st69@sdcc12.UUCP (07/10/87)
. A friend of mine uses a HP9000/236CS as his principle computer. He needs to interface a SCSI WORM drive to it for a project this fall. Is anyone aware of a SCSI board for this machine??
rjn@hpfcmp.HP.COM (Bob Niland) (07/11/87)
re: "A friend of mine uses a HP9000/236CS as his principle computer. He
needs to interface a SCSI WORM drive to it for a project this fall. Is
anyone aware of a SCSI board for this machine??"
A SCSI interface is being investigated for the HP9000 Series 300; however,
the initial implementation will likely be as an internal board for the Model
330 and 350 (DIO-II backplane). It will not be mechanically compatible with
Series 200, Model 310 or 320 machines (DIO-I backplane: not fast enough to
take advantage of SCSI). Although a hardware hacker could probably jam it
into a Model 236, the board won't be available in time for the fall semester.
Furthermore, software for it is currently planned only for HP-UX, in a
release after 5.3.
On the other hand, one of our third party hardware vendors has announced a
WORM drive that uses our existing standard HP-IB (IEEE-488) physical
interface and CS/80 command set. If this is a reasonable alternative, send
mail and I'll forward more info.
Regards, Hewlett-Packard
Bob Niland 3404 East Harmony Road
[ihnp4|hplabs]!hpfcla!rjn Fort Collins CO 80525kinsell@hpfcda.HP.COM (Dave Kinsell) (07/12/87)
> It will not be mechanically compatible with >Series 200, Model 310 or 320 machines (DIO-I backplane: not fast enough to >take advantage of SCSI). Although a hardware hacker could probably jam it >into a Model 236, the board won't be available in time for the fall semester. DIO-I will run in excess of 2 meg/sec, which is quite adequate for the large majority of SCSI applications. In fact, many implementations are limited to 1.5 meg/sec. The on-track data rate of most Winchester discs is even less than that. If it is feasible to write drivers yourself, then a good option for the hardware would be to add an interface chip like the NCR 5385 to the 98630A Breadboard interface. I have it on very good authority that this is easy to do. Regards, Hewlett-Packard Dave Kinsell 3404 East Harmony Road [ihnp4|hplabs]!hpfcla!d_kinsell Fort Collins CO 80525