kevin@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Wallace B. Wallace) (05/17/89)
I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
(1) a way around this or (2) a different product that does support it?
Any updates on an upgrade of the A2090(a) that will support them? I'd hate
to lose half of my storage even if I can upgrade it later.
BTW, the drive is a Fujitsu 2249SA, SCSI, 320M, 8 disks, 15 heads
Thanks for any info,
--- Kevin Picott NTT Systems Inc.
"There can be no offense where none is taken"
-- Japanese Proverbjesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) (05/18/89)
In article <1735@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dretor (Wallace B. Wallace) writes: >I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover >that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either ... > BTW, the drive is a Fujitsu 2249SA, SCSI, 320M, 8 disks, 15 heads Maybe this should be added to the introduction to comp.sys.amiga. The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drive. -- Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (05/18/89)
If the Drive is SCSI, then the 2090/A *CAN* control it. The head limitation is
only for ST-506 type drives. Since A SCSI drive is "smart" the 2090 only needs
to send it a command and it does it. It could care less how many heads the
drive has.
- Doug -
Doug_B_Erdely@Portal.Cup.ComRick_R_Kitts@cup.portal.com (05/18/89)
I had an identical problem, although it was a GVP controller and a Priam drive. As it turns out this is an easy one, at least for GVP controllers. Since SCSI deals with blocks only you can reduce the number of heads that you tell the controller exists and increase the BlocksPerTrack. Somewhere (AmigaDOS?) these numbers are multiplied out to give a SCSI block number. For instance, say you have a drive with 15 heads and 7 BlocksPerTrack. Just turn this around and tell the controller, presumably in the MountList, that your drive has 7 heads and 15 blocks per track. Have fun. Rick
root@dialog.UUCP (Christian Motz) (05/18/89)
In article <1735@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Wallace B. Wallace) writes: >I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover >that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either >(1) a way around this or (2) a different product that does support it? >Any updates on an upgrade of the A2090(a) that will support them? I'd hate >to lose half of my storage even if I can upgrade it later. > BTW, the drive is a Fujitsu 2249SA, SCSI, 320M, 8 disks, 15 heads The standard ST506 does support only 8 heads by definition. Since the A2090 has a "true" ST506 interface onboard, it complies with this standard. I do not think that C=A will ever "fix" this (there really is no needt to change this). But since your drive is an SCSI-drive anyway, this limitation does not apply. The 2090 can handle SCSI-Drives of almost any size. So, go ahead, hook it up and you'll see that you get your full 320 MByte of capacity. -- Christian Motz uucp: ...!uunet!mcvax!unido!pfm!nadia!dialog!root "Trust me, I know what I'm doing!" -- Sledge Hammer Bix: cmotz
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (05/19/89)
In <1735@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca>, kevin@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Wallace B. Wallace) writes: > I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover > that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either > (1) a way around this or (2) a different product that does support it? > Any updates on an upgrade of the A2090(a) that will support them? I'd hate > to lose half of my storage even if I can upgrade it later. > BTW, the drive is a Fujitsu 2249SA, SCSI, 320M, 8 disks, 15 heads Hmm... the 2090(a) does not support > 8 heads _on the ST506 port(s) only_. It definitely _does_ support > 8 heads on the SCSI bus. Here are my mountlist entries for a Fuji 70 meg drive that has been running for about 8 months now. RES2: Device = hddisk.device Unit = 3 Flags = 0 Surfaces = 10 BlocksPerTrack = 17 Reserved = 2 Interleave = 0 LowCyl = 0 ; HighCyl = 1 Buffers = 1 BufMemType = 1 # DHD: Device = hddisk.device Unit = 3 Flags = 0 FileSystem = l:FastFileSystem Surfaces = 11 BlocksPerTrack = 17 Reserved = 2 Interleave = 0 LowCyl = 3 ; HighCyl = 752 DosType = 0x444F5301 GlobVec = 1 Buffers = 20 BufMemType = 1 Mount = 1 # -- - Don't tell me what kind of a day to have! - +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca or uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
kevin@uts.amdahl.com (Kevin Clague) (05/19/89)
