIT?  The 630's setup screen
>"tells me that I have over 1 meg RAM and version "8;8;6" ROMs.  Is
>"there an easy way to find this on the 5620?
>
>shift-setup.  does your 5620 have layers in rom & 1M?

Well, the ROMS are 8;7;5 (dated from 1984) and it has 256K memory.  Do
they have memory upgrades for this thing?  Is it worth it? Are the
ROMS fairly recent (I seem to remmeber that this was the last revlev)?

And, BTW, what is that "Parallel I/O" thingie used for?  It is a
standard ribbon cable header, but I have no idea what I could ever use
it for.

Thanks again!

j
-- 
Jeffrey L. Bromberger
System Operator---City College of New York---Science Computing Facility
jeffrey at sci.ccny.cuny.edu			jeffrey at ccnysci.BITNET
	Anywhere!{cmcl2,philabs,phri}!ccnysci!jeffrey