asong@pro-nbs.cts.com (Andi Song) (06/15/91)
I am thinking of getting a hard drive. Right now, I am considering
buying a TMS Pro 52LPS along with a RamFast/SCSI card. To me, that is the
best performance/price ratio. I have heard plenty good about the drive and
the SCSI card.
Is the RAMFAST/SCSI worth the extra 80 bucks to buy?
Is the TMS a good drive (and a good company?)?
Thanks for advice.
Andi
----
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ARPA: crash!pro-nbs!asong@nosc.milstug@pro-palmtree.cts.com (Stu Graves) (06/17/91)
In-Reply-To: message from asong@pro-nbs.cts.com
I think that the RamFast is probably worth the additional money. I have
seen one working and it is a good deal faster. I have the standard Apple
SCSI card which is still fast. If you want a noticeable speed improvement
then get the RamFast.
--
stug@pro-palmtree.cts.com
-- The Palmtree BBS (213) 450-9394 300-9600 v.32/42bis, MNP 1-5 --
Santa Monica, Californiageorged@pro-harvest.cts.com (George Dybowski) (06/22/91)
In-Reply-To: message from asong@pro-nbs.cts.com I had the Apple High Speed SCSI card and sold it and purchased the Ramfast card. The Rmafast is worth the extra money. With the Ramfast you get faster speed, more partitioning, and GEOS compatability. GEOS does not work with the Apple SCSI card, I verified this with my own experience and from Berkeley Software. GEOS works fine with the Ramfast card.
gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) (06/23/91)
In article <1991Jun22.033627.21891@crash.cts.com> georged@pro-harvest.cts.com (George Dybowski) writes: >I had the Apple High Speed SCSI card and sold it and purchased the Ramfast >card. The Rmafast is worth the extra money. With the Ramfast you get >faster speed, more partitioning, and GEOS compatability. GEOS does not >work with the Apple SCSI card, I verified this with my own experience and >from Berkeley Software. GEOS works fine with the Ramfast card. I've seen this or a similar message about four times now. Once would have been plenty. While a GEOS user may care about this information, in fact it has no bearing on which DMA SCSI card is better. There is no legitimate implementation for GEOS that should cause it to fail with Apple's High-Speed SCSI Card. If it really does fail, that is a serious bug in GEOS which rightfully ought to be fixed by the publisher of GEOS. A fair comparison of Apple High-Speed SCSI Card vs. RamFast SCSI Card: 1. Apple's is less expensive. 2. RamFast's on-board caching provides faster effective throughput for ProDOS-8 applications; its effect on GS/OS performance is not so drastic. 3. Apple's card supports I/O request chaining, which is a big win for certain special applications (witness the Star Wars movie demo). 4. RamFast originally did not support SCSI devices such as CD-ROM and scanners, although by now its firmware has probably been revised to do so. Apple's card carefully conformed to the full SCSI spec. 5. Drivers are available for use of Apple's card with CD-ROM and SCSI. In general, GS/OS releases will certainly support Apple's card, but may not fully support RamFast, and Cirtech may be a while in getting new drivers released for use with new GS/OS releases. 6. Apple's card automatically disables DMA when accessing the "top" 4MB of the 8MB RAM space, which means that one can utilize 8MB AND DMA SCSI I/O at the same time with Apple's card. Generally, I would say that RamFast is preferable if one primarily uses ProDOS-8, and Apple's High-Speed SCSI Card is preferable if one primarily uses GS/OS. Special circumstances could modify that basic assessment.
jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jawaid Bazyar) (06/23/91)
gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes: >A fair comparison of Apple High-Speed SCSI Card vs. RamFast SCSI Card: >1. Apple's is less expensive. >2. RamFast's on-board caching provides faster effective throughput for >ProDOS-8 applications; its effect on GS/OS performance is not so drastic. >3. Apple's card supports I/O request chaining, which is a big win for >certain special applications (witness the Star Wars movie demo). >4. RamFast originally did not support SCSI devices such as CD-ROM and >scanners, although by now its firmware has probably been revised to do >so. Apple's card carefully conformed to the full SCSI spec. RAMFast Rom 2.0 has been out for a couple months now. It supports many types of CD-ROM, tape drives. It has built into the ROM tape backup software which operates in the background- meaning you don't have to sit around for an hour while it backs up. >5. Drivers are available for use of Apple's card with CD-ROM and SCSI. >In general, GS/OS releases will certainly support Apple's card, but may >not fully support RamFast, and Cirtech may be a while in getting new >drivers released for use with new GS/OS releases. >6. Apple's card automatically disables DMA when accessing the "top" >4MB of the 8MB RAM space, which means that one can utilize 8MB AND DMA >SCSI I/O at the same time with Apple's card. (#6 is trivial to implement- I should ask if they've done it). What does this do in a ROM 03? Since the ROM 03 has 5.125 meg of DMA compatible memory, I mean? 7. The RAMfast has a built-in configuration program, which appears automatically whenever the card is moved or new devices are added to the SCSI chain. >Generally, I would say that RamFast is preferable if one primarily uses >ProDOS-8, and Apple's High-Speed SCSI Card is preferable if one primarily >uses GS/OS. Special circumstances could modify that basic assessment. I'd disagree. The cards aren't all that different, and the performance difference isn't so clear-cut (ProDOS 8 performance is TREMENDOUS with the RAMfast). -- Jawaid Bazyar | "Twenty seven faces- with their eyes turned to Graduated!/Comp Engineering | the sky. I have got a camera, and an airtight bazyar@cs.uiuc.edu | alibi.." Apple II Forever! | I need a job... Be privileged to pay me! :-)
philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough) (06/23/91)
In article <1991Jun23.031308.26419@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jawaid Bazyar) writes:
[message re Ramfast and Apple High Speed SCSI cards]
Does anyone know if the "new" IBM 3.5" read/write optical( which contains
128megs/cartridge and has a reasonable access time and good throughput, and
is priced very agressively) is supported by either of these cards?
Philip McDunnough
University of Toronto
philip@utstat.utoronto.ca
Note: The IBM "removable" is a SCSI drive.shrinkit@Apple.COM (Andrew Nicholas) (06/23/91)
In article <1991Jun23.052502.14425@utstat.uucp> philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough) writes: >Does anyone know if the "new" IBM 3.5" read/write optical( which contains >128megs/cartridge and has a reasonable access time and good throughput, and >is priced very agressively) is supported by either of these cards? > >Note: The IBM "removable" is a SCSI drive. If it's SCSI, then it will probably work with the Apple DMA SCSI card. Apple followed the ANSI SCSI specification very closely, and as long as IBM's drive comes reasonably close to the SCSI spec, I don't see why it wouldn't work. No, I haven't seen/used one, and yes this is just conjecture. If someone actually has one of the new IBM opticals, try it out and see. andy -- Andy Nicholas GEnie & America-Online: shrinkit Apple IIGS System Software CompuServe: 70771,2615 Apple Computer, Inc. InterNET: shrinkit@apple.com
unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User) (06/24/91)
In article <1991Jun23.052502.14425@utstat.uucp> philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough) writes: >In article <1991Jun23.031308.26419@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Jawaid Bazyar) writes: >Does anyone know if the "new" IBM 3.5" read/write optical( which contains >128megs/cartridge and has a reasonable access time and good throughput, and >is priced very agressively) is supported by either of these cards? >Note: The IBM "removable" is a SCSI drive. AAAARGH.. It's SCSI... so it should work.. There seem to be very very very very rare exceptions, but just like ADB means it'll work on the GS and Mac, SCSI means it'll work on any computer with a SCSI card/port. by the way, what is "aggresive" pricing? < $1000? (yeah right!) How fast is it? How many times can you read/write it? (I believe many of the current r/w opticals have some limit) I'm still interested in trying one of these 20 or 40 meg floptical drives.. they're reasonably fast, the media's cheap, and the media looks like regular 3.5" floppies, not the big Syquest cartridges. -- /unknown@ucscb.ucsc.edu Apple IIGS Forever! unknown@cats.ucsc.edu\ |WANT to help get ULTIMA VI //e or GS written?-mail me. CHEAP CD info-mail me.| \ It's a Late Night World.... Of Love /
philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough) (06/24/91)
In article <17353@darkstar.ucsc.edu> unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User) writes:
[Questions re the IBM removable and a statement worrying about the number of
read/writes]
First as to your worries re the number of read writes, I believe you have
nothing to worry about. My NeXT optical, which uses a similar technology,
has no problems in that area. As to access time and SCSI specs, here they
are:
Average seek time=66ms, Average latency=16.7ms, Disk transfer rate=4.35Mbs,
Synchronous data transfer rate= 4.0MB/sec, Asynchronous rate is 1.2MB/sec.
