wayne@inmet.UUCP (06/28/88)
I am planning to purchase a Mac Plus and need some recommendations regarding a MIDI interface. Has anyone used Apple's MIDI interface ? Are there any known problems with the software that is out there using this interface ? Are there other comparably priced interfaces around ? Recommendations anyone ? Also, are Jasmine hard disks reliable gear ? Thanks in advance, keith hedger ihnp4!inmet!wayne
brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu (07/02/88)
Though at one time I was a Jasmine fan, I am no longer. Out of the two drives I
have direct contact with each day, there have been a total of _3_ failures.
Needless to say, I am not happy with Jasmine. The drives were bought when
Jasmine was an infant company, and they haven't been very nice to me. Upon
calling tech support about the first two crashes, both times they said "Oh just
use such and such diagnostic on your Jasmine Master disk." Of course they had
never bothered to send out us faithful users the latest drivers. It even says
in their manual that they will keep you up to date on all System Software. What
a joke. They haven't sent me anything except for the disks and the manuals
(which weren't completed when I got the drives).
But that isn't the least of it. I can sum up their tech support in two
words "It sucks!" On the most recent repair (which was out of warrenty and for
which they charged me $250), they said they had 2-3 day turnaround on drive
repairs. Don't make me laugh. It was a full month before I got the drive back.
Granted that some of it was not their fault (my parents were on vacation for a
week, so I couldn't give them any credit card numbers to bill to). But when
my parents got back, we were unable to contact the person who called us, for
about 5 days. When we called at 3:30 PST, he was on break. When we called at
4:30 PST, he had left for the day. Finally we got someone named Manuel to take
care of us, but it was still quite difficult, as he didn't speak English well
enough to write down my Mother's name!! Finally they said they shipped it via
Federal Express, but after it had been 3 days, we called Jasmine to see what
was up. They said that it was shipped, and gave us the FedEx number so we could
track it down. FE said it was shipped to a student residence hall in town!
It turns out that Jasmine gave us the wrong FedEx number, and we did receive
the drive the following Monday, but Federal Express said that it was shipped
on the friday. In summary, Jasmine Tech support sucks.
And now Jasmine has a nifty new 2 year warrenty, and fun commerical
stuff that they are giving away with their drives. What about us people that
supported you in the begining, huh?
I should say that these were all Jasmine 20 Direct Drives, and that it
may be that their other drives are better, or maybe not. So, the only advice I
can give you is to NOT buy a Jasmine drive.
(Don't buy a Cirrus 80 drive either, but thats another posting...)
Robert Brewer
brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!brewerrudolph@intelisc.UUCP (David Rudolph) (07/06/88)
In article <17000111@clio> brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu writes: > [Stuff about why not to buy a Jasmine drive] > > (Don't buy a Cirrus 80 drive either, but thats another posting...) > >Robert Brewer > brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu > {ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!brewer Please elaborate on the Cirrus comment. I'm down to a decision between Cirrus and Mass. Micro (the ones who make the "power 2 expand" stuff). -- David Rudolph CSnet: rudolph%isc.intel.com
jarrett@repoman.UUCP (07/09/88)
/* Written 9:12 pm Jul 1, 1988 by brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu in repoman:comp.sys.mac */
Though at one time I was a Jasmine fan, I am no longer. Out of the two drives I
have direct contact with each day, there have been a total of _3_ failures.
Needless to say, I am not happy with Jasmine. The drives were bought when
Jasmine was an infant company, and they haven't been very nice to me. Upon
calling tech support about the first two crashes, both times they said "Oh just
use such and such diagnostic on your Jasmine Master disk." Of course they had
never bothered to send out us faithful users the latest drivers. It even says
in their manual that they will keep you up to date on all System Software. What
a joke. They haven't sent me anything except for the disks and the manuals
(which weren't completed when I got the drives).
But that isn't the least of it. I can sum up their tech support in two
words "It sucks!" On the most recent repair (which was out of warrenty and for
which they charged me $250), they said they had 2-3 day turnaround on drive
repairs. Don't make me laugh. It was a full month before I got the drive back.
