[comp.sys.amiga] amiga placement

bennete@nyssa.cs.orst.edu (Erik John Bennett) (02/27/88)

Hello,

This is my first posting, so I am not certain that it will get through.

Can an Amiga B2000 with two 3 1/2" drives rest on it's side?  I am out of desk
space.

E-mail me with responses.
bennete@nyssa.cs.orst.edu

Erik Bennett
140 NW 13th
Corvallis, OR  97330

peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (02/29/88)

I wouldn't stick the floppies on their sides if you're going to use them much,
but if you do mainly hard-disk stuff it should be OK.
-- 
-- a clone of Peter (have you hugged your wolf today) da Silva  `-_-'
-- normally  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter                U
-- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.

louie@trantor.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) (03/01/88)

In article <708@nuchat.UUCP> peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>I wouldn't stick the floppies on their sides if you're going to use them much,
>but if you do mainly hard-disk stuff it should be OK.

I've had my external floppy on its side ever since I upgraded from an A1000
to an A2000 in October.  It has had *heavy* use, and I have experience no
problems at all.  I've had this external disk drive on my A1000 since 
the introduction of the A1000 many moons ago.  And all I have is two floppies,
no hard disk yet.  (Well, I did try to use a C Ltd drive for a while, but
don't get me started on that...)

In fact, I don't seem to have any problems with disks getting trashed, bad
spots forming, AmigaDOS going off the deep end or anything.  I even have a
68010 in my A2000.  How do I do it?  I don't run broken software.  Or, when
I do run broken software, I don't blame the operating system in the computer.
I don't use no-name disks, but DSDD Sony and 3M.

You'd think from reading this newsgroup that the disk hardware is flaky;  it
just ain't so.


Louis A. Mamakos  WA3YMH    Internet: louie@TRANTOR.UMD.EDU
University of Maryland, Computer Science Center - Systems Programming

cjp@antique.UUCP (Charles Poirier) (03/01/88)

In article <708@nuchat.UUCP> peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>I wouldn't stick the floppies on their sides if you're going to use them much,
>but if you do mainly hard-disk stuff it should be OK.

Well, I've had my external floppy drive on its side for over two years,
heavily used for program development, with no ill effects.

-- 
	Charles Poirier   (decvax,ihnp4,attmail)!vax135!cjp

   "Docking complete...       Docking complete...       Docking complete..."

hbo@hub.ucsb.edu (Howard Owen) (03/01/88)

In article <2383@umd5.umd.edu> louie@trantor.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) writes:
>In article <708@nuchat.UUCP> peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>I wouldn't stick the floppies on their sides if you're going to use them much,
>>but if you do mainly hard-disk stuff it should be OK.
>
>I've had my external floppy on its side ever since I upgraded from an A1000
>to an A2000 in October.  It has had *heavy* use, and I have experience no
>problems at all.  I've had this external disk drive on my A1000 since 

     I had my 1000 mounted on it's side for over a year with nary a problem on 
the internal floppy drive. With that experience to go by, I had no nervousness
about setting my 2000 on it's side when I got it. I have had the same kind of
good luck with the new machine's internal floppy.

>Louis A. Mamakos  WA3YMH    Internet: louie@TRANTOR.UMD.EDU


-- 
Howard Owen, Programmer/Analyst             PHYSNET/HEPNET/SPAN:  SBPHY::HBO 
Physics Computer Services                   internet: hbo@sbphy.ucsb.edu
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bryce@eris (Bryce Nesbitt) (03/03/88)

In article <708@nuchat.UUCP> peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>I wouldn't stick the floppies on their sides if you're going to use them much,
>but if you do mainly hard-disk stuff it should be OK.

From the manufacturer's specs on several drives I seen, sideways is ok.

If rotating your drive in 90 degree increments causes problems, then your
drives are probably broken.  Actaully, it might help.  I once had a drive
that would only read disks while upside down!


BTW: The Delay(0L) fix is in patch_2.  Availible RSN.

|\_/|  . ACK!, NAK!, EOT!, SOH!
{O_o} .     Bryce Nesbitt
 (")        BIX: mleeds (temporarily)
  U	    USENET: bryce@eris.berkeley.EDU -or- ucbvax!eris!bryce

mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) (03/06/88)

Louis Mamakos writes:

> You'd think from reading this newsgroup that the disk hardware is flaky;  it
> just ain't so.

I have had an A1000 for about a year and a half now. The internal drive was 
somewhat flaky when I bought it (it was a reconditioned model), but it was 
still within operable limits.  I had trouble formatting disks that other 
Amigas would format, but other than that I had few problems.

The problem arose when I turned the machine on its side.  I had an increase in 
the number of disk problems, and at times I couldn't boot the machine because 
it would not read Kickstart.

Several months later, the drive failed entirely.  I took it to the computer 
store, and waited two weeks for a new disk drive.  A month after the new drive 
was installed, it wouldn't write data to the disk anymore.  I brought it back 
to the store, waited another week, was told "it passes diagnostics," and took 
it home.  Still had the problem.  Took it back to the store, told them exactly 
what to do to reproduce the problem.  I was told the replacement disk drive 
was also defective.  I waited another three weeks for them to order a new disk 
drive.  In the meantime, I gave up on the work I had to do for the computer 
graphics course I was taking due to lack of Amiga (I have an incomplete in the 
course pending my back assignments).

So from where I sit, I am not enamored with 3 1/2" drive technology at all.  I 
guess the point of all this is that turning the computer on its side *DOES* 
have an effect on drive performance, though you may have problems only if your 
drive is out of spec.  In any event, I certainly won't do it again.

				--M



Michael Portuesi / Carnegie Mellon University
ARPA/UUCP: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu		BITNET: rainwalker@drycas

"Paradise is exactly like where you are right now...only much, much better"
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