In article <680@dialog.UUCP> root@dialog.UUCP (Christian Motz) writes: >In article <1735@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Wallace B. Wallace) writes: >>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover >>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either >>(1) a way around this or (2) a different product that does support it? >>Any updates on an upgrade of the A2090(a) that will support them? I'd hate >>to lose half of my storage even if I can upgrade it later. >> BTW, the drive is a Fujitsu 2249SA, SCSI, 320M, 8 disks, 15 heads > >The standard ST506 does support only 8 heads by definition. Since the A2090 >has a "true" ST506 interface onboard, it complies with this standard. I do >not think that C=A will ever "fix" this (there really is no needt to change >this). But since your drive is an SCSI-drive anyway, this limitation does >not apply. The 2090 can handle SCSI-Drives of almost any size. So, go ahead, >hook it up and you'll see that you get your full 320 MByte of capacity. > >-- >Christian Motz uucp: ...!uunet!mcvax!unido!pfm!nadia!dialog!root >"Trust me, I know what I'm doing!" -- Sledge Hammer Bix: cmotz I have a 2090A controller, and once I got it installed and configured, EVERTHING was great, BUT it was not a simple install. The 2090A's biggest problem is it's poor documentation. Nowhere in the dos do they tell you that the only specs that matter with a SCSI device is block size and number of blocks. You can factor out the number of blocks on the device into the number of heads, number of blocks per track and number of cylinders any way you want. I went so far as to try 1 head, 1 block per track, and some huge number of cylinders for my Quantum 80S drive. It worked fine. Seems kinda silly though. For simplicity, the 2090A and hddisk.device use this heads, blocks, cylinders format so that at some level, the st506 and SCSI drives look the same. Somewhere in the process, the controler/device driver convert this into block number and use that when talking to SCSI devices. The moral is that you can lie all you want about the physical configuration of a SCSI drive. The only NO-NO is to tell the system that the drive has more blocks than it has. Kevin -- UUCP: kevin@uts.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,seismo,oliveb}!amdahl!kevin DDD: 408-737-5481 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ]
david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) (05/20/89)
In article <040b02ba29ZN01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> kevin@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kevin Clague) writes: >In article <680@dialog.UUCP> root@dialog.UUCP (Christian Motz) writes: ... >>The standard ST506 does support only 8 heads by definition. Since the A2090 >>has a "true" ST506 interface onboard, it complies with this standard. I do ... >The 2090A's biggest problem is it's poor documentation. Nowhere in >the dos do they tell you that the only specs that matter with a >SCSI device is block size and number of blocks. You can factor out >the number of blocks on the device into >the number of heads, number of blocks per track and number of >cylinders any way you want. This is really getting me upset -- well, a little upset anyway. I had this CDC Wren II (ST506 interface) that I was trying to hook to my 2090A some time ago. And the damn thing simply would NOT work there. I couldn't figger out why and that was after much wrangling around with everything and making sure my cables were all correct and everything. What did I do? I took the 67 meg drive outta my 3b1 and have *it* on my Amiga now and the CDC drive on the 3b1. *THAT* is what I did. But part of doing that required backing up all my files -- which I did over modem (Trailblazers are fun) to school and etc. But my 3b1 has never been the same ever since I restored everything.... sigh So now what do I find out? The damn 2090A doesn't support >8 heads and the CDC drive is 9 heads!!!!! So no wonder it didn't work.!? And the damn manual doesn't even tell you this. And the customer support crowd were very little help when I called 'em up. Oh wellllll... I'll crawl off in a corner now and sulk ... sorry to have made this outburst. -- <- David Herron; an MMDF guy <david@ms.uky.edu> <- ska: David le casse\*' {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET <- By all accounts, Cyprus (or was it Crete?) was covered with trees at one time <- -- Until they discovered Bronze
jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) (05/20/89)
In article <040b02ba29ZN01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> kevin@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kevin Clague) writes: >The 2090A's biggest problem is it's poor documentation. Nowhere in >the dos do they tell you that the only specs that matter with a >SCSI device is block size and number of blocks. You can factor out >the number of blocks on the device into >the number of heads, number of blocks per track and number of >cylinders any way you want. > >I went so far as to try 1 head, 1 block per track, and some >huge number of cylinders for my Quantum 80S drive. It worked fine. >Seems kinda silly though. Almost correct. The current A2090(a) driver doesn't deal properly with >127? >63? (I can't remember at the moment) blocks per track. So 3 heads, 50 blocks/track works, but 1 head, 150 blocks/track doesn't. -- Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
limonce@pilot.njin.net (Tom Limoncelli) (05/20/89)
I repeat my request: A program could easily be written to compute the
best or near-best MountList for a SCSI hard drive if it was told the
number of total blocks and about how big each partition should be.
The problem? It would require someone with a knowledge of math and a
decent programmer.
I'm a decent programmer (-: so here's my offer: Let's get together and
write this much-needed program and declare it PD (and give it to C-A).
