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The Apollo range has been extended to include the fastest Motorola processor available. David Taylor checks out the new family member.

** missed drop char ** ** missed drop char ** ** missed drop char ** ** missed drop char ** ** missed drop char **The speed possibilities for A1200 owners have mushroomed recently, from the now mediocre 68030 processors to the fast 68040 and more recently 68060s. However, with 68060 processors costing at least 300, the complete boards have remained securely in the realm of the professional, or at least very rich, user. The Apollo range has always managed prices well below other boards but because of the price of the actual processors, this board has been released at only 20 less than the Blizzard 1260.

With this in mind, the usual advantage of the Apollo boards is not really valid. Add to this the fact that all 1260 boards perform at pretty much the same speed and you might be forgiven for thinking that all the boards are the same.

false start

Unfortunately this isn't true. Like the other boards, you have to install a set of software before installing the hardware. Unlike the other boards, the software isn't installed using the Commodore Installer, but some really bad custom software. It is baffling beyond belief why the perfectly adequate system which everyone is accustomed to using has been spurned to use some poor simple copying technique which has little user-configurability and bottoms out on any error, rather than checking and letting you change the destination. You will get it installed eventually, but they could have put better instructions with the manual to stop you having to experiment.

Once the software is installed, it is simply a case of slotting the board into the trapdoor expansion, which is easy enough and it fits slightly better than some of the other, bulkier boards. When you use the board, you'll be amazed at the speed. Swapping from an 020 would make you gape at your new processing power, but even an 030 can't compare to the sort of speed you get from this board. In fact, it's about four times as fast as an 040. General housekeeping is much easier, although hampered by the speed of the custom chips but if you do processor intensive jobs like rendering, then this processor is a boon.

mismatch

As with all 060s, there are some software incompatibilities and to try and solve this, there are some options to give better compatibility but it's not 100% successful. Unlike the Blizzard, there's no way to switch the board off without removing it, which is a real bind. Even a jumper would have been useful for the times that you do need to revert to the native CPU.

Because of the extra power consumption of the new processor, you are likely to find that the standard power supply is no longer enough and your system will be prone to crashing unless you upgrade to the Goliath power supply. This is an extra cost you have to consider when buying the board. Other 060s have the same problem, but the Apollo seemed more unstable than the others when using a normal A1200 power supply.

grand final

There have been some concerns recently with boards which have been over-clocked beyond the correct MHz, causing software problems. This shouldn't be a concern with the 060s, as they are clocked at 50MHz, which is the slowest 060 manufactured.

As far as expansion, the board can can take up to 32Mb on a single 72-pin SIMM and a SCSI module is supposed to be coming. It should allow you to have SCSI devices auto-booting, although getting hold of a SCSI module for any board seems almost impossible.

With prices of all 060 boards so similar, it seems that other boards have certain advantages, like the off-switch and a sturdier build quality - but that doesn't mean I'd turn it down! a

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