before buying a Blizzard 1260...

I could put my hands on a Blizzard 1260 with scsi module. Since it's insanely expensive... is there anything I should check or be aware of before buying? I believe it's a Rev.1



On the CPU I read XC68060RC50. Unfortunately I don't have yet better pictures.

Presume you have a suitably strong PSU and probably a recapped motherboard?
Is it going in a tower or desktop? Cooling may be an issue.
Not sure on the different revisions and masks - mine is a rev 6 latest mask.

no,not really,they are pretty much plug and play...


although, i wouldn't run one one a stock supply.
1200 wont need a timing fix etc.

cpu can run warm to hot,you may need some form of cooling for it in the 1200 case,thats about it.

thanks guys.

it would go in a desktop for now (possibly in a tower later). I was planning on adding a fan for sure, but I don't think I will overclock.

I've just upgraded a blizzard 1240/40 to a 1260. It's a Rev 6 running at 78mhz up from 50mhz. It was fitted by Stan. There's a fan fitted to the reverse of the card to help with heat. It's installed in a desktop case with the trapdoor removed and the case raised up v slightly for space.

im using a standard a1200 psu with no issues and I've not yet had the motherboard recapped nor have I had any timings fixes done. It's a 2b board.

Matt3o said:

I could put my hands on a Blizzard 1260 with scsi module. Since it's insanely expensive... is there anything I should check or be aware of before buying? I believe it's a Rev.1

Click to expand...

I guess you're talking about the CPU - the card itself has revisions I and II but I've never seen a rev I one (check on the other side of the card, next to the Blizzard 1260 text).
The CPU revision doesn't matter much save the already mentioned heat issues. Rev1 chips have a bug IIRC compared to rev5 and rev6 chips but that doesn't really affect normal operation (rev1 = XC68060RC50, rev5 = XC68060RC50A, rev6 = MC68060RC50)

As mentioned, the card works fine without timing fixes, but you should install the required 060 libraries before installing the card or it won't boot into Workbench (you can install them afterwards too but it's fussier).

As for the SCSI kit, it's best to have ROM version 8.2 or higher (there's a utility called SoftSCSI that can soft-install a later ROM image, and you can also get a chip programming service for the last 8.5 ROM here on Amibay).
If you don't get a cable for the SCSI kit, you can use any standard parallel-port cable from old baby-AT PCs, although the original one is nicely pre-cut and pre-folded for easy routing.

thanks for your reply, BTLCON0. By Rev.1 I mean that it's not a Rev.2 The CPU is a rev.1 for sure. If I can get it at a fair price I'll buy it otherwise I'll drop it, I also have an MC68060RC50 (rev6) CPU somewhere and I heard it's possible to upgrade a 1240 by simply swapping the CPU.

Matt3o said:

thanks for your reply, BTLCON0. By Rev.1 I mean that it's not a Rev.2 The CPU is a rev.1 for sure. If I can get it at a fair price I'll buy it otherwise I'll drop it, I also have an MC68060RC50 (rev6) CPU somewhere and I heard it's possible to upgrade a 1240 by simply swapping the CPU.

Click to expand...

its a bit more complicated than that bud its not just a cpu swap.

so I guessed

Stan is your man....

I have the bliz 1260 myself with scsi and 160mb ram she runs a dream at 60mhz they are the best 1260 card around would like mine to goto stan for an overhaul

Did you buy one in the end?

ive been experimenting with mine, trying to get 80mhz stable. mine has been rock solid at 78mhz but I couldn't get 80mhz out of her for more than about 5 mins with the oscillators I had. I put this down to either too much heat on the cup, the ram or the board itself.

i tried two different 80mhz oscillators (both long rectangular ones) and two different 50ns 128 mb ram modules.

no luck. All my other oscillators are square but theses two 80mhz ones are rectangular like the one in your photo.

i then ordered a square 80mhz oscillator and what do you know, the board now works perfectly at 80mhz for hours on end, no lockups, no crashes, no issues.

so make sure you're using decent quality oscillators!