lenny@icus.UUCP (Lenny Tropiano) (07/16/88)
Today I got in the mail the advertisement from IDT Systems, Inc in Newark, Delware for the SCSI Bus support. They are doing some serious hardware development for the UNIX PC (3B1/7300). I am very pleased to see that someone thinks this machine is worth it, and is continuing to do research and development on a product AT&T considers *dead*. [For that I applaud them]. I spoke with Matthew Marshall about the product, asked a few questions and was all in all very pleased. The due date for the SCSI Bus is late August. The current cost is $350.00, but that might change if production costs do. [He did mention it probably is pretty stable] The driver that is included is a "generic" one that conforms to different SCSI periphs that you hook onto the bus. He said, "We don't plan to support *all* the hard drives and tape drives, but we are aiming to get as many as we can." He then rattled off about 12 different manufacturers of hard drives and tape drives that they are going to support (eg. Seagate, Priam, Maxtor, Miniscribe, Rodime, Teac, etc...) Below is the actual advertisement (typed in by me -- I apologize for any typographical errors, I tried to catch them all) that I received in the mail. Matthew gave me permission to reproduce it electronically over this network [in fact he seemed to encourage it -- I wonder why :-)] One final note: I don't have any affiliation with IDT Systems, Inc or it's affiliates. I am just relaying this to the rest of the world so you can see for yourself what they are planning. Those who spoke with IDT should get this advertisement shortly. --- cut here for IDT Information --- --- cut here for IDT Information --- IDT Systems, Inc. AT&T Value Added Reseller Contact: Matthew Marshall General products ---------------- The following lists the products that are actively shipping, shipping in the near future and are considering. For more information contact us: Tel: (302) 731-1583 Fax: (302) 731-4613 Usenet address: uunet!eplrx7!mouse!idt Any good suggestions or comments are appreciated. Available now ------------- o Motherboard RAM upgrade from 1/2 Mbyte to 2 Mbyte (contact for current pricing). o Hard drive upgrade to allow the internal ST506 hard disk to be larger than 67 Mbytes (maximum of 4 Gigabyte). Available in August (see note) ------------------------------ o RAM Expansion board upgrade from 1/2 Mbyte to 2 Mbytes (contact for current pricing). o Bus Station (TM) SCSI adapter board (~$350). May optionally be bundled with 20, 40, 60, or 100 Mbyte SCSI hard drive. Note: Engineering told marketing that these products would be available in 3rd quarter, so of course they (the marketeers) figured that 3rd quarter starts July 1st and started advertising the product as available at the end of June. Engineering figures that the product will actually start shipping at the end of August. *Sigh* Being kicked around in R&D as possibilities if there is enough interest ----------------------------------------------------------------------- o 68020 coprocessor/accelerator card. o 68881 math accelerator card. o Appletalk card. o Eight high speed serial channel card. o Four 2400 baud modems on a single card o IEEE-488 card. o Large bitmapped screen graphics card. o Slot prototyping card. SCSI Bus Station specs ---------------------- 1. General Description The SCSI Bus Station (tm) is a single slot interface card for the AT&T 3B1 or UNIX PC designed to interconnect with as many as seven other SCSI (Small Computer Standard Interface) bus devices such as hard disk drives, tape drives, and other computers. The equipment comes complete with board, 18" SCSI cable, installation and diagnostics software and users' manual. The board is warranted for two years. Software updates, telephone and BBS support are free for the first 90 days to registered users. Extended support is available for a nominal fee on a yearly basis. 2. SCSI Specifics 2.1 Level supported The Bus Station supports the original SCSI specification since SCSI-2 is currently incomplete. It is capable of acting as a SCSI host (initiator) or slave (target). 