WANCHO@Simtel20.ARPA (08/03/84)
From: "Frank J. Wancho" <WANCHO@Simtel20.ARPA> Bill, I'm actually on the tail end of one of the three regional distribution chains of SIG/M because I asked to be in that position. I have been travelling alot in recent months and thus cannot guarantee quick turnaround to the next point if someone is behind me. SIG/M is getting considerably better organized of late. Almost every month their Regional Coordinator sends out the three sets of updates about a month before they are "officially" announced. Thus, by the time I get them, convert the disks, and have them uploaded, the announcement is made, giving the appearance of being timely. BTW, for those interested in such things, I had found an 8" disk controller that behaves properly in my N*, called the MCP/FDC, from MCP Computer Products. It's only drawback is that it doesn't pass through the two-sided disk signal from the 50-pin connector. Otherwise, it's a clean, simple, and relatively inexpensive ($199) board that doesn't require any mods. Unfortunately, it was only on loan, and is now sitting in another N* running TurboDOS... I still have a semi sick DJDMA awaiting the new PROM set. If that doesn't fix the double-density-only problem, it goes back for repair. There are two CCS2422 FDCs which still cause memory parity errors on write, even after replacing my ancient 350ns RAM with 150ns RAM... (that change seemed to cure the mpe's on read), and a CompuPro Disk 1 that hangs the system (and the factory could care less about their boards in foreign machines as they are a System House now... so much for the leader of IEEE-696 cards...) A possible cure for my troubles is in the works: we are applying the IEEE-696 upgrade mods to the N* CPU card (as published in the April issue of Microsystems). I'll let you all know the results of that. (I may even end up believing the rumor that the N* motherboard is noisy and splurge on an active termination card.) Sorry for the core dump. --Frank