Zippedy Hoo Hah
By Richard Bennett
Copyright (c) 1991 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
In a continuing search for speed on my IIgs, I again took the plunge and purchased Zip Technology's latest product, the Zip GS.
The Zip GS running at 8Mhz was finally released in October 1990, after two years of development by Zip Technology Inc. At the same time, it was announced that a 10Mhz upgrade would be available in March 1991, [Sub-Editor's note: now available as of February 1991 for US$100, and another US$100 for the 64k cache upgrade] and that a special deal was available if you ordered before the 31st of December 1990. Being a speed freak, and totally flipped out on the possibility of reaching the 10Mhz boundary, I took the plunge!
I rang Zip in early December, and tried to order a "Zip GS". How was I to know there were in fact three models:- the "ZipChipGS (model 1500) 8Mhz/8K cache" which is simply a CPU replacement, but doesn't support DMA, the "ZipChipGS (model 1525) 8Mhz/16K cache" which is also a CPU replacement, but DOES support DMA, and the top of the line "ZipGSX (model 1600) 8Mhz/16K cache". The ZipGSX is a CPU replacement, but also requires a slot, ala TransWarp GS. It is also the only one in the range that can be upgraded speed and cache wise. The model 1500 can be upgraded to DMA compatibility by purchasing the model 1501 upgrade option.
Ok, so I ordered the Zip GSX which runs at 8Mhz with 16K cache. They said I would have it within three weeks, which meant I could test it before my Christmas leave. I waited. On January 5th I rang and asked where it was, to which they told it was "mailed" on the 27th of December. It arrived on the 10th, at which time I'd given up waiting for it to arrive, and didn't bother installing it until the next day. Sounds like the same old Zip Technology right?
The card was a complete surprise, as it hardly had any components on it. The TransWarp GS, by comparison, obviously helps to keep the entire U.S. chip industry afloat!
The most notable things about the card are the two L.E.Ds, the ASIC, the WDC 65C816, the sockets, the DIP switches, and the crystal. A red L.E.D simply indicates power to the card, which supposedly helps you tell whether the card is installed properly, and a green L.E.D indicates whether the Zip is accessing IIgs RAM (lit) or the onboard cache memory (unlit). The four sided, 128 pin, VLSI ASIC is the guts of the card, and Zip say it will go up to 10Mhz maximum. As with the TransWarp GS, Zip have used a 7Mhz WDC four sided 65C816, which they must have tested inhouse at 8Mhz, because that's what the card runs at. There are four RAM sockets for a maximum 64K of cache memory, with the default on the GSX being 16K. The other empty socket on the card is reserved for your original 65C816, which I will mention later. There are two 8 DIP switch blocks, which are used to select the MANY options on the GSX.
The crystal, which is soldered onto the card, is 32Mhz. A quick division by four, and we arrive at the 8Mhz which the card is said to run at. Although a 10Mhz upgrade is promised, this must obviously involve replacement of the crystal with a 40Mhz model, which means that you must either de-solder it yourself or send the entire card back to Zip Technology. Surely the TransWarp GS removable crystal would have been a better idea!
There is also a peripheral connector on the card, like on the TransWarp GS, however as we are yet to see anything available for it, I can't really see the point in having it there. Although there is rumour of a new version of the FPE (Floating Point Engine maths co-processor) which would connect to the card instead of requiring a slot.
Well at least the install was simple. Remove your old 65C816, or TransWarp GS in my case, and plug in the cable from the Zip GSX. You can place your old 65C816 in the empty socket on the card if you wish, but is not necessary. Zip mention that the socket isn't even connected to the Zip, however I noticed that the notVP, RDY and notABORT pins ARE in fact wired into the card! Now plug the card into any free slot, and it behaves as a phantom card. Simple. Now power up!
The default settings are read from the DIPs on power up, and I used the recommended factory settings for the timing tests listed below. My ROM 01 IIgs had a High Speed SCSI card with DMA turned on in slot 7, and a Scarlan 4Meg memory card in the expansion slot. I ran everything off my Fujitsu 175Meg hard drive under System 5.0.4.