SCSI interface adheres to the ANSI X3.131-1986 SCSI standard.
As for the flopticals, they are still unavailable. This one can be ordered.
Education prices vary but are below $1000US. The unit also plays 3.5"
CD-ROM's.
Philip McDunnough
University of Toronto
philip@utstat.utoronto.caasong@pro-nbs.cts.com (Andi Song) (06/26/91)
In-Reply-To: message from unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU
I want to buy a hard drive for my IIgs, but have had no experience
with IIgs hard-driving. I have seen the Macintosh hard drives and have
worked with those, but here is my question.
On the Macintosh, I guess the computer's ROM tells it to boot into
the hard drive first, right? So when you cold boot it, the CPU actually
waits for the hard drive to warm up, then it boots it.
For the IIgs, you specify which slot you want to boot first. If you
set it to scan, (assuming your hard drive card is in slot 7) then it will
look for a startup routine in slots 7,6,5, respectively. But this is
instantaneous the moment you turn on your computer. So if your hard drive
doesn't have time to warm up first, then will the RamFAST or Apple DMA SCSI
just skip to slot 6, then 5? And so you will have to wait and then hit
OA-CTRL-RESET again after everytime you cold-boot?
How do you IIgs hard-drivers do it? Is there a way to instruct the
CPU to wait for the hard drive to warm up and come on-line (maybe a few
seconds pause), THEN look in the other slots? How can you make the hard
drive boot up first if your hard drive is a bit slow getting out of bed?
Thanks
Andi
----
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ARPA: crash!pro-nbs!asong@nosc.milPYC121@URIACC.URI.EDU (Andy Kress) (06/26/91)
On Tue, 25 Jun 1991 13:13:18 PDT Andi Song said: >In-Reply-To: message from unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU stuff deleted... > For the IIgs, you specify which slot you want to boot first. If you >set it to scan, (assuming your hard drive card is in slot 7) then it will >look for a startup routine in slots 7,6,5, respectively. But this is >instantaneous the moment you turn on your computer. So if your hard drive >doesn't have time to warm up first, then will the RamFAST or Apple DMA SCSI >just skip to slot 6, then 5? And so you will have to wait and then hit >OA-CTRL-RESET again after everytime you cold-boot? > On my Sider, the computer waits for the drive to get up to speed. I was wondering if this happens on other drives too? +--------------+-------------------------+----------------------------+ | Andy Kress | Univ. of Rhode Island | PYC121 AT URIACC.URI.EDU | +--------------+--------+----------------+----------------------------+ | No, it's not a Mac. | Apple II: The power to rule the world!!! | +-----------------------+---------------------------------------------+
curtis@achilles.ctd.anl.gov (Jeffrey Curtis ) (06/26/91)
In article <4774.apple.a2.net@pro-nbs> asong@pro-nbs.cts.com (Andi Song) writes: >In-Reply-To: message from unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU > How do you IIgs hard-drivers do it? Is there a way to instruct the >CPU to wait for the hard drive to warm up and come on-line (maybe a few >seconds pause), THEN look in the other slots? How can you make the hard >drive boot up first if your hard drive is a bit slow getting out of bed? I don't have a GS or a hard drive, but I can think of a couple of ways to do this: first, there was an article in inCider a little while back regarding setting up a delay to do it - though I seem to recall it working only on one HD - there was some switch you could set for the delay. Another way would be to leave a disk in the first non-HD drive in the chain which would have in track 0 sector 0 a small routine to pause for X seconds and then reboot the system - that way, if the HD isn't ready on boot, it will hit that disk, pause, then reboot to the hard drive. I can write you a small routine to do this if no one else offers a better alternative (which there must be outside of leaving a disk in the drive all the time).. *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+* + Jeffrey S. Curtis (708)972-8585 B41801 AT ANLVM curtis@achilles.ctd.anl.gov + * Computing and Telecommunications, Argonne National Laboratory * + Want a free copy of Heatseeker, the Apple's fastest disk utility? Mail me! + *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
JWANKERL@UTCVM.BITNET ("Josef W. Wankerl") (06/26/91)
On Tue, 25 Jun 1991 13:13:18 PDT Andi Song said: > I want to buy a hard drive for my IIgs, but have had no experience >with IIgs hard-driving. I have seen the Macintosh hard drives and have >worked with those, but here is my question. > >...So if your hard drive >doesn't have time to warm up first, then will the RamFAST or Apple DMA SCSI >just skip to slot 6, then 5? And so you will have to wait and then hit >OA-CTRL-RESET again after everytime you cold-boot? With the Apple DMA card, I believe you have to power up all your SCSI devices first before your turn on your IIGS. The RamFAST/SCSI card, however, lets you turn your IIGS on and it will wait for your drives to come up to speed. The RamFAST does a bunch of other neat stuff too, but I am just giving a simple answer. :-) >Andi >---- >ProLine: asong@pro-nbs >Internet: asong@pro-nbs.cts.com >UUCP: crash!pro-nbs!asong >ARPA: crash!pro-nbs!asong@nosc.mil -- ===> Josef W. Wankerl, Technical Editor for GS+ Magazine BITNET: JWANKERL@UTCVM.BITNET | America Online: JWankerl ProLine: jwankerl@pro-gsplus |-------------------------------- Internet: jwankerl@pro-gsplus.cts.com | "I am a Viking" -Y. Malmsteen
gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) (06/27/91)
In article <4774.apple.a2.net@pro-nbs> asong@pro-nbs.cts.com (Andi Song) writes: > How do you IIgs hard-drivers do it? Is there a way to instruct the >CPU to wait for the hard drive to warm up and come on-line (maybe a few >seconds pause), THEN look in the other slots? How can you make the hard >drive boot up first if your hard drive is a bit slow getting out of bed? I use a Conserver, with my disks on one switch and the CPU on another. I turn on the disks first, and when they are ready, I turn on the CPU. Works every time.
lucifer@world.std.com (Kevin S Green) (06/27/91)
In article <4774.apple.a2.net@pro-nbs> asong@pro-nbs.cts.com (Andi Song) writes: [...] | How do you IIgs hard-drivers do it? Is there a way to instruct the |CPU to wait for the hard drive to warm up and come on-line (maybe a few |seconds pause), THEN look in the other slots? How can you make the hard |drive boot up first if your hard drive is a bit slow getting out of bed? Quote from pg 59, "Apple II High-Speed SCSI Card Owner's Guide": "The Apple II High-Speed SCSI card comes with the SCSI ID number preset to 7. And for almost all uses, this is the best ID number to use for the computer. However, there may be occassions when you need to reset the computer's SCSI ID number. For instance, when you attach an Apple LaserWriter IIsc or an Apple Scanner by itself to your computer, you need to reset the computer's ID number to 2. This provides a delay of three seconds in the startup process - a delay needed by these devices so they can be ready to respond to the computer when it scans for available devices on the SCSI chain." This is exactly what I have done, but for my MicroNet MP100 HD. The Apple SCSI card is in slot 6 and the Control Panel is set to boot into slot 6. The drive has enough time to come up to speed and then the boot process begins. As for scanning, the computer is scanning for the first available disk that has a usable operating system on it. This is true for both the Mac & Apple //. {I know because my Mac at work has to wait until the HD comes up to speed.} -- Kevin S. Green / lucifer@world.std.com / {xylogics;uunet}!world!lucifer
drudman@hpcc01.HP.COM (Drew Rudman) (06/27/91)
> On my Sider, the computer waits for the drive to get up to speed. I was > wondering if this happens on other drives too? > | Andy Kress | Univ. of Rhode Island | PYC121 AT URIACC.URI.EDU | My CMS 60 meg locks up if I do not give the drive ample time to start-up. I use the CMS SCSI card (that I had to replace 3 times.) I get around the problem by forcing a boot to slot 6 where I have a boot diskette that will allow me to boot into the Hard Drive, 3.5" drive, start up my BBS, or exit to basic. If no menu option is selected, the menu times out in about 10 seconds and boots the hard drive. This is usually enough time for the drive motor to get spinning. [ Call... 9600bps/60meg ][ Drew Rudman ] [ The Charge ][ ] [ Apple ][ IBM ][ Internet: drudman@hpiosa.corp.hp.com ] [ (415) 321-4713 ][ The Charge BBS: Axe Slinger (#1) ]
slhood@bluemoon.uucp (Stephen L. Hood) (06/27/91)
gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes: > In article <4774.apple.a2.net@pro-nbs> asong@pro-nbs.cts.com (Andi Song) writ > > How do you IIgs hard-drivers do it? Is there a way to instruct the > >CPU to wait for the hard drive to warm up and come on-line (maybe a few > >seconds pause), THEN look in the other slots? How can you make the hard > >drive boot up first if your hard drive is a bit slow getting out of bed? > > I use a Conserver, with my disks on one switch and the CPU on another. > I turn on the disks first, and when they are ready, I turn on the CPU. > Works every time. There is a program called SmartBoot out there somewhere that will do the trick. SmartBoot (usually packaged with the RAM-drive utility First Start) replaces the PRODOS file on a P8 floppy. You boot the floppy, and SmartBoot waits for your hard drive to spin up, and then reboots. It features many handy options, from a timer to ejection of the floppy (if it's a 3.5, naturally!). However, the two copies I have managed to get have been incompatible with my hard drive. I use an InnerDrive, and I believe that SmartBoot makes some SCSI-specific calls. The firmware on my InnerDrive originally compensated for the hard drive's spin up time, but when I replaced the firmware with the InnerExpress accellerator, I lost said feature. What I have done to fix this problem is mearly to boot off ProDOS 8 3.5" disk and run a short BASIC program that just does a "PR#7". By the time that ProDOS 8, BASIC.SYSTEM, and the program are loaded, my hard drive has finished spinning up! It works out rather well. I expect that some hard drives might take longer than this, but fixing that would be just a matter of using the good old for/next loop to delay the computer... Hope this helps... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Hood "WARNING: MOS circuits are subject to damage from static discharge!" Internet: slhood@bluemoon.uucp UUCP : ...osu-cis!n8emr!bluemoon!slhood
steve@pro-hindugods.cts.com (Steve Fenwick) (06/28/91)
In-Reply-To: message from asong@pro-nbs.cts.com asong@pro-nbs.cts.com (Andi Song) writes: > How do you IIgs hard-drivers do it? Is there a way to instruct the > CPU to wait for the hard drive to warm up and come on-line (maybe a few > seconds pause), THEN look in the other slots? How can you make the hard > drive boot up first if your hard drive is a bit slow getting out of bed? I have a Vulcan Hard drive which turns on right when you switch the computer on ('cause it's internal) and boots immediately (maybe a 1 sec. wait). I'm almost positive that with external drives you have to turn the drive on about 10 seconds before the computer, or else the computer will get temporarily messed up. Right now, I wouldn't advise you to buy the Vulcan. It's a great hard drive and everything, but compared to the prices and the capacity of the new SCSI drives, the Vulcan doesn't quite make it. You pay $650 (street prices here) for a 40 meg vulcan, When you can get a 52 meg Pro LPS series drive for $379 plus $169 for RamFast. First of all, the Pro Drive with the RamFast would beat the Vulcan anytime, and it's even about $100 cheaper than the Vulcan (you could even get the Pro cheaper from a place other that direct from TMS peripherals. Is this any help?? _________________ / Steve \__________________________________________________________ | N | | 1. ProLine: Steve@pro-hindugods 8 | | 2. UUCP: crash!pro-hindugods!Steve O | | 3. Internet: Steve@pro-hindugods.cts.com W | | 4. ARPA: crash!pro-hindugods!Steve@nosc.mil Y | |____________________________________________________________________________/
taob@micor.ocunix.on.ca (Brian Tao) (06/29/91)
asong@pro-nbs.cts.com (Andi Song) writes: > How do you IIgs hard-drivers do it? Is there a way to instruct the > CPU to wait for the hard drive to warm up and come on-line (maybe a few > seconds pause), THEN look in the other slots? How can you make the hard > drive boot up first if your hard drive is a bit slow getting out of bed? On the RAMFast, you can configure the card to wait up to 30 seconds for the hard drive to come online. That's more than enough time for it to power up, spin up to speed and begin responding to SCSI calls (I've never used a hard drive which took longer than about 16-17 seconds). A better solution, IMHO, would be to leave your hard drive on all the time. Mine's been powered up almost constantly since I bought it last December. It might have been off for about 40 minutes total over the last 6.5 months. Unlike the Mac or the PC, the GS will boot as soon as you flick the power switch. No annoying memory checks or nagging disk icon with a '?' in it. :-)
asong@pro-nbs.cts.com (Andi Song) (06/30/91)
In-Reply-To: message from lucifer@world.std.com
I'm not really sure on all these obscure port/slot configurations.
I mean, if I get a hard drive, I would probably put the SCSI card in slot
7, right? Then it would be the first slot scanned on power-up, correct? So
it wouldn't find anything there, it wouldn't find anything in the 5.25"
drive (slot 6), it wouldn't find anything in the 3.5" drive (slot 5), and
then I assume the "Check Startup Device" would come up, right? I think
somebody said the RamFAST SCSI card would be able to wait for the hard
drive in slot 7 to spin up first?
Also, could I just put the SCSI card in slot 4 to give the drive
enough time to spool up? Or would that somehow disable the mouse?
----
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ARPA: crash!pro-nbs!asong@nosc.millucifer@world.std.com (Kevin S Green) (07/01/91)
In article <4939.apple.a2.net@pro-nbs> asong@pro-nbs.cts.com (Andi Song) writes: | I'm not really sure on all these obscure port/slot configurations. [...edited...] Andi, I can't speak on the RAMFast card because I don't own one. However, you can put the Apple SCSI card in virtually any slot (although the best ones are 5,6 & 7 since they won't affect other things like the built in text display, etc). If you set the control panel to "scan" on start-up, it keeps going around on the chain of drives until it finds one that has a valid GSOS (or ProDOS8) Startup file on it. If you don't care about your machine taking a little while longer to boot (while it is looking for a system disk) then this is the way to do it. You'll be able to put your SCSI card in any slot and the computer will scan until the harddrive has come up to speed or until another drive has a Startup program on it. If on the other hand you want to give the computer a little head start, you set the control panel to whatever slot you _know_ the Startup volume will be on (and in the case of the harddrive, the SCSI card is seated). If your harddrive is then a little slow in booting up, you can fiddle with the SCSI ids, as per my last msg, and it will give it that extra few seconds to wind up to speed. The best advice I can give you is: Buy your card based on things other than startup speed, which isn't _that_ important. More important things to consider are drive speeds,etc. Whichever card you buy, you should consult your manual carefully. I'm sure it will give you all the information you need to give you your optimum setup. -- Kevin S. Green / lucifer@world.std.com / {xylogics;uunet}!world!lucifer