Granted that some of it was not their fault (my parents were on vacation for a
week, so I couldn't give them any credit card numbers to bill to). But when
my parents got back, we were unable to contact the person who called us, for
about 5 days. When we called at 3:30 PST, he was on break. When we called at
4:30 PST, he had left for the day. Finally we got someone named Manuel to take
care of us, but it was still quite difficult, as he didn't speak English well
enough to write down my Mother's name!! Finally they said they shipped it via
Federal Express, but after it had been 3 days, we called Jasmine to see what
was up. They said that it was shipped, and gave us the FedEx number so we could
track it down. FE said it was shipped to a student residence hall in town!
It turns out that Jasmine gave us the wrong FedEx number, and we did receive
the drive the following Monday, but Federal Express said that it was shipped
on the friday. In summary, Jasmine Tech support sucks.
And now Jasmine has a nifty new 2 year warrenty, and fun commerical
stuff that they are giving away with their drives. What about us people that
supported you in the begining, huh?
I should say that these were all Jasmine 20 Direct Drives, and that it
may be that their other drives are better, or maybe not. So, the only advice I
can give you is to NOT buy a Jasmine drive.
(Don't buy a Cirrus 80 drive either, but thats another posting...)
Robert Brewer
brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!brewer
/* End of text from repoman:comp.sys.mac */brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu (07/10/88)
Okay, here goes. The Cirrus is a good drive hardware wise. The Cirrus
has gotten good marks all around for their small size, nice case, and excelent
worksmanship. The LaCie 80 has the fastest access time of any external I have
seen (18 ms). It uses the Quantum drive, with their special DisCache buffer
(64K of RAM that caches each track as it is read). All in is a good drive in
most physical respects (except that you have to rip it open to change the SCSI
address).
The problems occur with the driver software. In general, it looks prettyslick, with multiple, automount, password-protectable partitions, that can be
accessed from a DA. BUT, there is a _MAJOR_ fatal flaw in their driver. If for
any reason you are forced to do a 'dirty' restart (like hitting the programmers
switch, or pulling the plug) it trashes the disk directory. Your drive will not
boot after a 'dirty' restart. Actually it turns out that the directory can be
repaired, with a little know-how. That reminds me, I should mention that the
drive came with one badly photocopied sheet of paper that basically said "Plug
'er in, and let 'er rip!" Apparently the documentation is being reprinted or
somesuch, and will be sent to all people when ready.
For any other Cirrus 80 people out there who don't know the repair
method, here it is. Boot with your working copy of the SilverLining software
(you did make a copy of that disk the second you got it in your hand, didn't
you?) You should probably make SilverLining the startup application to speed
things up, but that isn't required. Once in SilverLining, click the "Vol.
Manager" button. You will see a list of all your logical volumes (probably one
big one unless you figured out how to make others). Click on the "Mount" button
next to whichever drive is your boot drive. That button should now be
checkmarked. Now click on "OK". There will be a pause. Then you will get a
dialog and a beep saying "Bad directory on volume _____. Do you want to
initialize it?" And the "OK" button is the _DEFAULT_!!!!! Whoever programmed
this piece of software from hell ought to be taken out and shot! I mean its bad
enough that a naive user has to deal with the Finder telling him the volume is
damaged, and does he want to initalize it, but actually making initialize the
default is nothing short of pure unadulterated stupidity and/or sadism. By now
you should realize that you want to click "Cancel". Now the #%@*$ program
cutely gives you a dialog that says "Volume header info seems bad. Want to try
alternate header info?" ARRRRRGGGGG!!! Think of all the people who will
initialize their drives and never see this message! You click on "OK" here, and
then you get an alert telling you that you should use Disk First Aid to fix the
free block count if this works. Don't worry, it (apparently) works every time.
Then it will give you the original "Do you want to initalize this drive?" dialogagain, as though the fix didn't work. Say "Cancel". Then say cancel to the
repair dialog. Then get out of the Godforsaken program and get back to the
Finder with the Quit menu item.
Now, run the Disk First Aid that is also on the
SilverLining disk. When DFA asks you if you want to repair it, say yes.
Now there is one more thing you have got to do. You have to re-bless
the System Folder on your hard disk. When you are back in the Finder, your hard
disk will be there. Open it up, and then open your System Folder. Did you
notice that it didn't have that funny little mini System icon on it? That means
it isn't blessed (translation : the Finder doesn't know its the System Folder).
Now drag the Finder out onto the desktop, or just somewhere out of the System
Folder. Then drag it back in. Close the System Folder. The little icon should
now be back on your System Folder. Thats it! Your drive is now it tip-top
condition.
