Compiled by Managing Editor Ben Poehland
One gets the impression our British colleagues want the benefits of upgraded hardware but disdain the fuss and bother of hacking and soldering. Although we Yanks have traditionally prided ourselves on a "can-do" philosophy of just rolling up the old shirtsleeves and diving into the belly of the beast, I rather suspect even the most rabid hacker would prefer to do things in a less messy way if the means were available. Those of you interested in the "kinder, gentler" approach to hardware upgrades might want to look into the following recent offerings from the other side of the Big Lake.
YORKY-Want a 256K in your 800XL without even opening up the case? Check out YORKY, a plug-in module for the XL that emulates ICD's RAMbo board. If you can't install this in less than a minute, call your 9-year-old to do it for you. YORKY is a sturdy grey box with two plugs and a socket. One plug goes into the power jack of the 800XL, while the socket accomodates the plug from your power supply. The other plug is a 50-pin edgecard connector dangling from a short length of ribbon cable; this attaches to the PBI port on your 800XL. That's it! Hands clean, no tools.
A well-written 8-page manual (originally printed on A4 but thoughtfully cut off to accomodate the American "quarto" paper size), and utility disk nicely round out the package. Cost is 55 pounds Sterling including shipping (about $80 U.S.). A lot more expensive than the Wizztronics board reviewed by Mike Jewison in the April '93 AC, but also about a zillion times easier! YORKY is available in limited quantities, get one while you can from: Richard Gore, 79 Sprotbrough Road, Sprotbrough, Doncaster, England DN5 8BW. It's been my experience that some British vendors will occasionally accept cash payments in US dollars, so you can avoid currency hassles. But, inquire first!
StereoPLUS--If you always wanted stereo sound but were terrified at the prospect of wrecking two POKEYs at once by soldering all those pins together a-la-GUMBY, check out the StereoPLUS upgrade board from Gralin International. It's a plug-in version of GUMBY with a few added bells and whistles. Okay, yeah, you will have to open your XL/XE machine to install it, and there are <cough!> two wires to solder, plus you'll have to drill a few holes in the case to mount the extra audio output jacks. But, anyone who's done a GUMBY upgrade will instantly recognize that's a whole lot less work than installing Chuck Steinman's original GUMBY hack. The StereoPLUS board plugs into your motherboard's POKEY socket. If you're unfortunate enough to have a soldered POKEY, all is not lost. Gralin thoughtfully provides a spare 40-pin socket, and the professionally printed 8-page manual gives instructions for removing the soldered POKEY. Installation instructions are accompanied by clear diagrams.
StereoPLUS comes in a clever professional-looking package that opens like a book, and it includes a software disk containing some TurboBASIC sound demos. As of this writing the final price hasn't yet been announced, and Colin Hunt of Gralin was doing a final sprucing-up of the docs and utility disk. Hopefully the product will be readily available by the time this issue of AC is out. Write to: Gralin International, 11 Shillito Road, Parkstone, Poole, Dorset, England BH12 2BN for information on price and availability of the StereoPLUS upgrade.
ACs 8-Bit Alchemist has been dying to rip into these goodies and spend some time prodding them to see what jumps out. Unfortunately there's a mean old managing editor here who won't let The Alchemist have any fun and is keeping the poor Alchemist in jail while he works on getting the affairs of this magazine in order. <sigh>
