[comp.unix.amiga] SCSI devices

rhealey@digibd.com (Rob Healey) (05/15/91)

	Has anybody attempted to put a SCSI tape device like an exebyte(tm)
	or DAT on Amix? Did it work? Did it fail? Did sparks fly out
	of the boxes?

	How about CDROM's and maybe R/W optical a la NeXT? Is the SCSI
	driver flexible enough to take arbitrary disks, tapes and misc.
	SCSI toys?

	How about a fancy, front end config/format utility for disks
	and tapes to make it easy for people to add generic SCSI
	devices? Well, maybe that's too extreme... Maybe some good
	technical docs on the SCSI driver and the ioctl's I could tickle
	it with? The maybe some docs on these other mysterious devices
	in /dev like noise, cage, amiga, tiga? etc. /dev/cage huh, is this
	where the mouse is kept till X or some other app needs it? B^).

	As a tangent, can I kill off menud safely? It appears that all it does
	is print out a warning message to a VT when you log out so neophytes
	know what is going on. I'd like to get rid of it so I have blank
	VT's I can switch to that will "fake" a screenblanker...

		-Rob
-- 

Rob Healey                                          rhealey@digibd.com
Digi International (DigiBoard)
Eden Prairie, MN                                    (612) 943-9020

doug@timelord.uucp (Doug Whitehead x4149) (05/16/91)

Just my 2 cents... I think the CD-ROM drive would be
a great way to distribute Commodore Unix (Comix?).
All those man pages and infrequently used pd utilities
can stay out on the CD-ROM drive, where they are slow
but accessable.  The critical stuff should be copied
onto your Hard disk for speed.  Such an arrangement
might make Unix reasonable on a 100Meg HD.  It would
also make unix updates cheap for Commodore.

to make this work you would probably need some sort
of convienent administration program; that would allow
you to specify which directories are not to be on HD.

One disadvantage of the CD-ROM: folks would not be 
able to backup their work (as you can with a tape drive).

doug
doug@ctc.contel.com

robbar@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Baruch robert) (05/16/91)

In article <1991May15.160756.24825@digibd.com> rhealey@digibd.com (Rob Healey) writes:
>
>	Has anybody attempted to put a SCSI tape device like an exebyte(tm)
>	or DAT on Amix? Did it work? Did it fail? Did sparks fly out
>	of the boxes?

I've added a WangTec 150MB SCSI drive no problems what so ever.
The only dilema I'm facing is where to find an external drive
casing to house 2 full-height drives.

Any suggestions?

ag@amix.commodore.com (Keith Gabryelski) (05/17/91)

In article <1991May15.160756.24825@digibd.com> rhealey@digibd.com (Rob Healey)
writes:
>	Has anybody attempted to put a SCSI tape device like an exebyte(tm)
>	or DAT on Amix? Did it work? Did it fail? Did sparks fly out
>	of the boxes?

I as I recall the Exebyte has been tested and works on Amiga Unix.  I
am not sure about DAT.

>	How about a fancy, front end config/format utility for disks
>	and tapes to make it easy for people to add generic SCSI
>	devices? Well, maybe that's too extreme... Maybe some good
>	technical docs on the SCSI driver and the ioctl's I could tickle
>	it with?

>	The maybe some docs on these other mysterious devices
>	in /dev like noise, cage, amiga, tiga? etc. /dev/cage huh, is this
>	where the mouse is kept till X or some other app needs it? B^).

/dev/noise, if openned, will cause the kernel to redirect kernel
printfs to it instead of /dev/console.

/dev/cage used by the floppy driver for interrupts.

You can mmap /dev/amiga to get at the amiga's custom chips.

/dev/tiga? is used for the U of Lowell tiga board.

/dev/scsi can be used to access the scsi bus.

>	As a tangent, can I kill off menud safely? It appears that all it does
>	is print out a warning message to a VT when you log out so neophytes
>	know what is going on. I'd like to get rid of it so I have blank
>	VT's I can switch to that will "fake" a screenblanker...

Do it.  A much more acceptable menud will be release in 2.0.  Maybe
a screen blanker will appear. also.

Pax, Keith
-- 
Keith Gabryelski                                 Advanced Products Group
ag@amix.commodore.com                                 ...!cbmvax!amix!ag

ag@amix.commodore.com (Keith Gabryelski) (05/17/91)

In article <1991May16.134338.5725@europa.asd.contel.com> doug@timelord.UUCP
(Doug Whitehead) writes:
>Just my 2 cents... I think the CD-ROM drive would be
>a great way to distribute Commodore Unix (Comix?).

Amiga Unix.  Sometimes Amix or just Unix but never anything resembling
`Comix'.  :-)

>All those man pages and infrequently used pd utilities
>can stay out on the CD-ROM drive, where they are slow
>but accessable.  The critical stuff should be copied
>onto your Hard disk for speed.  Such an arrangement
>might make Unix reasonable on a 100Meg HD.  It would
>also make unix updates cheap for Commodore.

2.0 has a package routine that breaks Unix up into bite size
pieces.  The core distributions is somewhere around 30 meg.

Aren't CD-ROMS somewhere around the price of a cartridge tape?
QIC-60 is also the ABI choice.

CD-ROMS are useful, though, and we will probably support them in a
future release.

Pax, Keith



-- 
Keith Gabryelski                                 Advanced Products Group
ag@amix.commodore.com                                 ...!cbmvax!amix!ag

amiga@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Paul) (05/18/91)

CD-ROMs cost about 10,000 for the master and about .19 cents for each copy.


-- 
ACK!!!!
	-Bill the Cat

Amiga@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu	            .....Paul......