wpl@burdvax.UUCP (01/26/87)
I am considering buying a PAL jr, if I can find a place that sells it for less the retail $1,495. Can anyone recommend a wholesaler? Has anyone heard of problems with the PAL jr? Please reply to me, so we don't dirty up the net. Thanks in advanced! -- William P Loftus UUCP: wpl@burdvax, sword@excalibur SDC R&D/Software Technology ARPA: PO Box 517 BITNET: Paoli, PA 19301 215-648-7222 (work) 215-646-8434 (home) 215-628-2067 (home, yet again) Disclaimer : I hereby deny it.
iqbal@pnet01.UUCP (05/27/87)
Does anyone have the Pal Jr. expansion system that is manufactured by
Byte by Byte?
Could you please e-mail me some kind of review?
From what I've read this sounds like a pretty good product (except for
the price), but I haven't seen too many messages about it.
Also, is there a (good) Pascal compiler for the Amiga?
Thank you for any help!
Iqbal Hans
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UUCP: {akgua, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!iqbal
ARPA: crash!pnet01!iqbal@nosc
INET: iqbal@pnet01.CTS.COMmark@unisec.UUCP (05/28/87)
In article <1135@crash.CTS.COM>, iqbal@pnet01.CTS.COM (Iqbal Hans) writes: > > Does anyone have the Pal Jr. expansion system that is manufactured by > Byte by Byte? > Could you please e-mail me some kind of review? > > From what I've read this sounds like a pretty good product (except for > the price), but I haven't seen too many messages about it. > ...deleted... > Iqbal Hans > I ordered my Pal Jr. on May 4 and at that time was told it would be delivered in three weeks. After Fed-Xing my purchase authorization to them, I called a few days later to find out how things were coming. I was told that it would be "another three weeks", since they had "run out of parts". I am basically a trusting soul, but that line is a little hard to swallow. Does anyone in net land have "inside info" on what is going on at Byte-by-Byte? Are they actually snagged on FCC certification or do they really have production problems? As for the product, Iqbal, there's a comparison of its performance to four other hard drives (CLtd., MAS, Supra, Xebec) in the latest AmigaWorld. Out of about 17 tests, the Pal Jr. came in first (or tied for first) in all but one category. The price is a bit steep, but it's a nice package if you need hard disk, memory and clock/calendar + expansion all at once (I do, I do!). It alleviates my fears of multi-vendor product incompatibility. My only remaining concern is that I may never get to use one :-). Mark -- | Mark R. Rinfret, SofTech, Inc. mark@unisec.usi.com | | Guest of UniSecure Systems, Inc., Newport, RI | | UUCP: {gatech|mirror|cbosgd|uiucdcs|ihnp4}!rayssd!unisec!mark | | work: (401)-849-4174 home: (401)-846-7639 |
mark@unisec.UUCP (05/29/87)
Earlier this week, I posted a statement/query regarding the status of prodction of the Pal Jr. disk drive manufactured by Byte-by-Byte. At that time I was unsure of the status of their production line. I just had a conversation with Debbie Miller (sales representative) who assured me that new units will start rolling off the line next Tuesday and that mine will be shipped possibly next week and no later than next week. I just thought that this positive turn of events was worth sharing. Mark -- | Mark R. Rinfret, SofTech, Inc. mark@unisec.usi.com | | Guest of UniSecure Systems, Inc., Newport, RI | | UUCP: {gatech|mirror|cbosgd|uiucdcs|ihnp4}!rayssd!unisec!mark | | work: (401)-849-4174 home: (401)-846-7639 |
joemu@nscpdc.NSC.COM (Joe Mueller) (05/29/87)
> a little hard to swallow. Does anyone in net land have "inside info" > on what is going on at Byte-by-Byte? Are they actually snagged on > FCC certification or do they really have production problems? > > -- > | Mark R. Rinfret, SofTech, Inc. mark@unisec.usi.com | I purchased one of the PAL JR systems by Byte By Byte. My system works fairly well but it does have two bugs in it. One bug is that the real time clock sometimes gives me random dates (so it's not much good to me) and the other is that while doing something that accesses the disk a lot, I get a requestor that says I have a read/write error. If I ask AmigaDOS to retry it always works so it looks like some type of timing problem. Both of these problems occur infrequently but since it's under warranty I'm sending it back to be repaired/replaced. I can assure you, they are shipping products. If more systems than mine have these problems, they may be temporarily suspending shipment until they clean up the problem. They seem to be very honest in my dealings with them, I ordered the system in December of last year but because of production problems could not send it until April (they told me this BEFORE I ordered it, but I was willing to wait) and they didn't cash my check until they shipped it. Other than the above mentioned problems, I LOVE my PAL! I just wish Commodore designed the system so that it would automatically boot from the hard disk and I'd throw my floppies in the closet! Joe Mueller ...!nsc!nscpdc!joemu
scotty@l5comp.UUCP (Scott Turner) (06/04/87)
