Re: XLerator

>hype brewing about the XLerator for sale on ebay.

>it also appears to have the Math CoProcessor socket option.

In fact, all of the original XLerators (ie. the 16 MHz version) have a Math Coprocessor socket and a SCSI chip socket.

There were three levels of this product, GEN, SCSI, and FPU, determined by the PAL on the XLerator.

To use SCSI you needed the SCSI PAL, as well as the SCSI chip and cable. It looks like the eBay item has this.

To use the Math Coprocessor, you need the FPU PAL, and the coprocessor chip itself. The FPU level included SCSI as well.

All the XLerators were tested with the full configuration, so customers could field upgrade by exchanging their PAL and getting the other parts.

>It does require Ram to operate....

Yes, to be 'useful' you will need to add two or four 30 pin SIMMs. 256k or 1M are supported by the stock XLerator. There is a mod to support 2M and 4M SIMMs, but it isn't easy (or free).

You will also need a fan... the XLerator came with a fan that sits in the bottom of the card cage and clips onto the I/O board for power. I think we still have some of the brackets to make these, or you can rig something to keep air moving inside.

>As far as I know the XLerator is for the Macworks environment

Yes. As far as I can remember, it supports MacWorks XL 3.0, MacWorks Plus, and MacWorks Plus II. I have a feeling that SCSI is not supported in MacWorks XL.

>It may co-exsist with the LisaOS but will not speed up or add memory

This XLerator board does not co-exist with the Lisa OS... the Lisa OS reads the Lisa serial number from the video stream, and even when disabled, this XLerator runs a bit too fast to read the serial number correctly, so the Lisa OS won't start up. So, you would need to remove this XLerator to use Lisa OS. This bug was fixed in later XLerators (XLerator 12.5 and XLerator 18), which do not need to be removed to run a Lisa OS.

>I think that later versions of the XLerator software also
>required Sun's 800K floppy upgrade

I believe the suggestion for the 800k drive was due to versions of MacWorks Plus that "required" it. I don't believe the XLerator checks the drive version (although it might), but getting the software on the hard disk might be difficult without it.

>and probably need the Mac Screen Mod as well.

No, the screen mod is not required for the XLerator products (or any other Query Engineering/Sigma Seven Systems product, AFAIK).

HTH, E&OE, James

James MacPhail                   "Think not of engineering as art,
uo957_at_email.domain.hidden                 but of art as engineering"
Sigma Seven Systems Ltd.
james_at_email.domain.hidden        <http://SigmaSevenSystems.com>

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