hillman@ucs.sfu.ca (Steve Hillman) (12/04/90)
Does anyone know if Future Domain is on the Net? I'd like to send them a letter. I just purchased a FD TMC-885 and received a dismal amount of documntation and software with it. I'd expect this from a Taiwanese Clone manufacturer, but not from a company with a fairly decent reputation. -- Steve "Skillman" Hillman "Everyone generalizes" hillman@whistler.sfu.ca USERSMAN@mtsg.sfu.ca
angelini@apollo.HP.COM (Bob Angelini) (12/05/90)
>Does anyone know if Future Domain is on the Net? I'd like to send them a >letter. I just purchased a FD TMC-885 and received a dismal amount of >documntation and software with it. I'd expect this from a Taiwanese >Clone manufacturer, but not from a company with a fairly decent reputation. >Steve "Skillman" Hillman "Everyone generalizes" Steve, I think what you have, IS actually a "Taiwanese Clone". FD sells the 885 chip and BIOS set to OEMs who build up a SCSI board. Many mailorder houses are selling these clones as Future Domain boards. The software and docs that FD supplies with their board is quite a hefty package all bound in a three ring binder. Bob Angelini
stevel@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Steve Ligett) (12/06/90)
>>Steve "Skillman" Hillman asked: >>Does anyone know if Future Domain is on the Net? I'd like to send them a >>letter. I just purchased a FD TMC-885 and received a dismal amount of >>documntation and software with it. >Bob Angelini replied: >... The software and docs that FD supplies >with their board is quite a hefty package all bound in a three ring binder. I believe that you can buy the board for lots of money with software and lots of docs, or for relatively little money, you get the board bare. The part number for the whole mess is tmc-885dnk, and the bare board is just tmc-885. I bought mine (bare) from an authorized Future Domian distributor. I, too, was disappointed. I was also disappointed that I couldn't run 4 floppies using stanard PC-DOS drivers. I might replace the tmc-885 with an Adaptec aha-1522. It was easy to use, though. I just cabled up a Fujitsu SCSI hard drive, and used standard PC-DOS commands to partition and format it. (Or, I've completely forgotten that I had to use magic to get it going...) -- steve.ligett@dartmouth.edu or ...!dartvax!steve.ligett
tim@gumby.cs.caltech.edu (Timothy L. Kay) (12/13/90)
angelini@apollo.HP.COM (Bob Angelini) writes: >>Does anyone know if Future Domain is on the Net? I'd like to send them a >>letter. I just purchased a FD TMC-885 and received a dismal amount of >>documntation and software with it. I'd expect this from a Taiwanese >>Clone manufacturer, but not from a company with a fairly decent reputation. >>Steve "Skillman" Hillman "Everyone generalizes" >Steve, >I think what you have, IS actually a "Taiwanese Clone". FD sells the 885 chip >and BIOS set to OEMs who build up a SCSI board. Many mailorder houses are >selling these clones as Future Domain boards. The software and docs that FD supplies >with their board is quite a hefty package all bound in a three ring binder. >Bob Angelini It seems that Steve bought the bare card from Future Domain. He didn't get any documentation. You don't get any documentation when you buy a raw Western Digital disk controller either, for example. Future Domain is a large OEM supplier of SCSI cards for PC's (as well as SCSI chips). It doesn't make sense for Future Domain to include a lot of documentation with each of their cards because nobody would read it 99% of the time. If you buy the raw drive, then you might also want to buy the technical manual which costs $25 and is complete but skimpy. What Bob is familiar with is their kit that includes not only the raw card, but also their MS-DOS software package. This also costs more money than just the raw card, and I wouldn't recommend it unless you are using MS-DOS and have the need to write to a SCSI tape.