In article <863@nscpdc.NSC.COM> joemu@nscpdc.NSC.COM (Joe Mueller) writes: >other is that while doing something that accesses the disk a lot, I get a >requestor that says I have a read/write error. If I ask AmigaDOS to retry >it always works so it looks like some type of timing problem. Both of these In fooling with scottdisk.device I hacked in support for reporting errors. (The original MicroForge driver I got didn't bother itself over this) I did this because some weird things were happening with my system. I had just put in a ST4051 and as it turned out it was a DUD. I keep getting R/W errors from the dog when using a driver that didn't check error status. But when I had it start returning the error, so I could figure out what the #$@! was going on, the read/write errors vanished. What I got instead was other reactions. My conclusion is that read/write errors come from amigadog when it checks the checksum on the block that it has just read. This sets off a couple questions in my mind that you may wish to ask Byte by Byte. Does their driver issue a sense status command to the SCSI controller when a check status is reported? Or does it just assume the transfer went through? If they do, how did those blocks get through??? :) My driver nailed EVERY bad block off that ST4051 after I put in error checking, I never saw another read/write error message. I started seeing "Transfer failed" instead for example. Another answer is that your ram is flakey. The block could be read into ram and bit(s) get flipped before it's checksum got checked. And when you retried the block was read in again and the bit(s) DIDN'T get flipped that time. [ Above posted where CATS could see and comment ] Scott Turner -- L5 Computing, the home of Merlin, Arthur, Excalibur and the CRAM. GEnie: JST | UUCP: stride!l5comp!scotty | 12311 Maplewood Ave; Edmonds WA 98020 If Motorola had wanted us to use BPTR's they'd have built in shifts on A regs [ BCPL? Just say *NO*! ] (I don't smoke, send flames to /dev/null)
mark@unisec.UUCP (06/05/87)
Sorry if this is a duplicate posting, but I don't think it got out the first time: It's here! My Pal Jr. arrived yesterday afternoon (Tue.) - about a week sooner than expected, according to my last conversation with folks at Byte-by-Byte. No time for a full-blown review (I'll be happy to answer e-mail questions), but here's a quick rundown on my impressions: The unit arrived in a rather large box, very well packed with foam supports. It comes with Kickstart 1.2 and a special Workbench disk. The physical dimensions are almost identical to the Amiga 1000, less the "legs". The Pal Jr. "piggybacks" the Amiga. A "staple" (neat name for a bus connector assembly) is provided which slaps on the right side to connect the Amiga's 86 pin bus connector to the Pal Jr.'s 100 pin connector - very neat and easy! An AC outlet is provided at the back into which you plug the Amiga's power cable. This insures proper cycling of power (Pal Jr. first) and also saves me from having to buy a bigger outlet box :-). Installation is really a snap and everything went "by the numbers". The unit is impressively quiet in operation. I did notice a few minor glitches with some software. If I run Preferences from the CLI, the CLI hangs upon exit from Preferences. However, Preferences works fine from the WorkBench which is now actually a feature of my Amiga that I find appealing. Those icons just snap into place! I've also noticed that I can't warmstart the way I used to - If I have a runaway situation, I have to power off, then load Kickstart, then WorkBench. I haven't attempted to contact the company about this yet - might be something I'm doing wrong though I can't imagine what. I've installed Scribble!, Organize!, Aegis Draw Plus, DMCS and Dpaint II. I'm having a little trouble with the Electronic Arts stuff - I'm not sure how they've hardwired pathnames for voices, fonts, etc. I may take a little tour with FileZap later. That's all for now. Oh yeah - the price was $1495 plus Federal Express shipping for a grand total of $1532. Though I choked on the price when first considering this product, I'm very pleased with it. Mark -- | Mark R. Rinfret, SofTech, Inc. mark@unisec.usi.com | | Guest of UniSecure Systems, Inc., Newport, RI | | UUCP: {gatech|mirror|cbosgd|uiucdcs|ihnp4}!rayssd!unisec!mark | | work: (401)-849-4174 home: (401)-846-7639 |
miker@laidbak.UUCP (06/08/87)
In article <493@unisec.usi.com> mark@unisec.usi.com (Mark Rinfret) writes: > [ stuff about setting up his Pal Jr. ] > >That's all for now. Oh yeah - the price was $1495 plus Federal Express >shipping for a grand total of $1532. Though I choked on the price >when first considering this product, I'm very pleased with it. I received my Pal Jr. on Thursday (June 4)!!! Well worth the wait. I bought the 40 Meg harddisk version. I have had no trouble with warmstarting the computer since adding junior. You may have some hardware trouble there. I don't recall how I ran preferences, but it worked fine for me. I suspect I ran it from the CLI since I don't normally use the workbench. The hardware was quite easy to install and it came up perfectly on the first try without any effort. I had a little trouble reformatting the hard disk, but worked it out without too much trouble (I wanted four separate partitions instead of the one it came with). I played with Dpaint II last night on the hard disk. The first time I brought it up I could not load or save any pictures. I later realized that it was because I didn't have any floppy in DF1:. Dpaint II automatically assumes DF1: as the default drive for pictures. It really should use an assigned name like PICS: or something that the user can set to whatever he likes (I use dh3:dp2/pictures). I will also be willing to answer questions anyone might have on the Pal Jr. I am quite happy with mine so far. --------- Mike Roth - {sun|allegra|ihnp4}!laidbak!miker or miker@laidbak.UUCP
peter@sugar.UUCP (06/11/87)
> that it was because I didn't have any floppy in DF1:. Dpaint II > automatically assumes DF1: as the default drive for pictures. It really > should use an assigned name like PICS: or something that the user can All programs should really do this... they should also look up the names of mounted volumes (a-la my "mounted" program: which was really an excersize in reading the volume list) and present them to the user in a menu or something.