RFM@psuvm.psu.edu (08/09/90)
I recieved a flier in the mail today from the goood folks at Zenith/Bull
offering me an upgrade copy of ZDOS 4.0 for only $49. I currently run ZDOS
3.3 plus in a Z159 (XT-level) with a 65-meg Seagate ST277R, a SOTA 386sx
accelerator card, and 2 megs of EMS memory (2 EMS boards installed).
ZDOS 3.3 gives me access to partitions larger than 30 megs, and the
EMS.SYS gives me all the expanded memory on line (some in a SOTA cache), etc.
What would I get if I upgraded to 4.0?
Appreciate any and all info/advice.
Bob M., PSU-Harrisburg.
PS: A while back I posted a query about hooking my MFM hard drive, a Seagate
ST 251 (40 megs) to an RLL controller to get some more capacity; also asked
about running RLL in a Zenith system.
about running an RLL setup in a Z159
Lots of good folks responded. The gist of their comments was that (1)
RLL would run ok in a zenith system; (2) mixing MFM drives and RLL
controllers is doable -- lots of people do it; but (3) it's risky
viv a vis reliability, because you're pushing MFM technology at/past its
limits.
Given all this, I checkened out. I purchased a Seagate ST277 R, a
65-meg RLL drive and installed it. Had some trouble getting it running,
mainly bacause of cabling. I have a "twisted" cable. With an MFM
setup, it worked ok on the interior connection on the cable. That same
setup under RLL produced read errors, 1701 errors, and debug Completion
Code 80s. A call to the Western Digital tech folks (I have a WD1004-27X
controller) got me the instant advice to cable to the END connector, not the
interior one. I made the change, and everything works fine now. The Zenith
ROM routine to autoboot from the hard drive seems disabled. The system
queries the A drive for a disk before going to C. This is the only
problem I find with my setup.
Thanks to all for advice!
Bob M., PSU-Harrisburg.