2.2 Addressing The SCSI address of the board is software configured at powerup time. The actual address (0-7) can be changed via a configuration program. The board address also sets the arbitration priority of the board; the higher the number the higher the priority. Address 7 takes precedence over all others. 2.3 Bus cable length The maximum bus (cable) length is 20 meters. The board to SCSI cable supplied is 18" in length. Longer cables are available for purchase. 2.4 Bus termination SCSI specifications state that the devices at either end of the physical bus be terminated with resistors. The card is supplied with removable resistors in place to allow the computer to be at either end of the physical bus. 2.5 Connectors Two connectors on the board are available at the back of the computer to allow daisy chaining of SCSI devices. The connector is a DB25 socket with a Macintosh (tm) compatible pinout. The cable supplied with the card adapts this to the standard SCSI 50 pin Centronics connector. 3. PC Specifics 3.1 Slot installation The Bus Station can be installed in any one of the three slots, but best performance is gotten from installing the board in slot 2. Installation of the hardware into the computer should take less than 15 minutes. Installation of the software should tke less than 5 minutes. Rebooting the system always seems to take too long, generally about 15 minutes. 3.2 DMA The adapter has its own DMA channels running independently of the host computer onboard DMA for maximum processor bus transfer rate. The actual bus bandwidth (maximum communication rate) is dependent on characteristics of the device addressed on the SCSI bus. 3.3 Reset Switch In addition to the two connectors, the board is supplied with a momentary contact switch on the back to reset the SCSI bus. 4. Software 4.1 Installer The installer is responsible for making the SCSI driver available to the system hardware and software. 4.2 Configuration Program The configuration program controls certain aspects of the SCSI device drivers. It determines and sets the characteristics of each expected device on the SCSI at powerup and can be used to add new SCSI devices to the driver. The user can either select device characteristics from a menu or specify new ones. The next few paragraphs lists a few of the configurable characteristics for common SCSI devices. Hard drives are configured for number of cylinders, number of data surfaces (heads), sectors per track, number of logical devices controlled and SCSI address. Tape drives are configured for tape length, formatted capacity, number of logical devices controlled, and SCSI address. Computers are configured for communications supported (synchronous or asynchronous), computer type and SCSI address. 4.3 Generic device driver A generic device driver is supplied to be modified via the configuration program to allow communication with standard SCSI devices. 4.4 Diagnostics Diagnostics are supplied for hardware checkout and bus monitoring. -- Paper-net: Lenny Tropiano | @-net: lenny@icus.UUCP ICUS Software Systems | !-net: ...att \ PO Box 1 | boulder \ Islip Terrace, NY 11752 | talcott !icus!lenny Vocal-net: (516) 582-5525 [work] | pacbell / (516) 968-8576 [home] | sbcs / Telex-net: 154232428 ICUS | Another-net: attmail!icus!lenny
sbw@naucse.UUCP (Steve Wampler) (07/16/88)
From article <428@icus.UUCP>, by lenny@icus.UUCP (Lenny Tropiano): > Today I got in the mail the advertisement from IDT Systems, Inc in ... > Being kicked around in R&D as possibilities if there is enough interest > o 68020 coprocessor/accelerator card. > o 68881 math accelerator card. > o Large bitmapped screen graphics card. How does one let them know that one is (thank you, Miss Manners) interested in one or more of the above if the prices are reasonable. I'd be particularly interested in a combination 68020/68881 card, and a high-resolution/high-color bitmapped screen card. A little cannon fodder. -- Steve Wampler {....!arizona!naucse!sbw}
erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) (07/17/88)
