Just when you thought it was safe to order the Ultimate-64… Gideon’s Logic has just announced the Ultimate-64 Elite.
What is the difference between the “Elite” the “regular” Ultimate-64?
- The Elite version has ZIF sockets with gold plated contacts for the SID chips, and the board is completely jumperless.
- An additional difference is that the unit has a boxed (shrouded) header for the UserPort expansion, which reduces the risk of shorting the 12V line to a data line and blowing up the U64 board.
- The color of the board will be black. (To be confirmed for mass production.)
Ultimate-64 Elite Board Status
At the time of writing this bit of text, March 10, 2019, the 10 pieces of prototype of this “Elite” board are about to get assembled. When the automatic SID setting works as expected, the mass production will be started. As stated in the general Project Status page, components are on stock for the production of 540 boards. Only 300 ‘sets’ of components will be used for the production of the regular 1.2 boards, and thus about 230 boards may be of the “Elite” type. A final allocation will be made on the demand for the Elite type.
Planning wise, this will be the order of the production:
- 10x Elite prototypes
- 300x “Standard” U64 – V1.2 -> For dispatch in April
- 230x “Elite” U64 – V1.3 -> For dispatch in June
