[comp.sys.atari.st] hard disk stuff was Re: Hard Disks versus 10 Mb Floppies

dragon@lfl.uucp (Give me a quarter or I'll touch you) (11/02/88)

From article <453@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu>, by hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu):
[...]
> let the numbers fool you; they both format to about 300MB.) These are for
> naked drives - to use on the ST, you also need to buy a power supply, some
> cables, and a SCSI controller card. (Adaptec or Berkeley Micro Systems
> seem to be the preferred names.) A case is also nice to put around it, and

BMS only makes host adapters, they package the Adaptec controllers with
their systems.  Anyhow, if one is using a SCSI drive, a SCSI controller
won't be necessary.  If one uses an ESDI drive, the SCSI<->ESDI
controller is necessary (Adaptec makes one, the number slips my mind at
the moment.

> you should find an ST-to-SCSI host adapter board. (As far as I can tell,
> ICD and Supra's products are almost identical in this area. Although the
> ICD disk driver does write verification, and the Supra docs don't mention
> whether it does or not. Both have battery backed-up clocks on the adaptor
> board. Seems like a waste to me. I kinda wish they sold a version of the
> card that didn't have the clock - why pay for something I won't use? I
> get a clock with my RAM upgrades... Plus, the ICD and Supra clocks take
> up a logical unit number on the SCSI bus. Ah well...)

I believe both clocks can be disabled (I know the Supra can) thus
freeing up a SCSI device number (*not* a logical unit number).

 
> --
>   /
>  /_ , ,_.                      Howard Chu
> / /(_/(__                University of Michigan
>     /           Computing Center          College of LS&A
>    '              Unix Project          Information Systems


--Dean!

sun!pixar!r2d2!dragon