pechter@scr1.UUCP (Bill Pechter) (07/06/89)
A friend picked up an Amstrad (Modem 1510 -- I think) and would like to add
a hard disk to this compact (2 floppy, 8mhz 8086, cga) machine.
I know nothing about the power supply, number of slots or motherboard
construction.
I have three questions to ask before I put on my CE hat and go exploring
inside it...
1 - Can a standard WD1002-WX1 card fit in the thing
2 - Will the machine have enough power to drive a hard disk
(I've got a 3 1/2 inch Rodime 352 laying around)
3 - Anyone have a location for Amstrad. She got the machine as a demo from
a store without docs or DOS. There's a real-time clock inside with the
wrong time and I haven't got the software to set it.
--
Bill Pechter -- Home - 103 Governors Road, Lakewood, NJ 08701 (201)370-0709
Work -- Concurrent Computer Corp., 2 Crescent Pl, MS 172, Oceanport,NJ 07757
Phone -- (201)870-4780 Usenet . . . rutgers!pedsga!tsdiag!scr1!pechter
** MS-DOS is CP/M on steroids, bigger bulkier and not much better ** djm@etive.ed.ac.uk (D Murphy) (07/06/89)
In article <384@scr1.UUCP> pechter@scr1.UUCP (Bill Pechter) writes: >A friend picked up an Amstrad (Modem 1510 -- I think) and would like to add >a hard disk to this compact (2 floppy, 8mhz 8086, cga) machine. > >I know nothing about the power supply, number of slots or motherboard >construction. > >I have three questions to ask before I put on my CE hat and go exploring >inside it... >1 - Can a standard WD1002-WX1 card fit in the thing >2 - Will the machine have enough power to drive a hard disk > (I've got a 3 1/2 inch Rodime 352 laying around) >3 - Anyone have a location for Amstrad. She got the machine as a demo from > a store without docs or DOS. There's a real-time clock inside with the > wrong time and I haven't got the software to set it. > 1 & 2. I bought one of these machines a few years ago, and used a Western Digital 30MB filecard for it. This card takes up 1.5 slots (the half slot is the disk housing toward the back of the card. I think it is on the left hand side as you look down the thing with the connector end away from you - unfortunately (I've tried) you can't fit it in the rearmost slot as there is a shelf on the metal shielding plate which gets in the way). The WD device has average 65ms access time and comes bundled with Xtree and WD's own software cacheing program, SpeedRead. Although slow by modern standards this card is easily fast enough for the machine, and is easily installed. I've found it to be very reliable (no downtime in the 2 years I've had it). 3. Amstrad bundle a program with the machine which they call RTC (Real Time Clock patch). Don't use it. DOS TIME (which comes with DOS anyway - the only way I can see you getting round the lack of DOS is either to buy a new one from Amstrad or bend the rules a bit ;-)) sets the nonvolatile RAM clock too and it stays set. If you run RTC then any program which hijacks the timer interrupt will slow down the clock - rather than letting it be reset when you reboot. As regards DOS, if you don't go to Amstrad you'll have to write your own program for setting up the NVR. Also, don't use DOS from an IBM machine, as there is some incompatibility which gives a parity error if you try to use PRINT or redirect output to the printer (PrtSc is unaffected). Hope this helps. >-- >Bill Pechter -- Home - 103 Governors Road, Lakewood, NJ 08701 (201)370-0709 >Work -- Concurrent Computer Corp., 2 Crescent Pl, MS 172, Oceanport,NJ 07757 >Phone -- (201)870-4780 Usenet . . . rutgers!pedsga!tsdiag!scr1!pechter > ** MS-DOS is CP/M on steroids, bigger bulkier and not much better ** BTW - I have no connexion with Western Digital or Amstrad (which apparently stands for the Alan M Sugar Trading company :-)). I'm just a largely satisfied customer (though I wish it were possible to upgrade the CGA). Murff.... JANET: djm@uk.ac.ed.etive Internet: djm%ed.etive@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Murff@uk.ac.ed.emas-a Murff%ed.emas-a@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk trinity@uk.ac.ed.cs.tardis trinity%ed.cs.tardis@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk D.J. Murphy *Artificial* intelligence ? Evidently.....