Prodigy SE

[Vernon Dale Frameli]

hi,

i saw lori's request for information regarding accelerators
for the mac se. since i have a prodigy 4 se, i would like relate
my experiences with it and then how the prodigy se compares to
the radius accelerator. you guys with the radius accelerators be
patient and feel free to correct me where i'm wrong.

i bought my prodigy 4 se from levco last november. i got the
4mb version; the 68881 is standard issue on all prodigy's. the
prodigy was extremely easy for me to install. i received all of
the necessary tools required, as well as very easy to follow
instructions for doing it myself. it took me less than 20 minutes
from start to finish. since that time, i have received an upgrade
from levco and once more i cracked open my mac se. i installed a
new set of proms, pals, and gate arrays without a hitch. again
the instructions where very easy to follow. to clarify things,
i'm more of a programmer than a technician.

i also received diagnostic software which will test the 68881,
the 68851, and all of the onboard ram. in addition, software to
create a bootable recoverable ramdisk is included. the diagnostics
are nice to have, but i can't say enough about the ramdisk. if my
system crashes for any reason, my ramdisk is preserved, and if a
copy of my system folder is on the ramdisk, then my mac will boot
from it. it's very fast, i'd say it takes less than a second to
reboot.

it's true that the radius is priced lower than a prodigy, but
the 68881 math coprocessor comes standard on a prodigy; its a
$295 option on most accelerators, i believe this holds true for
the radius accelerator as well. it's also true because the radius
doesn't provide any additional ram beyond the 32k cache it uses.
in contrast, my prodigy has 4mb of fast ram. in addition, it also
recognizes the ram you have on your motherboard. this gives your
mac se the capability of upgrading to a total of 8mb, you can't
do that with a radius.

i'm not sure how all radius users feel about their accelerator's
performance. i read in a note in the mac conference here that it
was quite fast at refreshing the mac's screen, but that the owner
was otherwise unimpressed. a prodigy, i my experience, is fast at
everything it does, i can point to at least three different magazines
which concluded that the prodigy was faster than any other accelerator
on the market. it was faster than a radius. it was also faster
than the mac ii in the cpu bound test performed. the benchmarks
used where not whetstones, and dhrystones, etc... the writer's
choose instead to use real world applications using actual products
that are commonly available for the mac. they benchmarked with
spreadsheets, database, word processors, etc...

one nice thing about the prodigy is that the rom is copied into
a protected portion of the fast ram. one of the most noticeable
places you'll see a difference is in disk access times. reading
from a floppy takes less than half the time it would in a non-
accelerated mac se. programs which make use of the mac rom's
also benefit from a big increase in speed, the more "mac-like"
a program is the better.

the prodigy has the same ability to re-route sane calls to the
68881 that the radius has. it will also allow you to turn the
68020 cache on and off, both can be done via the control panel. in
addition, the prodigy has a sound patch which keeps music, etc...
from sounding garbled when it's accelerated. it also has patches
built into the firmware which allow you to run software which can't
run on a mac ii in those cases where the programmer failed to follow
apple's programming guide lines.

the prodigy has an optional expansion slot, thus allowing you
to further enhance your mac. unlike the radius which sits in a
vertical position within your mac the prodigy mounts flush with the
motherboard so that it won't get in the way of future enhancements.
both accelerators make provisions for adding a large screen monitor,
though i think the prodigy is compatible with more than one brand,
thus giving you a choice.

finally, there's something that you can do with the prodigy
that you can't do with the radius,...you can turn it off. in the
event that a piece of software won't run because of timing conflicts
with the faster clock speed of the 68020, you can always turn the
prodigy off, and run as a plain ole mac se. with the radius, you
would have to physically remove it in order to turn it off.

i know some of you out there are saying to yourselves that
levco's not out there any more. that's simply not true. the same
parent company that owns levco owns supermac. the parent company
just decided to let supermac flex it marketing muscle while levco
handles the technical end. if you want to buy a prodigy, you call
your apple dealer, or supermac. if you want to get your prodigy
repaired or upgraded, it goes back to levco. levco still designs
the enhancements, and does the upgrades. it's all the same ball
of wax.

levco has been at this a long time, i believe that they where
the manufacture of the very first accelerator for the mac. they
introduced the prodigy series back in 84 or 85 near the time that
the mac was first introduced. they've had time to develop a first
rate product. what can i say, look at who's accelerator is shown
in apple's own advertisements, it's a prodigy se. is that an
endorsement or what?

ok guys, you've held it in long enough, go ahead and let me
have it with both barrels. i know the radius performs well. i
know it's one of the most popular accelerators out there. i know
it's one of the best buys you can get in an accelerator. still i
also know i'll get flamed really good for this one no matter what
i say now.

dale

dpdmai::frameli