kimmel@umvlsi.ECS.UMASS.EDU (Mathew Kimmel) (11/12/88)
I've heard that the current version of Minix ST will not talk to Supra hard disks. However, I've also seen a message from someone who says he uses a Supra hard disk with Minix ST and has no problems. I'm not sure what to believe, but I'd like to know the answer before I buy Minix. Can the current version of Minix ST talk to a Supra hard disk? If not, is there a patch available that I could apply to the operating system to fix this? Thanks, -Matt -- Matt Kimmel University of Massachusetts Amherst, Mass. Internet: kimmel@umvlsi.ecs.umass.edu Bitnet: KIMMEL@UMAECS FidoNet: 1:321/112
trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey ) (11/14/88)
In article <28@umvlsi.ECS.UMASS.EDU> kimmel@umvlsi.ECS.UMASS.EDU (Mathew Kimmel) writes: >I've heard that the current version of Minix ST will not talk to Supra >hard disks. However, I've also seen a message from someone who says he >uses a Supra hard disk with Minix ST and has no problems. I'm not sure >what to believe, but I'd like to know the answer before I buy Minix. >Can the current version of Minix ST talk to a Supra hard disk? If not, >is there a patch available that I could apply to the operating system to >fix this? A friend just bought his second 30MB Supra recently and discovered that the newer one works fine under Minix, but the older (8 months old) Supra doesn't. He is using the same format/utility software for each, and the only obvious difference is that the drive types were different (I think he said the new one was Seagate and the old was Miniscribe). The drive type shouldn't affect operation, so there must have been other changes in the ST-SCSI adapter as well. I hear that Supra is working on the problem, so hopefully there will be a software fix for the older drives. -Todd Burkey trb@stag.UUCP
johan@nlgvax.UUCP (Johan Stevenson) (11/14/88)
In article <28@umvlsi.ECS.UMASS.EDU> kimmel@umvlsi.ECS.UMASS.EDU (Mathew Kimmel) writes: >I've heard that the current version of Minix ST will not talk to Supra >hard disks. However, I've also seen a message from someone who says he >uses a Supra hard disk with Minix ST and has no problems. I'm not sure >what to believe, but I'd like to know the answer before I buy Minix. >Can the current version of Minix ST talk to a Supra hard disk? If not, >is there a patch available that I could apply to the operating system to >fix this? I have been called by one of the developers of Supra (W. Brown), who mentioned problems reported by some of his customers. He himself had no MINIX-ST and I have no Supra disk. Has someone on the net a combination of these two ingredients at hand, with some time and willingness to look into this problem? I would very much like to have MINIX-ST run on the Supra drive, since they are quite popular. -- Johan W. Stevenson johan@pcg.philips.nl Philips Research
dclemans.falcon@mntgfx.mentor.com (Dave Clemans) (11/15/88)
From article <28@umvlsi.ECS.UMASS.EDU>, by kimmel@umvlsi.ECS.UMASS.EDU (Mathew Kimmel): > I've heard that the current version of Minix ST will not talk to Supra > hard disks. However, I've also seen a message from someone who says he > uses a Supra hard disk with Minix ST and has no problems. I'm not sure > what to believe, but I'd like to know the answer before I buy Minix. > Can the current version of Minix ST talk to a Supra hard disk? If not, > is there a patch available that I could apply to the operating system to > fix this? > Could this be a situation similar to what the PC-Ditto people just issued a patch for? PC-Ditto (the IBM PC emulator for the ST) has its own drivers for hard disks. Apparently some versions of ST DMA port adaptor boards are slower at responding to commands than others; in particular the PC-Ditto note talked about older Supra boards. PC-Ditto recently issued a patch that changed timing parameters in their driver to make it work on Supra's. dgc
to_stdnet@stag.UUCP (11/16/88)
