jantypas@hope.UUCP (02/24/87)
Does anyone in netland know what type of disks a Dec Rainbow can
read/write? We are doing some software development and need to do it for a
rainbow but have only an AT and Dec Pro350 available. Help!
John Antypas
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decnet: (HELP Dec!)pnessutt@nis.UUCP (02/27/87)
In article <1187@hope.UUCP> jantypas@hope.UUCP (John Antypas) writes: >Does anyone in netland know what type of disks a Dec Rainbow can >read/write? We are doing some software development and need to do it for a >rainbow but have only an AT and Dec Pro350 available. Help! > We have 2 Rainbow's here and we presently use a mixture of 3M RX-50 diskettes and DEC supplied RX-50 diskettes. These diskettes a bit more expensive than normal DSDD diskettes but they are reliable. The only notable problem we have faced with them is that they have no hub ring and this causes them to get beat up a bit if your drives are flaky. We have also used normal DSDD diskettes but usually only 3M's. Many of the other brands we have tryed (except Fuji but you don't find those around much anymore) tend not to be too reliable. The Rainbow's drives are noisy, arn't they? (I imagine you'd be noise too if you had one R/W head that had to be shared between two single sided diskettes) Hope this helps. -Bob -- Robert A. Monio UUCP: ihnp4!meccts!nis!pnessutt Systems/Analyst - Technical Services ATT: (612) 894-9494 National Information Systems, Inc. "These Proceedings are Closed!"
myers@andromeda.UUCP (03/04/87)
In article <1187@hope.UUCP> jantypas@hope.UUCP (John Antypas) writes: >Does anyone in netland know what type of disks a Dec Rainbow can >read/write? We are doing some software development and need to do it for a >rainbow but have only an AT and Dec Pro350 available. Help! > >John Antypas I had a lot of problems with that one myself... I was using standard Double Sided/Double Density diskettes without to much of a problem but I found out that the Rainbow uses a Single Sided/Quad Density diskette that is specially preformatted for the RX-50 Disk Drive... They're not too hard to find but they can be costly... Best bet is to call one of the Dec Fido BBS's and ask the Sysop where you could get them cheap... I hope this helped.. Scott R. Myers Reach Out and Touch Someone... ------------------------------ myers@andromeda.rutgers.edu or myers@aim.rutgers.edu
dutler@ihuxz.UUCP (03/04/87)
> I had a lot of problems with that one myself... I was using standard Double > Sided/Double Density diskettes without to much of a problem but I found out > that the Rainbow uses a Single Sided/Quad Density diskette that is specially > preformatted for the RX-50 Disk Drive... They're not too hard to find but > myers@andromeda.rutgers.edu I have been using a Rainbow for 4 years now and I have a mix of double and quad density disks. The quad disks I purchase before the formatter was available for the Rainbow. The formatter came out for the Rainbow in version 2.05 and later of MS-DOS. I now only purchase double sided double density disks and have had no problems at all. The only disk related problem for the Rainbow is that some manufacturers put an extra thick reinforcing ring on the hub that can cause damage to the RX50 drive in the Rainbow. Off hand, I can't think of what brands do this, but a safe disk to use is Maxell. I have been able to get them for a reasonable price and have never had one fail. I don't have any connection with Maxell and you can buy whatever you like, just a suggestion. How about it Rainbow users, any particular brands of disks that cause the RX50 to fail? -- Stan Dutler There ya go man, Keep as cool as ya can ..ihnp4!ihuxz!dutler Face piles of trials with smiles
campbell@maynard.UUCP (03/05/87)
In article <262@andromeda.UUCP> myers@andromeda.UUCP (Scott R Myers) writes: >... the Rainbow uses a Single Sided/Quad Density diskette that is specially >preformatted for the RX-50 Disk Drive... They're not too hard to finneed to buy special quad-density disks. The Rainbow is perfectly capable of formatting diskettes, and even though it records at 96 TPI, you can use ordinary SSDD (or DSDD) diskettes as long as they're of good quality. For a long time I used el cheapo no-name SSDD diskettes we got for about 27 cents each. About 5% of them were unusable. I got tired of that and switched to Polaroid DSDD diskettes, for about 53 cents each. They have worked perfectly - I've never had a bad one. There are several other DEC products that use RX50 diskettes as well, including the MicroVAX, Micro-PDP11, Pro, and DECmate. I think only the Rainbow can format them, though, so if you have a Rainbow you might hang on to it just so you can format cheap diskettes for your other machines. -- Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc. Internet: campbell@maynard.uucp 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109 uucp: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell +1 617 367 6846 ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvisr.harvard.edu MCI: LCAMPBELL
davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) (03/05/87)
In article <1907@ihuxz.ATT.COM> dutler@ihuxz.ATT.COM (Dutler) writes: > >I have been using a Rainbow for 4 years now and I have a mix of double >and quad density disks. The quad disks I purchase before the formatter >was available for the Rainbow. The formatter came out for the Rainbow >in version 2.05 and later of MS-DOS. I now only purchase double sided >double density disks and have had no problems at all. The only disk I have a feeling you're wasting your money. All of the Ranbows we have here (100A, 100B, 100+) use DEC drives which are SINGLE-side quad density. If you want to risk using double density it's your decision, but SSDD disks are somwhat cheaper and should work exactly as well. -- bill davidsen sixhub \ ihnp4!seismo!rochester!steinmetz -> crdos1!davidsen chinet / ARPA: davidsen%crdos1.uucp@ge-crd.ARPA (or davidsen@ge-crd.ARPA)