lauren@lbl-csam@vortex.UUCP (08/29/83)
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@lbl-csam> Well, the M10 that I used to use cost me endless hassle, lost and corrupted data, and was generally a total disaster. I tried to get help from other (former) M10 users locally, but they all just laughed and told me to get another disk -- that they had given up long ago on their units after many fruitless conversations with and returns to Morrow. Morrow has gone through a number of controller designs, several of which (at least) violated reasonable TTL design specs in regards to S-100 loading and timing constraints. I was amazed that they worked at all -- ever. It appears that the main problem is that the units tended to operate near a failure threshold most of the time. If the temperature changed suddenly, or some parameter in the disk drive itself shifted slightly over time, the "marginal" design of the controller really started to show through. A local friend recently purchased a brand new Morrow M16 unit (with a more advanced controller than the older M10's had) and has finally given up on it completely -- this after already returning it once to Morrow. I might add that Morrow's driver software (at least the ones I've seen) for their hard disks are rather poorly written. Their "install" program is a joke -- especially since it has bugs and they have claimed in the past that they wouldn't let me see the source since "we lost it when the guy who wrote it left". All in all, it doesn't take too many bad experiences to learn to avoid certain companies. On the other hand, the "Konan" 5 1/4" Winchester that I'm currently using has performed flawlessly since day one, hasn't lost a single block of data, and is much smaller and less electricity consuming than the bulky M10. If your M10 is working fine, then more power to you, but all I can say is, "good luck in the long run..." --Lauren--