tyager@apollo.COM (Tom Yager) (09/23/88)
Has anyone tried the Miniscribe 6085 drive with an RLL controller? I called the manufacturer who says they don't recommend it, but since they market a separate, more expensive drive for RLL use, I would expect them to say that. If it won't work, fine. Their RLL drive is the 6128 and goes for about $900 with the Adaptec controller. Anyone out there who has had experience with this combination? I would be using this stuff with Xenix, er, SCO Unix/386 (a.k.a. Xenix v2.3.1) and would like to hear from anyone who cares to comment about the use of RLL with this OS. As always, thanks in advance. Please email replies to me at "tyager@apollo.com". (ty) -- Tom Yager, Apollo Computer ARPA: tyager@apollo.com -or- tyager%maxx@m2c.m2c.org -- These are my opinions alone. So there. -- "I like life; it's something to do."
chip@vector.UUCP (Chip Rosenthal) (09/25/88)
In article <3e9fa283.6bad@apollo.COM> tyager@apollo.COM (Tom Yager) writes: >Has anyone tried the Miniscribe 6085 drive with an RLL controller? For the uninitiated, the Miniscribe 6000 series is: 6128 6079 6085 6053 6032 Formatted Capacity (MB) 110.1 68.8 71.3 44.6 26.7 Sectors Per Track 26 26 17 17 17 Heads 8 5 8 5 3 Cylinders 1024 1024 1024 1024 1024 Recording Method RLL RLL MFM MFM MFM A lot of people have told me about success running MFM drives with an RLL controller. I wouldn't do it. But then again, I'm one of those super paranoid types who won't accept an 80386-16 in a "20MHz" computer. >If it won't work, fine. Their RLL drive is the 6128 and >goes for about $900 with the Adaptec controller. Anyone >out there who has had experience with this combination? Yes. I've been bitching and moaning now for over a month about this. I am trying to run SCO XENIX 386 2.2 on an Everex Step 386/20 with a Miniscribe 6128 and an Adaptec ACB2372. I've been having all sorts of problems -- usually paging system panics but occasionally a general protection trap. My initial best guess was either a disk or memory problem. We ran Everex's memory diagnostics for two days. No problems found. We screwed around with the Adaptec strappings for a bit with no improvement. Specifically, we messed around with the J14 strap for wait states and the J12 straps for BIOS selection. We then swapped it out for a plain old WD 1:1 MFM controller. Problems went away. Monday, I'm going to take another shot using a WD RLL controller. If that works then I'll be in fat city. Three points to this rambling story: (1) Pathalias is the best diagnostic I've found to date. If a system is going to crash, this will do it. I prefer to get a couple of invocations going. I use multiple copies to avoid having the text segments shared. (2) Seeing that I don't have anything conclusive yet, I'd hate to condemn the Adaptec 2372. But, it looks really suspicious from where I'm sitting. (3) If I hear one more PC salesman say "but it works fine with DOS", I will probably kick him in the nuts. I realize the original poster asked for mailed responses, but I'd be interested in hearing from other folks with experience with the 2372. -- Chip Rosenthal chip@vector.UUCP | I've been a wizard since my childhood. Dallas Semiconductor 214-450-0486 | And I've earned some respect for my art.
rick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson) (09/25/88)
In article <569@vector.UUCP> chip@vector.UUCP (Chip Rosenthal) writes: > >I realize the original poster asked for mailed responses, but I'd be >interested in hearing from other folks with experience with the 2372. I've used the Miniscribe 6128 and Adaptek 2372 combo under 386/ix since Feb. with pretty good success. The only trouble I had was an infant mortality problem on the floppy side of the controller. A replacement controller cured the problem. It helps to have a second one around to narrow down these problems -- I was ready to blame the floppy drive. -- Rick Richardson, PC Research, Inc. rick%pcrat.uucp@uunet.uu.net (INTERNET) uunet!pcrat!rick (UUCP, Personal Mail) ..!pcrat!jetroff (JetRoff Info) ..!pcrat!dry2 (Dhrystone Submissions)