After having done this about 15-20 times, I have gotten it down so that
I can do it in almost exactly 2 minutes. Believe me, it is not a pleasant
experience knowing that if you hit the wrong button or accidently hit return at
the wrong time it will totally erase your drive. Oh yeah, also, if you hold downthe Command key when you enter the SilverLining software, it will ask you if youwant to scavange for volumes. "Wow," I thought, "someone was smart enough to
realize that this problem existed, and so they built in this little trick." So,
being the bold adventurer that I am, I said OK. ARRRRGGGGG!!! Apparently in
SilverLining, "scavenge for volumes" means find all volumes and initialize them!!! So much for intelligence...
So, the drive is good (so is the neat little carring case for that
matter), but the software SUCKS. I have yet to receive a manual, or the promisedSilverServer software (makes drives mountable over a serial connection), a $149
value. The end result is that it is somewhat scarry using the drive, because
you never can tell when some PD software is going to bite and force me to use
the programmers switch.
LaCie's tech support says that they know about the problem and they're
working on it, but they say they can't reproduce it!! All you have to do is hit
the reset switch for crying out loud!
And to add insult to injury, I have zero technical documentation on the
drive so I can't use any of the generic SCSI drivers (SF&I comes to mind)
because I don't know anything about the drive!!
In summary, I wouldn't buy a LaCie right now, as you are bound to have
problems and frustrations. But, being naive and optimistic, I hope someday LaCiewill fix their driver, send me my manual and SilverServer software, and all willbe right in the world (until I fill up the 80 megs, of course).
Oops, forgot to say that these experiences are with the Cirrus 80 drive
from LaCie, on my Mac II. LaCie says the problem is with the disk cache, and
so only occurs with the 80 Meg model, but I would trust them about as far as I
can throw them.
Robert Brewer
brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!brewergarth@sigi.Colorado.EDU (Garth Snyder) (07/11/88)
In article <17000117@clio brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu writes:
... The Cirrus has gotten good marks all around for their small size,
nice case, and excelent worksmanship. The LaCie 80 has the fastest
access time of any external I have seen (18 ms). It uses the Quantum
drive, with their special DisCache buffer (64K of RAM that caches
each track as it is read). All in is a good drive...
The problems occur with the driver software. In general, it looks
pretty slick, with multiple, automount, password-protectable
partitions, that can be accessed from a DA. BUT, there is a _MAJOR_
fatal flaw in their driver. If for any reason you are forced to do a
'dirty' restart (like hitting the programmers switch, or pulling the
plug) it trashes the disk directory. Your drive will not boot after a
'dirty' restart.
This sounds like one hosebag of a situation, and my intent is not to
defend LaCie on this count. However, I'd like to put in a pitch for my
Cirrus 60 external, which has never given me an instant of trouble in the
year that I've owned it. The software is the same (Silver Lining), but
it works flawlessly on the 60 Meg drive (and presumably the 20 and 40, as
well).
It's very fast and small, and I've carried it around to all kinds of
places without incident. Check it out.
--------------------
Garth Snyder UUCP: boulder!garth
Univ. of CO @ Boulder ARPA: garth@boulder.colorado.edu
--------------------briand@tekig4.TEK.COM (Brian Diehm) (07/12/88)
> Oops, forgot to say that these experiences are with the Cirrus 80 drive >from LaCie, on my Mac II. LaCie says the problem is with the disk cache, and >so only occurs with the 80 Meg model, but I would trust them about as far as I >can throw them. It would appear that LaCie has a problem with their 80Meg drive. I have had a 31Meg for about a year; it came with good software and has given me no trouble a-tall. I found them helpful, friendly, and supporting. I would be inclined to trust them some distance farther than I could throw them. -- -Brian Diehm (SDA - Standard Disclaimers Apply) Tektronix, Inc. briand@tekig4.TEK.COM or {decvax,cae780,uw-beaver}!tektronix!tekig4!briand
t-jacobs@utah-cs.UUCP (07/13/88)
