gallo@fsttoo.dec.com (Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery.) (02/02/88)
As a recent buyer of an Apple Disk 3.5 for use on my Laser 128,I'd like to share my impressions. First some background.My laser has the built in Universal Disk Controller firmware which is (*Supposedly*) compatible with the Central Point Software Universal Disk Controller card and the //gs Smartport firmware. I bought the drive and installed it on my laser as per the instruction manual.I then had to remove the yellow shipping 'disk' from the drive.I pressed the eject button on the right side of the drive and *nothing* happened.I then proceded to insert a paper clip into the 'manual eject' hole in the eject button and I sucessfully removed the shipping disk. I figured it was a fluke of the shipping disk and proceeded to put in a blank diskette and I sucessfully formatted it.I again pressed the eject button to eject the disk and again *nothing* happened. At this point I figure that the drive is not working correctly. I drove back to the dealer who tell me that since the Laser uses a MAC compatible drive and the MAC can eject disks via software,the eject button gets disabled by the controller.After reading MAC section of the Disk 3.5 user's guide I found this to be documented. :-( To make a long story short,I wrote an assembly language program to call SmartPort to eject a disk.The eject portion of the code works great but I cant get the UDC firmware to return the proper status upon returning from an error condition. Otherwise,I'm satisfied with the whole setup.Its a little 'pricey' though.The drive cost $300 at a dealer and that was after a little 'haggling'.This is about the price I would have had to pay via mail order also,so I'm not too unhappy. BTW,Thanks to all who had replied to my request for mail order sources.My original intention was to buy a Laser 800k 3.5 drive. After several inquiries to both local and mail order Laser dealers, I found that that particular item was back ordered. Does anybody have a good (read: reliable & cheap or free :-)) backup utility that can use multiple 5.25's to backup a 3.5.My computer budget is shot for a while and I now have a backup problem. Tom Gallo (/tomg) ************************************************************************* ** ** ** The opinions expressed here are my OWN and not those of my employer ** ** ** *************************************************************************
halp@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Bruce P. Halpern) (02/03/88)
Keywords:backup Diversi-COPY (written by Bill Basham), copyright by DSR, Inc., backs up 3.5 in disks on a single drive. The number of passes depends upon the amount of RAM. If you have at least 800K, it's one pass, and can also make multiple copies if you wish. Does the same for 5.25 in disks (but doesn't need much RAM, of course). Works on ][+, e, c, gs. Diversified Software Research, Inc., 34880 Bunker Hill, Farmington MI 48018-2728 sells it for $30. May work on Laser 128; never tried it. Alternatively, to back up 3.5 in on 5.25 in, one can format a 5.25 in, and then use a copy utility (e.g., System Utility, CAT Doctor on ProSEL, etc.) to copy desired files to the 5.25 in. ****DISCLAMER: My comments, etc., are my own shakey opinions ******** -- | Bruce P. Halpern Psychology & Neurobiology & Behavior Cornell Ithaca | | INTERNET:halp@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu | | BITNET: HALP@CRNLTHRY D57J@CORNELLA D57J@CRNLVAX5 | | PHONE: 607-255-6433 Uris Hall, Cornell U., Ithaca, NY 14853-7601 |
wjgilbert@watmath.waterloo.edu (William J. Gilbert) (02/04/88)
In article <8802021330.AA13316@decwrl.dec.com> gallo@fsttoo.dec.com (Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery.) writes: > > Does anybody have a good (read: reliable & cheap or free :-)) >backup utility that can use multiple 5.25's to backup a 3.5.My >computer budget is shot for a while and I now have a backup problem. Use the BACKUP and RESTORE programs on ProSEL. They are very fast. (Available from Glen Bredon, 521 State Rd, Princeton, NJ 08540 for $40.) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Will Gilbert, Pure Mathematics Department, University of Waterloo wjgilbert@watmath.waterloo.edu 519-888-4097