Test TWGS/noIRQ ZIP TWGS 2.8Mhz 1Mhz ZIP/opt
------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------
Load AppleWorks 3.0 w/Timeout 3.8 3.6 3.8 4.3 5.7 3.7
Load AppleWorks GS v1.1 14.7 45.1 16.0 25.8 57.3 47.0
Finder Verify /RAM5 at 800K 4.8 8.0 7.5 8.2 10.3 4.4
Merlin 16 assemble and link/P8 3m8.9 3m6.4 3m9.9 4m37.4 8m35.0 3m5.7
Boot GS/OS to trash can 23.6 26.0 25.8 35.9 63.6 22.9
Memory manager thrash 279.0 281.0 282.0 539.0 huge 279.0
Quickdraw II thrash 6.0 6.0 6.0 14.0 29.0 5.0
Merlin 16+ assemble and link/GSOS 21.0 20.0 22.0 37.0 37.0 20.0
TML Pascal II compile 20.6 20.8 21.2 42.7 103.5 20.5
TGE GIF custom 5.1 6.2 5.1 13.9 30.0 6.1
TGE 3200 custom 4.7 5.8 4.8 12.6 27.2 5.8
AppleWorks 3.0 multi-cat sort 4.1 4.4 4.2 10.1 24.9 4.3
On average, the standard ZIP is marginally slower than the TransWarp GS with it's IRQ mode set on. Where the TransWarp GS has only two modes (IRQ and noIRQ), the Zip has heaps! So the Zip/opt column is the speed after I had tweaked all the options for the fastest speed.
The one timing that does stand out, is the loading of AppleWorks GS (all modules), which with the Zip took a ridiculous 45 seconds consistently. I'm sure with the correct options set on the Zip you'd get it down to around the 15 second mark, but the 45 still seems to indicate a real problem with the chip. During the load, the Zip cache light went hard on for around 20 seconds, before even getting to the splash screen.
The Memory Manager thrash simply allocates hundreds of chunks of memory and purges them again, and the Quickdraw II thrash draws different coloured rectangles all over the screen. These are the same routines that Chris Nelligan and I used to demonstrate System 5.0 when it was released, and gives you a pretty good idea of how fast the machine is running. I also ran Chris' program which opens and closes 20 windows, side by side with Cameron Brawn's 7Mhz TransWarp GS, and the TransWarp GS won in all modes quite significantly.
I then changed the 16K cache down to 8K in the hope of stopping the cache from wasting time on memory which is only accessed once, but this hardly made a difference on the stopwatch. It didn't really slow the times down OR speed them up actually! However this is obviously dependent on the application, and it's obvious that none of the ones I tried were relevant.
I'm not going to describe each of the options the Zip GSX has, except to say that Zip have always liked confusing their customers with heaps of them! The list goes like this: Shadow memory cache on/off, Joystick delay on/off, AppleTalk delay on/off, Counter (VERTCNT-$E0/C02E) delay on/off, CPS ($E0/C036) Follow on/off, Zip on/off, Cache 8K/16K/32K/64K, Selective slot slowdown, and Speaker delay on/off. The Zip comes with a CDA, a CDEV, a GS/OS application, and an INIT for dynamically changing these settings as well, but there are NO ProDOS 8 utilities! Also, the manual is simply seven photocopied sheets of paper stapled together, and there is no programming information for changing the Zip options yourself!
The final cost for the ZIP GSX, including shipping and duty, came out at around AUS$400, which should have increased significantly by now considering the special deal is no longer available. In any case, you should contact Zip Technology on 0011-1-213-337-1313 for more details.
I know it's only the first release of the Zip GS, and even Applied Engineering had numerous upgrades before we arrived at the current model, but it is disappointing to find only a second rate card at least two years after the TransWarp GS was released. The TransWarp GS on average is a faster card. However if you prefer to fiddle with the various Zip options, I'm sure you could set the card up to be faster than I had it running.
Problems and complaints aside, I must hand it to Zip for actually responding to it's customers and finally releasing the Zip GS. Zip Technology's first release may not be as good as the TransWarp GS, but if their 10Mhz/64K cache announcement becomes reality in March, there will be alot of people wishing they'd bought the Zip in December, as I'm sure the price is going to go straight up. Me, I'm now stuck with a TransWarp GS and a Zip GSX, and don't know which to keep. On one hand I have a chance to get up to 10Mhz, and on the other Applied Engineering say they are looking at a possible upgrade to the TransWarp GS, but nothing is yet planned. I asked them what they thought of the Zip, and their predictable reply was that the TransWarp GS has been a tried and proven product for the last two years, and Zip has only been promising theirs for the same two years.
Make me an offer on either card, as the Zip will definitely be cheaper now than importing it yourself.

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