In article <778@naucse.UUCP>, sbw@naucse.UUCP (Steve Wampler) writes: > From article <428@icus.UUCP>, by lenny@icus.UUCP (Lenny Tropiano): > > Today I got in the mail the advertisement from IDT Systems, Inc in > ... > > Being kicked around in R&D as possibilities if there is enough interest > > o 68020 coprocessor/accelerator card. > > o 68881 math accelerator card. > > o Large bitmapped screen graphics card. > How does one let them know that one is (thank you, Miss Manners) interested > in one or more of the above if the prices are reasonable. I'd be > particularly interested in a combination 68020/68881 card, and > a high-resolution/high-color bitmapped screen card. Hear! Hear! If somebody doesn't start making some add-ons and horsepower boosters for the 3b1, I may have to get a different computer in a year or three.... Just because there'll be used Mac II's/Amiga 2000's w/ enough goodies to make it worth changing over. What I wouldn't give for a ~1200x900pixel color monitor and a 68020/881. Which reminds me. There's no way (as of yet) to go over 4Mb total RAM, right -- 2Mb on the motherboard and 2Mb on a *single* card? -- Skate UNIX or go home, boogie boy... [Obscure joke goes here] J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007 ..!bellcore!tness1!/
jcs@tarkus.UUCP (John C. Sucilla) (07/19/88)
> Being kicked around in R&D as possibilities if there is enough interest > o 68020 coprocessor/accelerator card. > o 68881 math accelerator card. > o Large bitmapped screen graphics card. The 68020 coprocessor sounds neat but what I'd like to see right away is a list of SCSI disk and tape drives it will talk to. How about a keyboard with one of those built in upside-down mouses? I'd really prefer a rollerball to that pain in the butt mouse. -- John "C". Sucilla, A silicon based life form. {att,chinet,ddsw1}!tarkus!jcs You have a better idea? Now's the time..
jr@amanue.UUCP (Jim Rosenberg) (07/19/88)
In article <1127@flatline.UUCP> erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) writes: >Which reminds me. There's no way (as of yet) to go over 4Mb total >RAM, right -- 2Mb on the motherboard and 2Mb on a *single* card? It's my understanding that the 4M limit is *deeply embedded* in the design of the 3b1/7300's MMU -- and it's made from discrete chips, right? I'm not a hardware person so I should probably keep my mouth shut, but I think asking for more than 4M is asking for too much. It would require lobotomizing the current CPU *and* MMU and substituting new ones. If a hardware guru out there knows how to do this *I'll* certainly be impressed! I would *ADORE* a large screen. Since I have a Mac too an Appletalk interface would be a blast, but I don't know how many other people are in the same boat. If a multi-port serial card were reasonably priced I'd buy it. I need an EIA card, but have always been bothered by the price. You can buy a Taiwanese- Generic-Cloneburger serial port card for a PC for the whopping sum of $35. They work. They work with UNIX. (I use one with Venix all the time.) In my view the cost of the 3b1 EIA card is simply outrageous!! Question about the SCSI driver: Will it support a Bernoulli? -- Jim Rosenberg CIS: 71515,124 decvax!idis! \ WELL: jer allegra! ---- pitt!amanue!jr BIX: jrosenberg uunet!cmcl2!cadre! /
dsueme@chinet.UUCP (dave sueme) (07/20/88)
My wish list: 1. white screen, black characters (not necessarily bigger, but that would be ok.) 2. system v.3, v.4 when it is current 3. workable backup device 4. Prologue ================================================================================ ...att!chinet!penl0p!dsueme David M. Sueme Attorney at Law 911 Washington, 2N Evanston, IL 60202 (312) 869-1824 (voice) Philosophers are violent and aggressive persons who, having no army at their disposal, bring the world into subjection to themselves by means of locking it up in a system. (Robert Musil)
rusty@hodge.UUCP (Rusty Hodge) (07/22/88)
With the advent of the SCSI card; decent/inexpensive tape backup will be a reality. Tech has a SCSI-interfaced 60mb unit that is FAST. 60mb in about 15 minutes. Boy, and all those 300mb 16.5ms access time SCSI hard disks... -- Rusty Hodge, HCR Inc, 1588 N. Batavia St. Orange, CA 92667 (714) 974-6300 rusty@hodge.cts.com [uunet vdelta crash]!hodge!rusty FAX (714) 921-8038