stevewa@upvax.UUCP (Steve Ward) (10/01/88)
Here's the summary of replies I received to my inquiry about
running an RLL controller with a Miniscribe 3650 HD. Since the
results are all positive, I believe I'll have a go at it.
Thanks for all the responces.
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Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 14:03 EDT
From: tektronix!uunet.UUCP!pdnag1!reese (Don Reese)
To: stevewa@upvax
Subject: Re: Anyone running RLL on Miniscribe 3650?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
In-Reply-To: <461@upvax.UUCP>
Organization: Paradyne Corporation, Largo, Florida
Steve, I don't use the 3650 but I do use the 3675 (Miniscribe 3650 certified
for use with RLL). Overall it seems to be a good though noisy drive. But with
the current market price of ~$325 it is damn hard to beat. The drive formats
out to two 32MB partitions.
<stuff deleted>
[Well] I am using the Adaptec 2372 controller. Provides 1:1 interleave with
sustained transfer rate of about ~800K sec. It can control two high or low
density floppies (5 1/2 and/or 3 1/2) and two hard disks.
BTW, Steve Gibson tested the Adapted 2372 controller with a Miniscribe
and wrote it up in his Tech Talk column in Info World (February 29, 1988 issue).
I Quote His report:
"The Miniscribe 3650 is not quite offically RLL certified, though I
hear rumors that it's about to be, simple because it works so well. I've
tested many of them myself, and the bright boys at Northgate Computer Systems
(who turned me on to this drive in the first place) are shipping thousands
with RLL controllers in their 286 AT compatables."
It is a 16 bit controller and is working great with my 12MHz Zeos.
Note: this is my personal choice for a hard disk system, my employer could
care less.
--
Don Reese reese@pdn.UUCP | Eney Meeny, Jelly Beanie,
Paradyne Corporation uunet!pdn!reese | the spirits are about to
8550 Ulmerton Road Mail Stop LF-207 | speak. - Bullwinkle Moose
Largo, FL 34641-3893 Phone: (813) 530-8361 | -------------------------
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Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 09:09:36 PDT
From: tektronix!tekcae.CAX.TEK.COM!bobp (Robert N. Perry (Sky Scum))
Message-Id: <8809201609.AA26756@tekcae.CAX.TEK.COM>
To: stevewa@upvax
I've been using a Western Peripherals controller for my 3650 for about
6 months now. I got the controller for about $75. Works like a champ.
No problems as yet. I have an XT clone (called a Turbo XT - 10 MHz).
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Date: Wed, 21 Sep 88 10:16:41 PDT
From: tektronix!uw-beaver.UUCP!ole!ray (Ray Berry)
Message-Id: <8809211716.AA18124@ole.UUCP>
To: tikal!uw-beaver!tektronix!upvax!stevewa
Subject: Re: Anyone running RLL on Miniscribe 3650?
Organization: Seattle Silicon Corporation, Bellevue, WA.
Lots of people use RLL on 3650s. A large mail order dealer in the Midwest
sells lots of systems with that arrangement so I would assume it is quite
safe to run it that way.
The best controller I know of for that app would be the Adaptec ACB2372
(floppy/RLL for AT). It supports 1:1 interleave with a buffer and installs
easily. They are available for $150 or so. One source local to Seattle
would be Wyle in Redmond.
--
Ray Berry KB7HT
Seattle Silicon Corp., 3075 112th Ave NE., Bellevue WA 98004
(206) 828 4422 UUCP:...!uw-beaver!tikal!ole!ray
=============================================================
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To: stevewa@upvax
Subject: Re: Anyone running RLL on Miniscribe 3650?
In-Reply-To: your article <461@upvax.UUCP>
Date: 22 Sep 88 09:20:22 EDT (Thu)
Message-Id: <8809220920.AA05503@lafcol.UUCP>
I just installed a Miniscribe 3650 on my AST Premium/286 last weekend.
It makes funny noises when starting up, but so far it works just fine.
It is connected to a WD controller with the jumper set for RRL. I did
a low-level format and a partitioning, ending up with two 33MB logical
drives and one 900K logical drive. One week, of course, doesn't speak
to the question of reliability. People on the net seem to be happy
with it, however.
<Sorry I munged up the "From:" line on this one...>
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Date: Thu, 22 Sep 88 08:58:19 EDT
From: Boon-Ping Chew <tektronix!uunet.UUCP!hub.toronto.edu!chew>
Message-Id: <8809221258.AA08941@hub.toronto.edu>
To: stevewa@upvax
Subject: Re: Anyone running RLL on Miniscribe 3650?
Organization: University of Toronto
For a local distributor, there is a new model of the Miniscribe,
the 3675 which is similar to the 3650 except that it is certified to be
used on with RLL controllers but they are actually the same drive. Price
differences at dealer level is $10. Sooo ....
The Adatpec 2732 is the best I know of. Can control 2 HD and 2 FD.
Its also has a high data transfer rate.
Boon
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Date: Tue, 27 Sep 88 17:49:17 PDT
From: tektronix!uw-beaver.UUCP!cornell!mailrus!ames!ucbcad!tis.llnl.gov!mordor!lll-lcc!painter (Jeffrey F. Painter)
Message-Id: <8809280049.AA03416@lll-lcc.llnl.gov>
Subject: Re: Anyone running RLL on Miniscribe 3650?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Labs, Livermore Ca
I am running a Miniscribe 3650 (and 360 and 1440 K floppy drives) with
an Adaptec 2372 hard & floppy disk controller on a Hauppauge 80386-
based AT compatible. Other people I know are using the same
combination on Dyna and Mylex '386 boards. The interleave is 1:1 and
so far (about 6 months) the disk and controller combination has worked
fine, but there are slight compatibility problems with the Hauppauge
bus, not the other buses. The Adaptec board isn't guaranteed to work
on a bus faster than 8 MHz, 1 wait state, though it might be worth the
gamble for you; I've heard some people have used them on faster buses.
