JOHNBARNES@ENH.NIST.GOV (11/17/89)
In a message to a reader who asks about upgrading his SH204 Hard drive Ray Wallace piques my curiosity: 1) As a non-SH 204 user I would like to ask what is in the guts of an SH 204. I assume that it is an Atari Host Adapter with an Adaptec controller. If this is the case the Seagate drive (say an ST 251) that would be added on would connect to an extra port on the controller and would therefore have the same SCSI address as the original drive but a different LUN number. 2) Might it not also be possible to fashion a daisy-chain cable for the SCSI connector from the host adapter and go to an embedded SCSI drive? 3)> I am under the impression that ICD's formatting software looks for an ICD clock at SCSI unit 6 on the bus, a feature that is unique to ICD's host adapters. Tom Harker told me that this is why they are so generous in passing out their software, since only owners of ICD host adapters can use it. 4). The ICD formatting software from ver 4.xxx up is much more user- friendly than previous versions and is highly to be recommended. I think that new drives can still be added, but I am not sure of this. The version 4.2 ICBDBOOT program also aoffers significant advantages with built-in caching and a fix for the 40-folder problem. 5). Those who are using the HDX program to format drives should be aware that an updated version is available on most decent BBS's (ver 3.01?) 6). If I were going to do what our correspondent wants to do I would sell my SH 204 and get an ICD host adapter, a case with a good sturdy power supply, and a suitable drive (embedded or non-embedded (also needs a controller). I'll bet that this would be more trouble-free in the long run. With the ICD host adapter you can also use a longer cable from the ST to the drive, and this makes a lot of difference. Wallace's information is certainly nice and clear and quite correct. I am simply offering another point of view. The tool is called a "vise". A "vice" is something different. I subscribe to Steve Goldstein's pledge. In the June 1989 Current Notes I wrote a column solciting interest in a professional organization for Atari Users along the lines of DECUS in the DEC world. This fell on deaf ears in that context and on GENie, but netland may be more fertile ground. It would be nice to know how many subscribers INFO-ATARI16 has. Is there any interest in maintaining a membership roster on one of the archive sites? Perhaps some of our people could post lengthier writeups on technical problems like using TeX and TCP/IP software and hardware for the ST. There are lots of issues like this that could use a more coherent appraoch than the bulletin board system seems to offer. Some of these articles might make it into the Atari press. I'm sure that the people who are paying for all of this net stuff expect the users to get some solid professional benefit out of it and it would be nice to see professionalism on the paert of the net users get a proper airing.