I know my local dealer only does the simplest configurations because
of this. I know they're not optimal and I think there is a big need
for this kind of program.
So, any math people want to work on this? Believe me, your end would
be minimal. If I don't get any requests this time (ooooh, big
threat!) I'm going to try to write it myself!
-Tom
--
Tom Limoncelli -- tlimonce@drunivac.Bitnet -- limonce@pilot.njin.net
Drew University -- Box 1060, Madison, NJ -- 201-408-5389
Standard Disclaimer: I am not the mouth-piece of Drew Universitysneakers@heimat.UUCP (Dan "Sneakers" Schein) (05/23/89)
In Message <2426@van-bc.UUCP>, lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes: >Hmm... the 2090(a) does not support > 8 heads _on the ST506 port(s) only_. >It definitely _does_ support > 8 heads on the SCSI bus. [ This isnt so much a reply to Larry as it is a general FYI message ] True, BUT not to be overlooked (ill mention it since no one else has so far) is the fact that with an adapter (like the Adaptec 4000A or 4070) you can run your ST-506 drive from the SCSI port. This is great for running drives with > 8 heads -or- for running up to 4 ST-506 drives off one 2090 ;-) Sneakers -- ___ Dan "Sneakers" Schein //// BERKS AMIGA BBS Sneakers Computing //// 80+ Megs of software & messages 2455 McKinley Ave. ___ //// 12/2400 Baud - 24 Hrs West Lawn, PA 19609 \\\\ //// 215/678-7691 \\\\//// {pyramid|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!heimat!sneakers
chk@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (C. Harald Koch) (05/24/89)
In article <040b02ba29ZN01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> kevin@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kevin Clague) writes: >The moral is that you can lie all you want about the physical >configuration of a SCSI drive. The only NO-NO is to tell the >system that the drive has more blocks than it has. There is a problem with this: someday The Powers That Be may come up with a file system for the Amiga that tries to optimize disk layout and disk block allocation. (A simple optimization is avoiding track to track seeks wherever possible.) If this happens, you would get the best performance out of your drive by *not* lying to the file system. The moral? DON'T lie to the system unless you have to. (I seem to remember that the 2090 does not like >63 sectors/track or something like that, in which case you *do* have to lie.) -- C. Harald Koch NTT Systems, Inc., Toronto, ON Canada chk@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca, chk@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca, chk@chkent.UUCP
"kosma@ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM"@alan.kahuna.decnet.lockheed.com (05/24/89)
Received: from BLAISE.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM by ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL id 22815; Thu 18-May-89 15:54:40 PDT Date: Thu, 18 May 89 15:54 PDT From: Montgomery Kosma <kosma@ALAN.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM> Subject: Re: 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a) To: "eagle::amiga-relay%udel.edu"@KAHUNA.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM In-Reply-To: Your message of 17 May 89 15:04 PDT Comments: Retransmission of failed mail. Message-ID: <19890518225438.4.KOSMA@BLAISE.LAAC-AI.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM> In message <6901@cbmvax.UUCP>, Randell Jesup writes: >Maybe this should be added to the introduction to comp.sys.amiga. Is there such an introduction to comp.sys.amiga? I'm currently receiving the news dist through the amiga-relay@udel.edu and would appreciate somebody emailing me this introduction (I take it that it's a file which is generally accessible to those of you lucky enough to be able to FTP all over the place.) BTW is there any hope of a way to get sources/binaries over here on arpanet? I'm not sure of what exactly I need to do it. Thanks! Montgomery N. Kosma LE03472%portal.decnet.lockheed.com@austin.lockheed.com
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (05/24/89)
In article <8356.AA8356@heimat> sneakers@heimat.UUCP (Dan "Sneakers" Schein) writes: > True, BUT not to be overlooked (ill mention it since no one else has so far) > is the fact that with an adapter (like the Adaptec 4000A or 4070) you can > run your ST-506 drive from the SCSI port. This is great for running drives > with > 8 heads -or- for running up to 4 ST-506 drives off one 2090 ;-) ^^^^ Except that none of the Adaptec adapters can be "prep"-ed with the 2090 or 2090A. Some claim that after prepping an Adaptec with "another" adapter, the resuling disk will be recognized by the 2090x, but I have no direct experience of this. -- Marco Papa 'Doc' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Diga!" -- Leo Schwab [quoting Rick Unland] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
kevin@uts.amdahl.com (Kevin Clague) (05/25/89)