From: dal@syntel.UUCP (Dale Schumacher) [trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey ) writes...] > In article <28@umvlsi.ECS.UMASS.EDU> kimmel@umvlsi.ECS.UMASS.EDU (Mathew Kimmel) writes: >>I've heard that the current version of Minix ST will not talk to Supra >>hard disks. However, I've also seen a message from someone who says he >>uses a Supra hard disk with Minix ST and has no problems. I'm not sure >>what to believe, but I'd like to know the answer before I buy Minix. >>Can the current version of Minix ST talk to a Supra hard disk? If not, >>is there a patch available that I could apply to the operating system to >>fix this? > > A friend just bought his second 30MB Supra recently and discovered that the > newer one works fine under Minix, but the older (8 months old) Supra > doesn't. He is using the same format/utility software for each, and > the only obvious difference is that the drive types were different (I > think he said the new one was Seagate and the old was Miniscribe). The > drive type shouldn't affect operation, so there must have been other > changes in the ST-SCSI adapter as well. I hear that Supra is working > on the problem, so hopefully there will be a software fix for the older > drives. Well, the answer is "all of the above". Some of the newest Supra hard disks DO work just fine with Minix-ST, as does the Atari Hard Disk. Tony Andrews (Sozobon C) has been using Minix-ST with an Atari drive for several weeks now and it is "rock steady". I on the other hand have had no end of troubles with Minix-ST and my VERY old Supra 20 (full height even). I've also been having other problems with my machine, such as the compiler getting and "illegal instruction" trap on one try, and working find the next time with the same source, so I'm not in a good position to recompile the kernel over and over. Tony has been doing recompiles for me and uploading (50K at a time, long distance) new versions. I've also been in almost daily contact with Willie Brown, from Supra Corp. Willie wrote most of the ST hard disk code from Supra. Supra as a whole has been VERY cooperative and supportive, which is nothing new for them. I've ALWAYS gotten GREAT customer support from them (unlike SOME companies). Anyhow, after many trials and errors, I've managed to patch together a kernel which can read and write my Supra drive, however it's very unclean in it's implementation, so I'm not going to be posting my changed yet. We still haven't figured out what is really going wrong, but we are making (slow) progress. The current hard disk driver is hand-optimized assembly (the ACK compiler creates unbelievably bad code) and forceably ignores panic()s causes by spurious hardware interupts. Also, a change in the code, (first attempt to remove the panic, actually) which changed the code size by 10 bytes, caused it to fail again (alignment problems?). So it's obviously not something everyone wants to use right now. I really wish I had better news. I want my hard disk working just as badly as everyone else, but it's going to take some time. This appears to be a very subtle bug. If anyone else has gathered any useful information, I'd be happy to hear from you. Our efforts are temporarily on hold until after Comdex. PS. A piece of advice. Minix is not yet ready for general "users". If you like hacking on system software and working with an unstable environment, go ahead and get Minix, it is really a nice toy. Lot of nifty software should start popping up as the initial bugs are worked out. My first major Minix project will probably by uucico, mail and news... as soon as I get this hard disk problem fixed :-) -- Dale Schumacher 399 Beacon Ave. (alias: Dalnefre') St. Paul, MN 55104 ...pwcs!stag!syntel!dal United States of America "It's not reality that's important, but how you perceive things."
hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu) (11/17/88)
In article <154@nlgvax.UUCP> johan@nlgvax.UUCP (Johan Stevenson) writes: >I have been called by one of the developers of Supra (W. Brown), who >mentioned problems reported by some of his customers. He himself had >no MINIX-ST and I have no Supra disk. Has someone on the net a >combination of these two ingredients at hand, with some time and >willingness to look into this problem? >I would very much like to have MINIX-ST run on the Supra drive, since >they are quite popular. >-- >Johan W. Stevenson johan@pcg.philips.nl Philips Research I have (had?) a Supra 20MB drive that originally did not work with Minix. This drive was attached with a version 2 Supra host adapter card. Given this and version 2.01 formatting software, Minix would not use this drive. I now have the version 5 host adaptor (I think it's #5, it has the pass-thru DMA connector as well as the onboard clock) and version 3.2 formatting software with the same drive mechanism, and this combination does work. Unfortunately I can't verify if the new formatter and old host adaptor will work, since the old one is quite thoroughly fried. I am now using Minix on a 40MB Miniscribe 8051S, with the 20MB Miniscribe 8425S attached as a GEMDOS only drive, with the new Supra host adaptor. -- / /_ , ,_. Howard Chu / /(_/(__ University of Michigan / Computing Center College of LS&A ' Unix Project Information Systems