mjohnson@Apple.COM (Mark B. Johnson) (03/16/90)
APPLE ANNOUNCES NEW APPLE II HIGH-SPEED SCSI CARD
CUPERTINO, California--March 15, 1990--Apple Computer, Inc. today
announced a new high-speed card that moves information up to 10
times faster between Apple II personal computers and peripheral
devices, such as hard disks and CD-ROM drives, at no extra cost.
The new Apple II High-Speed SCSI Card provides the fastest data
throughput available for Apple IIe and Apple IIGS users, and is
compatible with all small computer system interface (SCSI)
peripherals.
"We continue to respond to the needs of our education, consumer
and small business customers to enhance the performance of the
Apple II line," said Randy Battat, vice president, worldwide product
marketing. "This high-speed card, together with recent product
announcements including new Apple II system software and video
overlay card, make the investment in Apple II personal computers
even more valuable."
Customers who use the new Apple II High-Speed SCSI Card with
a SCSI peripheral extend their computer's performance. For example,
customers using large applications stored on a hard disk drive,
such as AppleWorks GS, or any large files, will see a significant
speed improvement when launching programs, as well as opening and
saving files. The larger the application or the larger the file
results in the greatest speed improvement.
Features and Benefits
The new Apple II High-Speed SCSI Card provides faster data
transfer primarily because of a new feature called direct memory
access (DMA) data transfer. Data is transferred directly between
the computer's memory and the SCSI peripheral, with minimal
interaction from the computer's microprocessor. The result is
improved data transfer performance. With the new high-speed card,
data transfers at a rate of up to 1MB per second on the Apple IIGS
computer, and at a rate of up to .5MB per second on the Apple IIe
computer. In addition to DMA, the SCSI manager and firmware have
been improved and also contribute to the increased performance.
Compatible with all SCSI peripherals, the Apple II High-Speed
SCSI Card requires only that device-specific applications and
drivers be installed on the system. The card ships with drivers
and applications for hard disk and CD-ROM drives, allowing users
to take advantage of these devices immediately. Device drivers
for the tape backup drive and scanner will be made available to
developers, and users will be able to take advantage of these
devices as applications are developed. In addition, the new card
enables users to connect as many as seven SCSI peripherals to their
computer.
Another feature of the card is an on-board terminator, which
simplifies setup when connecting SCSI peripherals to the computer.
Previously, the Apple II SCSI Card required users to understand
rules regarding placement and quantity of terminators between SCSI
devices. With the new card, users simply place one terminator at
the end of the chain of SCSI devices.
The Apple II High-Speed SCSI Card also includes improved
hard disk utilities. These utilities make it easy to handle hard
disk management tasks such as data backup, disk partitioning and
disk verification. The partition and verify utilities take
advantage of the improved firmware commands for hard disk drives.
The backup utility is now able to handle the resource forks that
are part of the IIGS files. Because these are ProDOS utilities,
they can be used by both Apple IIe and Apple IIGS users.
System Requirements
The Apple II High-Speed SCSI Card works on an Apple IIGS
computer or an Apple IIe computer with a 65C02 microprocessor.
The Apple IIGS requires a 3.5-inch disk drive, while the Apple IIe
requires either a 5.25- or a 3.5-inch disk drive. Both require a
device with a SCSI port, appropriate SCSI cabling and one SCSI
terminator.
Price and Availability
The suggested retail price of the Apple II High-Speed SCSI
Card is $129, the same price as the previous SCSI card, which it
replaces. The card will be available in the U. S. on March 15 at
authorized Apple resellers.
-30-
Apple, the Apple logo, Apple IIGS and ProDOS are registered
trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
--
Mark B. Johnson AppleLink: mjohnson
Developer Technical Support domain: mjohnson@Apple.com
Apple Computer, Inc. UUCP: {amdahl,decwrl,sun,unisoft}!apple!mjohnson
"You gave your life to become the person you are right now. Was it worth it?"
- Richard Bach, _One_gt0t+@andrew.cmu.edu (Gregory Ross Thompson) (03/16/90)
> Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.apple2: 15-Mar-90 Apple II High-Speed > SCSI Ca.. Mark B. Johnson@Apple.CO (4610) > APPLE ANNOUNCES NEW APPLE II HIGH-SPEED SCSI CARD > [loads of stuff omitted] Finally. Man, am I pleased to hear that. Can we expect to see System 6.0 sometime soon also? I can't wait. I think I'll throw out my little 20 meg piece of junk and get a nice 80 meg SCSI now, just for the heck of it. Man, I'm a happy camper now. Let's see some more II and GS products... > -- > Mark B. Johnson AppleLink: > mjohnson > Developer Technical Support domain: > mjohnson@Apple.com > Apple Computer, Inc. UUCP: > {amdahl,decwrl,sun,unisoft}!apple!mjohnson > "You gave your life to become the person you are right now. Was it > worth it?" > - Richard Bach, > _One_ -Greg T.
NOSES@DBNINF5.BITNET (Achim Patzner) (03/16/90)
Subj: RE: Apple II High-Speed SCSI Card Released > Features and Benefits > The new Apple II High-Speed SCSI Card provides faster data > transfer primarily because of a new feature called direct memory > access (DMA) data transfer. Data is transferred directly between > the computer's memory and the SCSI peripheral, with minimal > interaction from the computer's microprocessor. One minute please... Is there a slight chance that this card would work without doin DMA too??? For all of you who don't remember: Everybody with an 8 Mbyte RAM card in his system might become a bit frustrated now: As far as I know is the IIGS's DMA hardware compatible to the earlier models i.e. there will be only 16 bits of the destination addresse on the bus. All cards (like those boards) that decode the address bus themselves might have problems with this as they don't use the MMU's addressing signals. Ok, we were warned when we bought them (I was, but only *after* having bought it)... > The result is improved data transfer performance. *SIGH* > Mark B. Johnson AppleLink: mjohnson > "You gave your life to become the person you are right now. Was it worth it?" > - Richard Bach, _One_ Sometimes. Achim (Noses@DBNINF5.BITNET -preferred- or ...!unido!bnu!patzner)
pa1285@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (David L. Brown) (03/16/90)
Okay, first off, I'm posting this using my roommates account, send all flames/replies/comments to nlenz@ucsd.edu Now we're off... I want to start by saying that I've been waiting with baited breath for this SCSI card to come out ever since I heard the rumors about it. I would have never believed, though that we'd get up to a meg a second!! Golly, Beav, that mighty quick! Plus, Apple provides a backup program with the card that supports resource forks. Awesome! Plus support for Apple's SCSI scanner and Tape Backup. I mean, this is like Christmas (in a weird sort of way, I guess). *** Flame On *** Now the bad part... I intended to go out and buy this card... the press release said that it would be available at authorized Apple resellers on the 15th, right. Well, out of the 4 or 5 Apple dealers I called in the San Diego area (that's how many I found in the phone book) none of them had the card in stock, and, in fact, only _one_ of them even knew that the card existed, and he said it would be at least a month before they had it in stock (this is at Sun Computers, they are a chain, so that could be a reason... they probably have their own distribution channels). I can't believe this, it's not like San Diego is some small town in the middle of nowhere! I'm sure that when the new Mac is announced, I'll be able to walk into any Apple dealer the day of the anouncement and buy one (IF I had that kind of cash :). I thought that the whole reason for not announceing products before they are available was so that people could BUY the product when it was announced, and not wait and pester their dealers "When is so and so gonna be out?" I'm going up to LA this weekend, and hopefully I'll be able to find a dealer there that has an "Apple II High-Speed SCSI Card" in stock. As far as I'm concerned, the card still isn't available since *I* can't find an Apple dealer who even knows what it is (except for the one guy at Sun :). *** Flame Off *** Feeling peeved, and like a little kid who wants his new toy, and wants it _NOW_... I'm... Nick Lenz InterNet: nlenz@ucsd.edu Again, this is not MY account.. GEnie: N.LENZ send replies to the addresses Amer. On-Line: Nick Lenz to the left <---
lbotez@pro-sol.cts.com (Lynda Botez) (03/16/90)
In-Reply-To: message from mjohnson@Apple.COM Thanks again to Mark Johnson from Apple for posting this press release to the net. It's good to know that there is *something* real coming out for the Apple II family of computers. While this card has been rumored about to death, it's great news to see that is not just vaporware. Sounds pretty neat. Makes me wish I had a scsi drive.... sigh. Lynda
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (03/17/90)
In article <9087@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> pa1285@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (David L. Brown) writes: >the press release said that it would be available at authorized >Apple resellers on the 15th, right. Well, out of the 4 or 5 Apple >dealers I called in the San Diego area (that's how many I found in >the phone book) none of them had the card in stock, and, in fact, >only _one_ of them even knew that the card existed, and he said it >would be at least a month before they had it in stock ... I had almost exactly the same experience with the nearest Apple dealer up here. Of course by now I know that this is what to expect. I really don't know what causes the disconnect in information flow to Apple dealers; perhaps Apple really expects all the salemen to study the press releases posted on AppleLink, but if so somebody should tell them it isn't working..
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (03/17/90)
In article <9003152210.AA23548@apple.com> NOSES@DBNINF5.BITNET (Achim Patzner) writes: >One minute please... Is there a slight chance that this card would work >without doin DMA too? I have a slightly more fundamental question: What happens if I replace my old Apple SCSI (Rev. C) Card with the new DMA-capable one under GS System Disk 5.0.2? (a) Will the new card work with existing GS/OS? (b) Will GS/OS use the DMA feature or programmed I/O?
cs3ca3ay@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Jimi X) (03/21/90)
Oh yeah now i feel like an idiot having just bought AE's serial-pro Does anybody know if AE is going to do anything about it... like an upgrade? mabee. -Jimi X
risner@ms.uky.edu (Shad Fax) (03/21/90)
High speed SCSI.... 1meg/sec......cool, but its not new....for a long time the Vulcan 100meg internal has been running at 950+/-k per second. Actual test speeds. The posting said up to a meg a sec. This is not a flame on the New SCSI, but more of a pump for the Vulcan 100. I have used it and its FAST. I love the idea of a "no increase in price" killer SCSI card. Sys 6 will be great (hey, ANY improvement over Sys 5 is to be respected. Sys 5 show what the IIgs COULD be) Hypercard GS. Rumor of a ROM 04. Looks to me like Apple is developing for the IIgs even if it is ashamed of it. I am going to use all the money I make over the summer break to buy myself a NEW computer. If that happens to be a IIgs that compares to or betters an Amiga, then it will be a IIgs (my hopes...) If the ROM 04 (due in sept? was it? I will wait until mid-october) is as good as the Amiga, then I will stick with Apple II. If not its off to Amiga land. NO FLAMES please. If the IIgs doesn't match up to the Amiga now, then I don't think it can live more than maybe a year more. Many people said what does an Educantional/Home/Hobbyist computer need to be an Amiga killer? Because if it is it has a much better chance to survive for another 6-8 years....(my opinion. By that time computers will be so advanced/cheap that why stay with the old?) Apple is supporting the II, now why don't you (Apple) tell the world? -- | Thanks, James Risner | They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it | ARPA: | "da Vinchy". Foreigners always spell | risner@ms.uky.edu | better than they pronounce. -- Mark Twain