kfried@infocenter.UUCP (Ken Fried) (03/10/89)
I have an Amiga 1000 with a Micro Forge 20 Meg harddrive. Since Micro Forge is out of business, can I replace JUST my controler (and keep the drive), with another companies controler (specifically one that is compatible with FFS). I noticed in my 1.3 manuals that the FFS section only made reference to the 2000. Is FFS unique to the 2000? All responses will be GREATLY appreciated! Ken Fried
news@cs.rochester.edu (Usenet news) (03/11/89)
eat my line. > From: kfried@infocenter.UUCP (Ken Fried) > I have an Amiga 1000 with a Micro Forge 20 Meg harddrive. Since Micro Forge > is out of business, can I replace JUST my controler (and keep the drive), > with another companies controler (specifically one that is compatible with > FFS). I went through the same thing you are going through right now. I upgraded to an Amiga 2000 at the same time. The short answer is: Yes you can use the disk drive with another SCSI interface, but you will have to use either Commodore's own disk interface board in ST-506 mode, or get a replacement for the OMTI 5100 SCSI->ST-506 converter board that you will find bolted to the bottom of your disk drive. The drive itself is a ST-506 drive, not a SCSI drive, and the OMTI 5100 interfaces it to Microforge's SCSI controller. The problem is, the OMTI 5100 does not strictly conform to the SCSI specification, and none of the SCSI interface boards on the market are known to handle the timing variation. This was not a problem for Microforge because they designed the SCSI interface board specifically to work with the OMTI. You can spend about $90 and get an Adaptec board to replace the OMTI, but I think there is a better alternative... As long as you are going to throw away your controller and buy a new controller and SCSI interface board, why not save yourself a lot of time and money. The Commodore interface board is more expensive than the competition, so... I would suggest that you sell your entire Microforge hard drive subsystem and use the money to buy a new SCSI hard drive. They are not as expensive as you might think. Then you can get one of the cheaper controllers (I use a Trumpcard - $140). I don't know what you will do for enclosure and power supply, but you can probably get a controller with its own case, and you can get a disk enclosure with power supply for about $50. (Look through Byte) If you are upgrading to an Amiga 2000 you will not need enclosure or power supply. > I noticed in my 1.3 manuals that the FFS section only made reference to > the 2000. Is FFS unique to the 2000? You can run FFS on any Amiga. Neal p.s. - I tried to mail to you, Ken, but I could not find a path to ...!infocenter -- Arpa: neal@cs.rochester.edu (Neal Gafter) UUCP: ...{rocksvax|allegra|decvax}!rochester!neal USnail: Department of Computer Science, U. of Rochester, N.Y. 14627 phone: (716) 275 - 1348 (office) or (716) 473 - 2361 (home)
es2e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Edwin T. Smith) (03/12/89)
FFS is new a new file system handler (software) that works on any of the three amigas. No need to worry. Most hard-drive owners probably have 2000, and that's what commodore focusus on. - Ed