My previous computer was an IBM XT with IBM drive; this is very much
faster, but I haven't compared it with ATs. I have it configured as
two 33 MB drives, for a total of 66 MB; if I remember correctly you
format it as 842 tracks, 6 heads.
--
Jeffrey F. Painter painter@lll-lcc.llnl.gov
L-316, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory painter@lll-crg.llnl.gov
Livermore CA 94550 USA 415-422-0675, FTS 532-0675
415-423-7613, FTS 543-7613
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>From: malloy@nprdc.arpa (Sean Malloy)
Subject: Re: Anyone running RLL on Miniscribe 3650?
Summary: PerStor PS180 ARLL controller works fine
Message-ID: <903@skinner.nprdc.arpa>
Date: 20 Sep 88 14:02:20 GMT
Organization: Navy Personnel R&D Center, San Diego
I've been using my 3650 with a PerStor PS180 ARLL controller for about
three months now, and haven't had any problems with it. I installed the
PS180 right after the July 4 weekend (when I bought the controller, it
had the wrong ROM for my system, and I figured that since I would be
going out to Phoenix for WesterCon over the July 4 weekend, I might as
well drop over to PerStor in Scottsdale and get the ROM swapped,
rather than wait for shipping it each way).
There was no problem formatting it using PerStor's format utility, and
(modulo the two drive defects) gave me a formatted capacity of 38
megabytes, which I've partitioned into two 19 Mb drives. The PerStor
controllers are advertised as being able to be used with _any_ hard
disk, whether it's rated for MFM or RLL, and not quite doubles the
capacity of the hard disk (that's the MFM capacity -- an ST238 running
on a PerStor controller will give 38 Mb, not 57Mb). In fact, all of
the performance information on the paper slipcover around the box are
for the PS180 controller with a 3650 drive.
The PS180 controller is an 8-bit card; as of 7/2/88, PerStor did not
make a 16-bit controller card, although the programmer I talked to
said that one was under development. The throughput using the ARLL
controller was about 10-15% better than my old MFM controller.
One caution about the PerStor controllers. The ROM release as of
7/2/88 requires that the disk be low-level formatted with PerStor's
format utility. The ROM has a weird translation table for interleave
values, so that calling the 'format track' BIOS routine will not get
you the interleave value you expect. This means that any disk utility
that does a dynamic re-interleave of your hard disk won't work the way
it thinks it does. There is a newer version of the ROM that might be
available now that uses a more intelligent interleave translation to
enable the PS180 to recognize when a single track is being
reformatted, and output the interleave the way the format request is
asking for it, but I don't think that this is currently installed in
the boards that are shipping.
The PS180 controller lists for around $400, but with some shopping
around, you should be able to find a fairly deep discount -- I bought
mine for $225. A good deal, all told -- for less than another 20Mb
drive would cost me, I doubled my disk capacity, and get 2-for-1 on
any other drive I buy. I recommend the PerStor controllers highly.
Sean Malloy
Navy Personnel Research & Development Center
San Diego, CA 92152-6800
malloy@nprdc.arpa
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>From: 16012_3045@uwovax.uwo.ca (Paul Gomme)
Subject: Re: Anyone running RLL on Miniscribe 3650?
Message-ID: <685@uwovax.uwo.ca>
Date: 23 Sep 88 14:42:47 GMT
Organisation: Department of Economics, UWO, London, Ontario, Canada
In article <903@skinner.nprdc.arpa>, malloy@nprdc.arpa (Sean Malloy) writes:
> There was no problem formatting it using PerStor's format utility, and
> (modulo the two drive defects) gave me a formatted capacity of 38
> megabytes, which I've partitioned into two 19 Mb drives.
< more deleted >
Wait a second! I have a Miniscribe 3650, and it formats to 40 meg _without_
any sort of RLL controller. As a matter of fact, I have a small C: drive
(less than a meg), and two 20 meg partitions. Why does the PerStor RLL
controller give almost the same as my drive (without RLL)?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Gomme gomme@uwovax.bitnet
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From: malloy@nprdc.arpa (Sean Malloy)
Subject: Re: Anyone running RLL on Miniscribe 3650?
Message-ID: <912@skinner.nprdc.arpa>
Date: 27 Sep 88 14:56:19 GMT
Organization: Navy Personnel R&D Center, San Diego
In article <685@uwovax.uwo.ca> 16012_3045@uwovax.uwo.ca (Paul Gomme) writes:
>Wait a second! I have a Miniscribe 3650, and it formats to 40 meg _without_
>any sort of RLL controller. As a matter of fact, I have a small C: drive
>(less than a meg), and two 20 meg partitions. Why does the PerStor RLL
>controller give almost the same as my drive (without RLL)?
My mistake -- I spaced on the model number of my Miniscribe. It is
not a 3650, but the 20Mb half height (3250? Writing these at work, I
don't have access to my HD information, and don't recall the number
off the top of my head). The tech information on the box is for the
20Mb Miniscribe. However, the installation instructions for the
PerStor controller have the switch settings for the 3650 listed, so
it is compatible, and should get ~78Mb out of the 3650.
My apologies for any confusion.
Sean Malloy
Navy Personnel Research & Development Center
San Diego, CA 92152-6800
malloy@nprdc.arpa
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Again, thanks to all.
| Steve Ward Jr. | |
| University of Portland (Just a lowly student!) | stevewa@upvax.UUCP |
| Portland, Oregon | !tektronix!upvax!stevewa |