In article <17000117@clio> brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu writes: > So, the drive is good (so is the neat little carring case for that >matter), but the software SUCKS. > You're throwing the baby out with the wash! Their disk partitioning and data transfer software is the best of any HD software I've seen. I admit the default button should be the other one but is that any reason to flame the works for it??? > LaCie's tech support says that they know about the problem and they're >working on it, but they say they can't reproduce it!! All you have to do is hit >the reset switch for crying out loud! > They're probally right. We have 6 or 7 of the LaCie drives (no 80's) and have never run into this problem. I hit the restart & interupt buttons all the time and have never had this problem. I know of at least a dozen other people who have Lacie Drives and they have never had this problem. I have no doubts they can't reproduce your problem. Your problem probally really is specific to haveing a 80 on a Mac II. > In summary, I wouldn't buy a LaCie right now, as you are bound to have >problems and frustrations. But, being naive and optimistic, I hope someday LaCiewill fix their driver, send me my manual and SilverServer software, and all willbe right in the world (until I fill up the 80 megs, of course). > >Robert Brewer > brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu > {ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!brewer I'd be careful about making flames just because you are frustrated & having problems. Did you try turning off the cache? -- Tony Jacobs * Center for Engineering Design * U of U * t-jacobs@ced.utah.edu
mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu.UUCP (07/13/88)
In article <17000117@clio> brewer@clio.las.uiuc.edu writes: > > The problems occur with the driver software. In general, it looks prettyslick, with multiple, automount, password-protectable partitions, that can be >accessed from a DA. BUT, there is a _MAJOR_ fatal flaw in their driver. If for >any reason you are forced to do a 'dirty' restart (like hitting the programmers >switch, or pulling the plug) it trashes the disk directory. Your drive will not [stuff deleted] > > Oops, forgot to say that these experiences are with the Cirrus 80 drive >from LaCie, on my Mac II. LaCie says the problem is with the disk cache, and >so only occurs with the 80 Meg model, but I would trust them about as far as I >can throw them. > I have three friends including myself who have mac+'s and 30 or 40 meg external drives. I have never had any of the problems you describe and we are totaly delighted with the capabilities of the silver lining software. From my sample of 4 drives over a 7 month purchase period the problem is not occuring on the smaller drives. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Interrante Software Engineering Research Center mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu CIS Department, University of Florida 32611 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The sky clenched, a mountain of mud convulsed, earth and sky bellowed at each other, there was a horrible pinkness, a sudden greenness, a lingering orangeness that strained the clouds, and then the light sank and the night at last was deeply, hideously dark. --- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
clyde@ut-emx.UUCP (Head UNIX Hacquer) (07/19/88)
Almost a year ago I got a Jasmine Direct Drive 80 for my 512KE (w/Dove 2Meg and SCSI addons). I followed directions (which were provided in a nice large and COMPLETE manual) - which consisted of mostly 'plug the sucker in and turn it on' and it has worked PERFECTLY ever since. Now, my Mac has died some absolutely spectacular deaths since then, sometimes with considerable screen pryotechnics and noise. I even blew my power supply (it was a VERY old power supply - my machine started as a 128K 'classic Mac'). Not ONCE has my Jasmine disk ever been damaged! After such deaths, it takes a bit longer before I see "Welcome to Macintosh", but I have never seen a damaged file system on it. I also cannot say enough good about the mechanical robustness of the drive. When I need to do a massive amount of downloading, I just unplug my disk and carry it into work, where I use a 19.2K connection from the back of my Sun. I don't know about any of the other Jasmine offerings, but I recommend the 80MB drive without reservation. -Clyde Hoover -- Shouter-To-Dead-Parrots @ Univ. of Texas Computation Center; Austin, Texas clyde@emx.utexas.edu; ...!ut-sally!ut-emx!clyde "That would be the easy way, but it wouldn't be The Cowboy Way." -Riders in the Sky
Mark_Peter_Cookson@cup.portal.com (07/22/88)
I must admit that I don't have a Jasmine drive and because of what I am about to tell you about, I will never own one. About a year ago I went to a Sysop's conference at Stanford, we were instructed to bring our HDs so that we could exchange PD files. One of the sysops had a Mac 512 that had been upgraded to the + (motherboard and all) and had a Jasmine 80 meg drive. Maybe the drive was old, or her ROMs were old, but something clearly did not work. I think we got the thing to boot maybe twice the entire day. We could boot from a floppy and then mount it with a special mounting utility they gave her (not very good for a SCSI drive that is supposed to auto boot), but only once or twice did the drive startup. Even on different machines it had problems. She liked it because it was a big drive (I have to admit, it was most of 80 meg), but I could not stand to run a BBS knowing that if the power went off the BBS would be down until I came home. Maybe you can tell me why the drive would not boot, but I sure can't Mark Cookson