skipl@adaptex.UUCP (12/22/89)
Matt, This sounds like an old product from Rodime. The original Rodime box actually sat between the monitor and system box though. I am not positive as to what you have, however I used to work for them and introduced this product to the market. The part number you cite is very familiar to me though. It came out in May,1986. There was another company in your neck of the woods that was doing the same thing and was looking at using the Rodime drive too. Anyway, I believe tou have one of the first SCSI add-on's for desktop computers.This box This device plugs directly into the SCSI port of the Mac (at least the Rodime unit did) and gets power through this cable too. No switches or controls are necessary. Rodime had software for the unit which allowed it to operate significantly faster than Apple's. The Apple software treated the disk as though it were a floppy disk drive with a resultant data transfer rate of 500 kilobits per second instead of 5 megabits per second. I am suspicious that the device you describe was made by another manufacturer as the Rodime unit had a Model 651 drive in it and not a 351. The 351 was a 10 Mbyte 3 1/2" ST 506 unit. Compaq was the largest customer for it. The Rodime unit didn't need a separate controller either. The SCSI interface was built in. Sorry if I confused you. The retail price was originally set at approximately $650.00 at that time. You probably couldn't give them away these days. If you don't have any software to support it I think you are going to have a tough time getting it to do anything. Sorry I do not have any more information on the subject. skipl Adaptec TEXAS!
amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Michielsen) (12/22/89)
In article <9700013@adaptex> skipl@adaptex.UUCP writes: > >Matt, > >This sounds like an old product from Rodime. The original Rodime box >actually... > >This device plugs directly into the SCSI port of the Mac... > >Rodime had software for the unit which allowed it... > I missed the start of this but will stick my 2 cents in anyway. I have 'managed' (for lack of a less offensive term), several old mac systems which have had drives added, which either came complete from rodime else used rodime drives. While this is meant NOT to be a kick to rodime but.... The software mentioned above I have found the following to be true. 1. The drives would work without it WITH OLD OLD OLD VERIONS of the system. 2. The software supplied is compatible only up to like system version 4.2 or 5 or somthing like that. AFTER that, it may or may not work, work well, or work at all. I think partly based on apple rom version. It GENERALLY would read/write but wouldn't boot. 3. I contacted Rodime & other companies about this problem & basically got the following reply. a. Yes we know. b. It's all apples fault. c. That's a really old product, we don't support that anymore. d. We have no plans on supplying a new driver set for the system because. 1. The system versions are coming our faster than we can handle it. 2. Apple is changing the rules in mid stream it's all their fault. 3. That's a really old product anyway. 4. We (& Even Apple) recommend that those old 128's, 512's, 512e's.... are not recommended to run system verions past (like) 4 anyway. A. So you can't share laser printers anymore because of the version differences. We sold you a disk drive, & It's apple's fault.... e. That product predated the (pick one) Plus, Se, II, IIi, IIc, IIcx,.... we never promised it would work that model anyway. Luckily, the secretaries dropped the last one a couple of weeks ago & they are all dead here now. If this sounds like the problem your having with it. I suspect it's hopeless to make it a bootable disk & run the newer systems. But I do know, that because of this I will never buy another rodime product willingly. No matter whose fault it's supposed to be....... AL