In article <1750@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> chk@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca (C. Harald Koch) writes: >In article <040b02ba29ZN01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> kevin@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kevin Clague) writes: >>The moral is that you can lie all you want about the physical >>configuration of a SCSI drive. The only NO-NO is to tell the >>system that the drive has more blocks than it has. > >There is a problem with this: someday The Powers That Be may come up with a >file system for the Amiga that tries to optimize disk layout and disk block >allocation. (A simple optimization is avoiding track to track seeks wherever >possible.) If this happens, you would get the best performance out of your >drive by *not* lying to the file system. > >The moral? DON'T lie to the system unless you have to. (I seem to remember >that the 2090 does not like >63 sectors/track or something like that, in >which case you *do* have to lie.) Or in my case I have a Quantum Prodrive 80S which has two zones of block density. The inner zone has less blocks per track than the outer zone. I cannot tell the system the truth about my drive. I choose the factors that gave me the best performance for the current system. > >-- >C. Harald Koch NTT Systems, Inc., Toronto, ON Canada >chk@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca, chk@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca, chk@chkent.UUCP Kevin -- UUCP: kevin@uts.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,seismo,oliveb}!amdahl!kevin DDD: 408-737-5481 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ]
sneakers@heimat.UUCP (Dan "Sneakers" Schein) (05/26/89)
In Message <17399@usc.edu>, papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: +-- |In article <8356.AA8356@heimat> sneakers@heimat.UUCP (Dan "Sneakers" Schein) writes: |> True, BUT not to be overlooked (ill mention it since no one else has so far) |> is the fact that with an adapter (like the Adaptec 4000A or 4070) you can |> run your ST-506 drive from the SCSI port. This is great for running drives |> with > 8 heads -or- for running up to 4 ST-506 drives off one 2090 ;-) | ^^^^ | |Except that none of the Adaptec adapters can be "prep"-ed with the 2090 or |2090A. Some claim that after prepping an Adaptec with "another" adapter, |the resuling disk will be recognized by the 2090x, but I have no direct |experience of this. +-- I have no hands on experience with this on an Amiga either, but I have made it work on a MAC, and I have used a MAC (genuine Apple) SCSI drive on my 2090. Based on this I presumed (perhaps wrongly) that it would work. If anyone has first hand info on if this works (or not) with the CBM 2090 boards, I welcome e-mail with the details. Since I had planned on using this trick later this summer ;-). Sneakers -- ___ Dan "Sneakers" Schein //// BERKS AMIGA BBS Sneakers Computing //// 80+ Megs of software & messages 2455 McKinley Ave. ___ //// 12/2400 Baud - 24 Hrs West Lawn, PA 19609 \\\\ //// 215/678-7691 \\\\//// {pyramid|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!heimat!sneakers
thomas@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Thomas QA) (05/26/89)
In article <8388.AA8388@heimat> sneakers@heimat.UUCP (Dan "Sneakers" Schein) writes: > In Message <17399@usc.edu>, papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: > +-- > |In article <8356.AA8356@heimat> sneakers@heimat.UUCP (Dan "Sneakers" Schein) writes: > |> True, BUT not to be overlooked (ill mention it since no one else has so far) > |> is the fact that with an adapter (like the Adaptec 4000A or 4070) you can > |> run your ST-506 drive from the SCSI port. This is great for running drives > |> with > 8 heads -or- for running up to 4 ST-506 drives off one 2090 ;-) > | ^^^^ > | > |Except that none of the Adaptec adapters can be "prep"-ed with the 2090 or > |2090A. Some claim that after prepping an Adaptec with "another" adapter, > |the resuling disk will be recognized by the 2090x, but I have no direct > |experience of this. > +-- > I have no hands on experience with this on an Amiga either, but I have made > it work on a MAC, and I have used a MAC (genuine Apple) SCSI drive on my > 2090. Based on this I presumed (perhaps wrongly) that it would work. If > anyone has first hand info on if this works (or not) with the CBM 2090 > boards, I welcome e-mail with the details. Since I had planned on using > this trick later this summer ;-). > > Sneakers > It's true, Dan. The 2090 prep software does not know how to handle an Adaptec. The Adaptec needs a "Mode Select" SCSI command before doing a low level format. This tells the adaptec the physical drive parameters. Real SCSI drives don't need (or want) this since the drive already knows about itself. It *should* be possible to write a program which does the mode select and low level format. Once that is done (it is a one shot thing), you could prep normally. Dave -- Dave Thomas, Commodore Amiga Test Engineering UUCP ...{allegra,rutgers}!cbmvax!thomas