neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite) (03/18/91)
With regard to the questions about SCSI cards/drives for the A3000,
the cheapest seems to be the Beebug 8 Bit card and 80Mb drive for #599
plus VAT which is round about 700 notes altogether. The next best is
I think a 85Mb drive plus card from HCCS at Newcastle for round about
#650 plus vat which is say 750 including. The only difference, apart
from 5Mb, is that the Series 2 HCCS cards are 16 Bit. I would take a look
at the Current Acorn User as the Series 1 HCCS range and a few others
are reviewed.
For the price of between 700-800 pounds for a 'decent' capacity hard
disc, I'm tempted myself to trade the 3000 in for a brand spanking new
A410/1 with 4Mb/40Mb drive which is a common 'free with your A420/1 or
A410/1 computer' deal that's on the go currently.
As a new topic of discussion, why are Arc SCSI cards (You get onee
free with the Mac Classic !) so expensive (only 4-5 chips) and why are
both STxxx and SCSI and IDE drives SO EXPENSIVE for the Arc. Similar
EXTERNAL drives for the PC are a damn sight cheaper. In the Computer
depot in Edinburgh, they have a 40Mb Mac SCSI drive on an A440/1.
A further topic. From the above, Beebug actually supply a product
which is cheap compared to other dealers, for a change. Who actually
owns BEEBUG (BEEB Users Group as it used to be). It seems to have
gone from UG to Super dealer. Who's raking all the Wonga in ?????
Your etc
Neil Postlethwaite
Heriot-Watt Univ
Edinburgh.
P.S. Despite the section in Aprils BAU (Acorn PC section), no I AM NOT
a MAC FAN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And Yes Windows 3 is SH*T, compared to RISCOS !!!!gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Dave Gilbert) (03/20/91)
I would just like to agree with the comments on the expensive prices of SCSI boards for the Arc - an SCSI controller IC as advertised in the RS catalogue is about #10.00 (pounds ) - so #100+ is just taking advantage of peoples willingness to pay! IDE drives only need a few buffers and a bit of software to interface as I understand it - so those should be relativly cheap. The worst thing is the actual price of the drives - large capacity drives could be as much as twice the prices in the PC world (have a look in the back of something like Computer Shopper - theres companies specialising in hard drives of all shapes and sizes). We had to buy an Acorn hard drive - because thats the only one that we could get maintanence on - #600 for 20Mb - that is expensive. While I'm on the subject does anyone have experience of these removable 40+Mb drives - I'm thinking about buying one. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Dave Gilbert - gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk - The MTBF of a piece of equipment - - G7FHJ@GB7NWP - is inversly proportional to its - ------------------------------------------- importance -
mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) (03/20/91)
neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite) writes: > And Yes Windows 3 is SH*T, compared to RISCOS !!!! Care to elaborate? mathew -- "These kinds of remarks are wholly inappropriate and are the mark of a bigot." -- Theodore A. Kaldis <kaldis@remus.rutgers.edu>
mybg@doc.ic.ac.uk (M Y Ben Gershon) (03/21/91)
s far as hard discs are concerned, I would reccomend trying Norwich Computer Services, and The Serial Port - both of which advertise in the usual Acorn mags. The latter in particular has their own good value 16 bit SCSI card, and about the cheapest drives around. Michael