gsk@lzwi.UUCP (G.S.KONG) (08/29/85)
Abstract.
previous articles have discussed the installation of
cheap hard disks on IBM PCs.
this article contains a report of another successful installation
(in an AT&T PC 6300) and a question.
The Report.
i bought a Shugart SA604 5 meg ST506-interface drive
from Priority One Electronics for $99.00.
for various reasons (see below), i decided to use the DTC 5150BX
disk controller board, which cost $199.00 from Creative Microsales.
the DTC controller includes formatting routines in ROM,
but the ROM contains a table of common drive types
which doesn't include the SA604.
however, i was able to burn a new PROM easily
after talking to an engineer at DTC for few minutes.
the only other items i needed were a power supply, power cables,
and an enclosure for the drive and power supply.
The Question.
i asked various people about hard disk controller cards,
and almost everybody claimed that the DTC controller was
better than other controllers,
but nobody could tell me exactly why.
in general, people seem to think it's faster and more reliable.
you must have a PROM burner that produces checksums
(I used a Data I/O burner).
does anybody on the net have any wisdom to offer here?
in your experience, how do different manufacturers'
hard disk controller boards compare, and what makes some
better than others?
Further Details.
you can find out how to reach Priority One and Creative Microsales
by consulting their ads in Byte and PC World, respectively.
you can find out how to modify the PROM (a 2764) by calling
Mike Arellano at DTC (Data Technology Corporation) in San Jose, Ca.
George Kong
AT&T Information Systems
LZ1B-115H (201)576-7912
{ihnp4|btlunix|vax135}!lznv!gskgsk@lzwi.UUCP (G.S.KONG) (08/29/85)
if my previous article seems incoherent, it may be because i scrambled the text a little. the sentence beginning "you must have a PROM burner..." belongs at the very end of the article, not where it appears. G. Kong