SAGE@LL.ARPA (04/13/88)
I, too, was puzzled by the uncomplimentary message about Media Master. I have been using it on my PC computers for many years to convert numerous CP/M formats. I have had few, if any, problems, and I, too, have found the manufacturer, Intersecting Concepts, to be most helpful and responsive. While on this subject, let me add some information on the relative merits as I see them, of UNIFORM and Media Master on a PC type machine. First I like both of them. Both support a vast number of formats. UNIFORM allows one of the drives to become a virtual CP/M drive, allowing any DOS operation to be performed directly on files on the CP/M disk. This is very handy. Unfortunately, UNIFORM does not know how to handle user numbers correctly. It warns you when there are files in user areas other than 0, but it mashes them all together on reads. On writes, UNIFORM actually makes unnecessary modifications to the CP/M directory, permanently changing user numbers of files in areas other than zero, and (most unfortunately) destroying the order -- and hence the DateStamper time stamps -- of all the files! So, use UNIFORM with great caution and never on a DateStamped disk you care about. Media Master does not create a virtual disk and is used only to perform specific operations on files, such as copying them to or from the DOS disk. Media Master transfers files extremely rapidly (I don't know how they manage that -- they are far faster than DOS itself). UNIFORM is often very slow, by the way (though not as horribly slow as I sometimes find it for some foreign formats on my CP/M SB180). Media Master does know about and deal with user areas by allowing you to select the user area to work with (I don't see why UNIFORM can't figure out how to do something like this, but their programmer wrote to me that it "can't be done"). Media Master does not damage the CP/M disk directory or time stamps.
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu (04/14/88)
Does Media Master support formats other than CP/M? How about 8",
5.25" high density, and 3.5" formats? What disk controllers does
it support?
Uniform supports the Maynard FDC-8 disk controller, and the Micro
Solutions Compaticard, which handles all the above disk formats.
Mike Berger
Department of Statistics
Science, Technology, and Society
University of Illinois
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!bergerMA18@SYSE.SALFORD.AC.UK (07/19/88)
Subject: Media Master and Uniform Does anyone know if either of these two products is still available for Z80 machines? I have so far only found PC versions available. Thanks -- Tony Addyman.