gt0852c@prism.gatech.EDU (Daniel Rothman) (03/12/91)
I have a problem. As a new network admin, i have discovered two AGA Discus r/w optical drives lying dormant. These appear to be really nice little drives, and have cartridges of 300M/side. They claim to be SCSI, with compatibility to ANSI x3.131/1986, as well as being "Novell certified" for use with Netware 386 SFT. Optimally, I'd like to hang them off of the IBM PS/2 model 80 we're using as a Novell file server. Unfortunately, the little buggers come with "SCSI adapter cards" for use with the IBM AT Bus. The next step in this conendrum is that i cannot find AGA nowadays. They seem to have gone under, with no forwarding address and no pointers to tech-support. 1) anybody heard of Advanced Graphics Application (AGA) or their tech support people? 2) Can anyone suggest to me a way to get these beasts to talk to a micro-channel machine in any capacity? 3) can anyone explain to me what SCSI compatibility with ANSI x3.131/1986 means, and how this may be of benefit to me? Failed attempt: I tried to bring one of the beasts home, to talk to my Mac through its SCSI port. Despit the best intentions, the suggested dip settings and such, I simply could not get my mac to recognize this box as SCSI 1. I attempted to use a fresh cartridge, and install some Mac drivers on it, but SF&I 1.01 showed an error on the drive. This is the software that's supposed to format and partition SCSI hard drives for a mac. The docs I have from AGA are really scimpy (of course) and don't help at all in the configuration of the drive, although they are pretty good for the AT card configuration. Daniel Rothman
goykhman_a@apollo.HP.COM (Alex Goykhman) (03/13/91)
In article <24081@hydra.gatech.EDU> gt0852c@prism.gatech.EDU (Daniel Rothman) writes: >I have a problem. As a new network admin, i have discovered two AGA Discus r/w >optical drives lying dormant. These appear to be really nice little drives, and >have cartridges of 300M/side. They claim to be SCSI, with compatibility to >ANSI x3.131/1986, as well as being "Novell certified" for use with Netware >386 SFT. Optimally, I'd like to hang them off of the IBM PS/2 model 80 we're >using as a Novell file server. Unfortunately, the little buggers come with >"SCSI adapter cards" for use with the IBM AT Bus. The next step in this >conendrum is that i cannot find AGA nowadays. They seem to have gone under, >with no forwarding address and no pointers to tech-support. > >1) anybody heard of Advanced Graphics Application (AGA) or their tech support >people? > >2) Can anyone suggest to me a way to get these beasts to talk to a micro-channel >machine in any capacity? You would definitely need a microchannel/SCSI host adapter > >3) can anyone explain to me what SCSI compatibility with ANSI x3.131/1986 >means, and how this may be of benefit to me? It implies that any decent SCSI driver would be able to handle it. SCSI-wise, MO is a removable direct-access device, just as a floppy is. > >Failed attempt: I tried to bring one of the beasts home, to talk to my Mac >through its SCSI port. Despit the best intentions, the suggested dip settings >and such, I simply could not get my mac to recognize this box as SCSI 1. >I attempted to use a fresh cartridge, and install some Mac drivers on it, but >SF&I 1.01 showed an error on the drive. This is the software that's supposed to >format and partition SCSI hard drives for a mac. It may well be a software problem. What does it complain about? >The docs I have from AGA are really scimpy (of course) and don't help at all in >the configuration of the drive, although they are pretty good for the AT card >configuration. > >Daniel Rothman Alex Goykhman ##############
haraki@fermi.rc.m-kasei.co.jp (Susumu Haraki 3844) (03/14/91)
In article <24081@hydra.gatech.EDU> gt0852c@prism.gatech.EDU (Daniel Rothman) writes:
* 1) anybody heard of Advanced Graphics Application (AGA) or their tech support
* people?
The only thing I can tell you is that I know the person who
knows how to contact the person who had been the president of AGA.
I heard once but I forgot the name of company he established.
If you need information ,I will get the phone number for him.
* 2) Can anyone suggest to me a way to get these beasts to talk to a micro-channel
* machine in any capacity?
Anyway AGA had sold SONY & Ricoh drives as DR-650E.
So perhaps your drive is one of them.
You can find out numerous VARs and SCSI boards for AGA drives.
If you want to which drive you have,check if there is a pin hole
at the left side of a eject button.
If there is pin hole(this hole is used to eject Media in case of
emergency.),then your drive is SONY's.
* 3) can anyone explain to me what SCSI compatibility with ANSI x3.131/1986
* means, and how this may be of benefit to me?
*
From the Manual for SONY MO drives.
------For the Materials not described in this documents,refer to
the ANSI X3.131-1986 Small Computer Systems Interface and
the Common Command Set(CCS) Rev. 4B.----------------
Anyway Sony and Ricoh drives support Group 0 & 1.
Of course there are several vendor unique commands.
But on the normal use there may be no problem except low level format.
<Failed attempt: I tried to bring one of the beasts home, to talk to my Mac
<through its SCSI port. Despit the best intentions, the suggested dip settings
<and such, I simply could not get my mac to recognize this box as SCSI 1.
<I attempted to use a fresh cartridge, and install some Mac drivers on it, but
<SF&I 1.01 showed an error on the drive. This is the software that's supposed to
<format and partition SCSI hard drives for a mac.
Please try Silverlining by Lacie limited on the Mac.
I tested this software with those drives (Sony Ricoh
Tahiti Sharp Mitsubishi Matsushita).All were OK!
And if you have adaptec 154x on your pc,scsictr.exe is good
to check your drives.
By the way AGA used specific number for MO disks as follows.
AGA SONY default
number of bands 1 1
number of spare blocks 512 2048
Most of cases, it is not problem,but a few software can not accept
this value.In that case you must certify or format Media again.
Here "certify" or "format" mean low level commands.
Hope this helps
Susumu Haraki
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