[fa.info-cpm] Selecting S-100 Boards: Disk Controllers

C70:info-cpm (08/04/82)

>From DAN@Mit-Ml Wed Aug  4 02:55:58 1982
While helping a friend select boards for his S-100 system, we realized the
difficulty in choosing one board over another.  Besides the problem of
catalog descriptions making even the worst board look great, the "trusted"
names in S-100 stuff (Godbout, Morrow, etc.) have to manufacture boards 
which are similar, but have "minor" differences (e.g. Morrow sells four
stock versions of Disk Jockeys:  Memory Mapped at E000, Memory Mapped at
F800, I/O Mapped, and DMA).

For starters, I'd like to conduct an S-100 Floppy Disk Controller survey.
If you own or use an S-100 system with a disk controller, I'd like to
know your experiences with it.  Here's the info that I'd like to collect:

1.  The Make, Model Number, and year of manufacture of the Disk Controller.
2.  Number of years that you've used the controller.
3.  Features that the board has that you like (or feel worth mentioning).
4.  Features that the board lacks which you wish it had.
5.  Reliability info:  Does the board run "forever", does it have a habit of
    dying, etc.
6.  Service record:  Number of hardware failures, and number of repairs.
7.  Software support:  CP/M included?  Ease of modifying BIOS.
8.  Documentation:  Good board documentation?  Good configuration/BIOS
    documentation?
9.  If you've had to deal with the manufacturer, are they helpful?
10. Any other info which you consider important.

If you wish to respond to this survey, please send your replies to
DAN@MIT-ML.  Please be terse (i.e. I don't need detailed hardware
descriptions of your board).  In a week or so, I'll crunch all the replies
and make the survey results available.  Individual replies will be
kept confidential (as usual).  I am especially interested in hearing
from people using the newer DMA controllers.  Please do NOT send info
about S-100 Hard Disk Controllers (yet).  I know that there are alot
of people out there who use S-100 Floppy Disk Controllers, so any info
would be greatly appreciated.

Dan