Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!barrett From: ronny@tmx.com.au (Ronny Cook) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: DKB Cobra accelerator and Ferret SCSI adapter Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Date: 11 Mar 1996 20:32:47 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 244 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <4i22lf$rnh@kernighan.cs.umass.edu> Reply-To: ronny@tmx.com.au (Ronny Cook) NNTP-Posting-Host: knots.cs.umass.edu Keywords: hardware, accelerator, SCSI, A1200, commercial X-Review-Number: Volume 1996 Number 7 Originator: barrett@knots.cs.umass.edu PRODUCT NAME DKB Cobra '030 Accelerator (28MHz) DKB Ferret SCSI adapter for DKB accelerators [MODERATOR'S NOTE: This review was updated on 11 May 1996 to provide a correct vendor name and address. -Dan] BRIEF DESCRIPTION The Cobra is a 28MHz 68030 SCSI accelerator with MMU for the A1200. The Ferret is a SCSI adapter which work together with the Cobra. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: DKB Address: Post Office Box 930344 Wixom, MI 48393-0344 USA Telephone: (810) 348-3821 Fax: (810) 348-3755 Tech Hotline: (810) 348-3531 LIST PRICE Cobra with 4MB RAM: AUD$499 (I think - I paid $449) Ferret: AUD$199 (again, I paid $199 so this may not be right.) I bought the card with a 68882/33 FPU & crystal which cost an additional AUD$75. DEMO VERSION None. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE An Amiga 1200. A screwdriver would probably be handy. SOFTWARE None. COPY PROTECTION They probably decided that the engineering team needed to duplicate the device would be sufficient protection. I suppose that this makes it a dongle. :-) MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga A1200. 2MB Chip, 2MB PCMCIA RAM (=> 16 bit, VVEERRYY SSLLOOWW) 1 external 880K floppy. Supplied (Seagate?) 40MB internal hard drive. IOmega ZIP Removable Disk SCSI drive (100MB cartridges). Kickstart & Workbench 3.0 INSTALLATION Installation was a nightmare. Initially I put the 4MB SIMM onto the card. Then, with an unreasonable amount of force, I managed to get it into the trapdoor connector. This was the first place that I used the screwdriver. :-) I then pulled out the back panel on the A1200 to fit the Ferret. The Ferret attaches to the Cobra with a special lay-flat connector which is somewhat finicky about exact positioning. Turned it on. Nothing happened. Blank screen. To cut a long story short, part of the board was scraping against the shielding around the motherboard. I ended up opening up the system (the second time that screwdriver came in handy) and put a wad of paper between the board and the shielding. After this the system booted correctly. But it didn't recognise the Ferret. I detached then re-attached the Ferret and it started working. That finicky connector. REVIEW The installation process was my main problem with the board. Since the initial problems, the board has worked flawlessly. I was pleasantly surprised by the speedup with my internal hard drive; being an IDE drive, the accelerator sped up access noticeably. The PCMCIA RAM no longer had an opportunity to slow down the system. SysInfo reported that the system was a little faster than an A3000, as I would have expected. The system in general was noticeably snappier. Unfortunately I can't give any solid benchmarks at this point. :-( Compiling Angband with SAS/C 6.55 and full optimisation took a couple of hours. The Angband sources are about 700K. The 28MHz Cobra includes an MMU (the main reason why I bought it rather than the 40MHz model, which is only slightly more expensive.) I haven't yet had opportunity to use it but it should be very useful for development work. The system included a floppy containing a utility to map Kickstart to RAM; I have not yet used this utility. The Ferret included some fairly powerful software for disk setup (the same as that used by the RapidFire II, apparently - sorry, I can't remember the name) but essentially no documentation for this software. The Ferret documentation focussed on an older software package. I bought the Cobra and Ferret in conjunction with an IOmega ZIP drive. I have had no errors with this drive or the controller, but the ZIP's transfer rates are not exactly astonishing enough to push *any* SCSI controller. The Ferret's software did a reasonable job of recognising and setting up the ZIP drive but I could not find any way of setting up the drive using "standard" settings. The boards have been highly reliable since installation. Although they don't make a fuss of it, the Cobra includes a real-time clock (unlike some earlier boards). The 68882 has been minimally useful (mainly used for Scenery Animator). DOCUMENTATION Documentation for the Cobra was of reasonable quality given that there wasn't really all *that* much to document. I picked up a clue about the board scraping against the shielding by reading the manual closely. The actual installation instructions *could* have been more helpful, however. Documentation for the Ferret was moderately woeful. Certain points in the installation procedure were not explained well (the lay-flat connector has two sides, slightly different; did it matter which was on which side? I have no idea.) Not really suitable for beginners. Documentation for each product basically consisted of standard, cheap-photocopy, stapled, 8-page booklets. Could be better, could be worse. LIKES It's proved fairly reliable. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the cheapest way (barring a standalone MMU) to obtain an MMU for the Amiga. The Ferret, since it's not limited by the PCMCIA port, I expect to be faster for SCSI operations than (say) the Squirrel. The PCMCIA port is left free. It's probably one of the most versatile cards available in this price range. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS The problem where the board scrapes against the shielding during installation needs fixing. It wouldn't matter if there were no *circuitry* on the board at that point, but there *is*. Documentation for the Ferret needs work. The Ferret's SCSI port sort of hangs loosely in the back port of the A1200. There's nothing holding it in place but the Cobra itself. The potential for disaster here makes me nervous. A sudden tug could wreck the machine. It's far too easy for dust and other foreign substances to get into this hole. There was no way to confirm independently that the Ferret was being recognised. The board isn't all that fast compared to other accelerators, but you get what you pay for. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I haven't seen other accelerated Amigas for some years, so I can't make a fair comparison. BUGS None so far, although I found it curious that the software included with the Ferret to upload a firmware update to the Cobra did so even when the board didn't *recognise* the Cobra. VENDOR SUPPORT Having ordered the hardware on a Wednesday, I was getting nervous on the following Tuesday when it hadn't yet arrived. I was pleasantly surprised when the vendor (Fonhof Computer Supplies) called to explain the delay. The hardware arrived the next day. I was going to call at one point when I was having trouble with installation, but sorted out the problems without needing to call the vendor. WARRANTY To be honest, I can't recall. Both boards came with warranty cards to sent to the local Australian distributor. CONCLUSIONS After using the board for a couple of weeks, I wish I had waited a month and bought the (50MHz) Mongoose instead. :-) It would have been almost twice the speed for not all that much more. Oh well. 4MB fast RAM also isn't really enough; after it's chewed up the system slows down dramatically. Except for the problem I had in installing the card I've been very happy with it. Knock off a star for the installation headaches and half a star for the rotten Ferret documentation. Call it three and a half starts out of five. COPYRIGHT NOTICE This review is placed in the public domain. No rights reserved. :-) Ronald Cook, 8th March, 1996. Ronald Cook, Technical Support - Message Handling Systems/The Message eXchange Email: ronny@tmx.com.au ------ Phone: +61-2-550-4448 ----- Fax: +61-2-519-2551 All opinions are my own and not those of TMX unless explicitly stated otherwise. --- Accepted and posted by Daniel Barrett, comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews