mdavis@pro-sol.cts.COM (Morgan Davis) (04/11/88)
I'm posting the following for a member of pro-sol who is not "net compatible"
yet. Please note that these aren't my words, nor necessarily my opinions
either:
CS-ID: #1100.apple/hard@pro-sol 2862 chars
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 88 13:23:38 PST
From: samp (Sam Pemberton)
Subject: New Apple SCSI ROM
I received Apple's new SCSI ROM last week, have it installed, and am
very happy with it. This is the Rev. C we've heard rumors about for months,
but it's not a Rev. C since the part number's changed -- it's Rev. A (part
number is 341-0437-A, (c) Apple '87). I was concerned about the copyright
date, but have been assured by some certified developers that the part number
I have is indeed the part number for the ROM that supercedes Rev. B.
What I am pleased about is that many 'funny happenings' have
disappeared since installing the new ROM on my Apple SCSI card: My Apple
20SC HD icon no longer disappears from the Finder desktop on ocassion
(before, ProDOS would often not recognize the SCSI card at all if I had
changed slot 6 to/from "your card"/"disk port"); I can now turn on the 20SC
HD and the GS at the same time if I want to, and the 20SC HD will be operable
100% of the time (it was about 50% before); ProSel no longer tells me at
times that my 20SC HD directory file is too damaged to read when I know it's
not; the 20SC HD can now be more than 2/3 full and the SCSI card and Finder
no longer crash when this is the case. And although this may not have
anything to do with the new ROM, I swear that Music Studio IIgs 1.2
(Activision) plays songs that have lots of rapid techinical passages much
more smoothly than before, especially when using MIDI out (I can't verify
this scientifically, but as a musician, it is evident to me).
What does not please me is that Apple still insists that there are no
problems with Rev. B, and that the only people who need the newest ROM are
those who are going to use the new AppleCD SC or who will be running
partitioning software. What also does not please me is that some who have
received the newest SCSI ROM have also received Apple partitioning software
which, for one thing at least, will alow them to split a 20 meg HD into two
10 meg volumes which are recognized as Drives 1 & 2 of whatever slot the SCSI
card happens to be in.
(If Apple does have the new AppleCD SC available in May as they've
promised -- and other promised events seem to be occuring on time -- then
they must have some software that's going to be able to do something with a
550 meg CD disk. We know the current limit of ProDOS 16 is 32 megs, right?)
Because of the persistent rumors about problems with Apple SCSI card
ROM Rev. B, it seems that Apple should offer all owners of Rev. B an upgrade
option, if not for free, at least at a minimal charge, and if the
partitioning software is not beta, make it available to us also. Corporate
Apple would not have to admit that there were any problems with Rev. B, they
could just offer a reasonable upgrade path to those consumers who _believe_
they've had problems caused by Rev. B.
To whom at Apple should I express my concerns?
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Send inquiries to samp@pro-sol.cts.com