Info on ATronics ATI-486/B2 motherboard

[Jack F. Vogel]

In article <600 at rc6.urc.tue.nl> rcstack at urc.tue.nl writes:
|
|I'm looking for a 33Mhz 486 motherboard to replace my 25Mhz 386 board.  A
|local dealer is offering an ATronics ATI-486/B2 board. The specs of this
|board look really good. 
|
|	- prepared for 33, 40 and 50Mhz 486
|	- bus speed adjustable from Clk/6 to Clk/2
|	- 256KB write back cache
|	- support for burst mode
|
|The dealer however could not tell me if an Adaptec 1542B SCSI host adapter
|under Unix would work.
|
|I would appreciate any information on this board, especially in combination
|with the Adaptec SCSI adapter and Unix.
|

I have run ATronics motherboards on turnkey for more than 3 years, started
out with 20Mhz 386, later upgraded to 25, and currently it is running a
33Mhz board. This last upgrade was due to the fact that the older 25Mhz
would not work with the 1542B adapter, their new models worked OK, but 
I got the upgrade to the 33Mhz for their cost! ATronics has always been
very responsive to any new problems that I have had, of course it helps
that I know one of the VPs of Engineering :-}.

When I was at the distributor's for this last upgrade I took a look at
the new 486, you're right its a hot little number. One problem they
currently know about is that the SCO installation boot will fail at
high speed (25Mhz), they also know why, if they don't cache the first
integer at address 0 it works!! Since I was there to make sure that my
1542B worked with the new board, I had ISC 2.2 boot diskettes with me
so I said, Hey let's see if it works. We tried it, came right up no
problem. ISC triumphs again :-} :-}. I plan to go over to their 486
sometime within the next year, but the 33Mhz 386 is doing just fine
for the moment. As for the 1542B on the 486, we didn't try it, but
given it works great on the 33Mhz 386 I suspect it does. In fact, in
order to try and get the thing working on my old 25Mhz board, their
engineering staff went out and bought one, so if you want to know for
sure I could ask them. Send me email if you are serious about the
matter.

Disclaimer: No connection with Atronics except as a long time
	    satisfied customer.


-- 
Jack F. Vogel			jackv at locus.com
AIX370 Technical Support	       - or -
Locus Computing Corp.		jackv at turnkey.TCC.COM