warner@scubed.com (Ken Warner) (09/21/90)
In article <9484@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> whelan@huey.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jerry Whelan) writes: > How many drive bays are there in a slab? Can I add an additional >3.5" hard drive? > And what if I crash my hard disk? Is it possible to boot from >floppy? I heard someone mention that the system is available on ...and can third party hard drives be added? And are they SCSI? And what about more memory--where can you get it and how much will it cost? Ken Warner
cz@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Christopher R Zach) (09/22/90)
In article <428@scubed.SCUBED.COM> warner@scubed.com (Ken Warner) writes: >In article <9484@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> whelan@huey.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jerry Whelan) writes: >> How many drive bays are there in a slab? Can I add an additional >>3.5" hard drive? One 3.5 inch bay of a sort. You can put a drive on the outside, if the drive is a SCSI OR SCSI2 drive. Of course, you would need a seperate case and ps.. >> And what if I crash my hard disk? Is it possible to boot from >>floppy? I heard someone mention that the system is available on This is a good question. I always worry about killing valuable stuff, and backing up a 330+ mg drive to floppies is not my idea of fun :-). Chris
asd@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth) (09/22/90)
In <428@scubed.SCUBED.COM> warner@scubed.com (Ken Warner) writes: >In article <9484@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> whelan@huey.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jerry Whelan) writes: >> How many drive bays are there in a slab? Can I add an additional >>3.5" hard drive? >> And what if I crash my hard disk? Is it possible to boot from >>floppy? I heard someone mention that the system is available on >...and can third party hard drives be added? And are they SCSI? And what >about more memory--where can you get it and how much will it cost? (I just love having the brochure/tech specs right in front of me) 1) There is one floppy drive bay located on the side like Sun Sparcstations. There is one hard drive 'bay'. You have your choice of 105/340 Meg drive. I'd get the 340 if I were you. You might be able to rig up a second harddrive where the floppy drive is, but there isn't any room elsewhere. 2) You can add additional drives up the wazoo (well, maybe not that many) thru the SCSI port. Both floppy, and harddrives are available that you can plug into the SCSI port. 3) Boot from floppy? hahahaha! No offense, but it'd probably take you longer for you to boot from a floppy, than it would take you to go find another hard drive and install it! And the disk swapping!!!! Don't even consider it! Not unless you are a glutton for punishment. 4) The only way you can add third-party hard drives is thru the SCSI port. And, yes, there are lots of third-party SCSI drives! Go look in a Mac magazine, you can get great prices on em. The ones in the NeXT are Quantum drives, if the picture of the internals of the slab are accurate. There are maybe 'other' ways to add drives, but why would you want to do it any other way? Except maybe as a network. 5) Memory: There was a post from a guy in misc.forsale.computers saying that he'd seen 1 Meg 80ns SIMMs for < $50. 4 Meg SIMMs I'd imagine are at least 4 times that (~200). Again, look in any Mac magazine, and go buy there! If you buy from NeXT, be prepared to pay the price. Any of the Mac magazines (MacWorld is good) will have a LOT of companies selling stuff at great prices. Check em out. The price is almost assuredly going to be a LOT better. -Cubite (wanna be) K
gooley@aquinas.csl.uiuc.edu (Mark. Gooley) (09/22/90)
What kind of SIMMs does a new NeXT take, anyway? Mac SIMMs (8-bit)? IBM- clone SIMMs (9-bit)? Some godawful obscure SIMMs that are available only from the company (unless you want to cobble up your own from the available varieties? 1M or 4M or what? Mark., lusting after a fast Unix machine of his very own gooley@rhea.csl.uiuc.edu
smithw@hamblin.math.byu.edu (William V. Smith) (09/22/90)
warner@scubed.com (Ken Warner) writes: >drives. . .memory You can add several external drives through the SCSI2 port. These may be third party drives, essentially anything that works on the Macintosh will work here with the right cable. We have been putting WREN VI drives in our cubes, and these will work in the new or upgraded cubes too. They can also be plugged into the NeXTstations (but not inside- they won't fit). As far as memory goes, there are two options: Parity or non parity simms depending on whether you order the parity option or not. In any case, the simms you would use in a Mac II will work in the new NeXT's provided they are 100ns or faster. You can get these from any of the usual sources, such as chip merchant. Look in the purdue archives for "simms" for a recent list of sources and prices. The low on educational prices is about $43.00 for 1 meg non-parity simms and about $230.00 for 4 meg non-parity simms as of this week. Either will work provided they are 100ns or faster. You must install simms in size groups of 4 on the main board of the any NeXT. So its no good buying one or two 4 meg simms. You need 4. The NeXTstations have 8 slots for main memory, and on the color version you need 12 meg to get decent performance. The NeXTcubes have 16 slots for main memory. The NeXTdimension board has 8 slots for its own memory. You can't get one til next year though. The video memory is another story I won't go into here. In any case, NeXT charges about three times the market price for its simms and drives, so depending on your organizations requirements, its much cheaper to buy these items third-party and install them yourself. If you buy 4 meg simms for a cube, its a bit of a hassle to get them to work because most of them are tall for the space available. Best thing to do is specify the Toshiba 4 meg simms with the vertically mounted chips. These fit just fine and are only a little taller than the 1 meg simms. I believe the somewhat taller (still called "low profile") 4 meg simms (horizontally mounted chips) work fine in the NeXTstations. As I said, putting these taller 4 meg simms in the NeXTcubes is a bit of a hassel with several ways to go. The easiest method is to just slide the system board and drive cases into the cube at the same time-replacing the front hard drive mount screw with a flat head instead of a round head screw. I have 40 meg in my cube doing it this way. If you want 64 meg, its best to use the Toshiba's. That enough??? -Bill-
asd@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Kareth) (09/22/90)
In <1990Sep21.193734.19067@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> gooley@aquinas.csl.uiuc.edu (Mark. Gooley) writes: >What kind of SIMMs does a new NeXT take, anyway? Mac SIMMs (8-bit)? IBM- >clone SIMMs (9-bit)? Some godawful obscure SIMMs that are available only >from the company (unless you want to cobble up your own from the available >varieties? 1M or 4M or what? The NeXTstation uses SRAM SIMMs, the NeXTcube uses DRAM SIMMs. Both are for 8-bit types, although an earlier poster said that parity (9bit) type could be used/supported or something. S = Static, D = Dynamic? Not really sure, but that's what the specs I have say. >Mark., lusting after a fast Unix machine of his very own Ditto! -k
rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) (09/29/90)
In article <1990Sep21.193734.19067@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> gooley%aquinas@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (Mark. Gooley) writes: >What kind of SIMMs does a new NeXT take, anyway? Mac SIMMs (8-bit)? IBM- >clone SIMMs (9-bit)? Some godawful obscure SIMMs that are available only >from the company (unless you want to cobble up your own from the available >varieties? 1M or 4M or what? You can use either 9 or 8 bit SIMMs with the NeXT, however not intermixed. If you use 9 bits you should be able to have parity check running on your system. The advantage you have with parity check is that you know when your data has been corrupted in computer memory. The access time should be as far as I know 100ns or faster. I'd recommend to buy 80ns or faster chips, so chances are you can use them for a while. The price difference is small anyway. Ronald ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." Bernhard Shaw | rca@cs.brown.edu or antony@browncog.bitnet