Harvey_Taylor@mindlink.bc.ca (Harvey Taylor) (06/19/91)
In <1991Jun17.205807.13064@news.iastate.edu>, taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: |In <30189@know.pws.bull.com>, ai065@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Hill) |writes: |> |> Over the past few months I've noticed a trend in "complaint messages" from |>Amiga users. It seems that the usual style of these messages is to bash the |>Amiga for lacking certain features that other computers "now have", yet this |>logic is not always correct. Let's take a few examples here... |> |>High Density Disk Drives- How many complaints have you heard from Amiga users |>about this? The drives do exist for the Amiga (AE and Commodore's new one) There is another option. | My complaints with Commodore with respect to high-density floppy drives |have to do with the stupid way Commodore got the drives to work on Amigas |(slowing down the drive motor to allow the Paula chip to keep up? Give |me a break!), and the fact that they waited four years to do it. Yeah that's pretty klunky alright. Then in <1991Jun18.121129.28202@news.iastate.edu>, taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: | [...] | A problem with Commodore's solution is the we are locked into only |being able to use the specially modified drives produced only by Commodore. Yeah, but there are other solutions. I have the TEAC FD-235JS SCSI Floppy on my system. This gives me 2.88M & 1.44 M capacities. It works with the CrossDOS MsdosFileSystem too. At approx US$200, this drive is a viable alternative. -het PS. I wonder why nobody has stuck a generic floppy controller chip on a board and written a driver... Seems like a natural. "I do not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Harvey Taylor Meta Media Productions uunet!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!Harvey_Taylor a186@mindlink.bc.ca
easton@zds-oem.zds.com (Jeff Easton) (06/20/91)
In article <6369@mindlink.bc.ca> Harvey_Taylor@mindlink.bc.ca (Harvey Taylor) writes: [...] > Yeah, but there are other solutions. I have the TEAC FD-235JS SCSI Floppy > on my system. This gives me 2.88M & 1.44 M capacities. It works with the > CrossDOS MsdosFileSystem too. At approx US$200, this drive is a viable > alternative. > -het > > PS. > I wonder why nobody has stuck a generic floppy controller chip on a board > and written a driver... Seems like a natural. I was wondering this myself, until I realized that most generic floppy controller chips dont contain a FIFO. This could be a big problem in the Amiga. When a data transfer is started, the data streams off the floppy at a fixed rate. If the CPU isnt there to catch it, (off multitasking somewere else) data will be lost. Adding a FIFO'ed floppy controller would help because now the controller chip can buffer some of the bytes until the CPU can service it. The same problem is showing up in EISA machines, when a bus master takes over the bus for so long, the system misses data on the floppy controller. One way to solve this on the Amiga is to use a dedicated microcontroller and a dual ported RAM design, much like the Commodore 7 port serial card works. This is beyond most of the hacker type projects. > Harvey Taylor Meta Media Productions Jeff Easton Zenith Data Systems // Systems Engineer \X/ easton%zds-oem@caspian.cs.andrews.edu easton@andrews.edu What? Preemptive Multitasking in only 256K of RAM? :^) :^)
rkushner@sycom.UUCP (Ronald Kushner) (06/21/91)
Harvey_Taylor@mindlink.bc.ca (Harvey Taylor) writes: > PS. > I wonder why nobody has stuck a generic floppy controller chip on a board > and written a driver... Seems like a natural. > How about, Why didn't AE do this? Their use of a 1/2 speed drive, and sales of these drives validated their use in the minds of others that might have been looking at a more costly in the short term solution...I wasn't on the net when AE's drives came out...Did anyone attack them then? Why attack Commodore now that they are following the lead of others in their market? -- C-UseNet V0.42e Ronald Kushner Life in Hell BBS +1 (313) 939-6666 P.O. Box 353 14400 USR HST V.42 & V.42bis Sterling Heights, MI 48311-0353 Complete Amiga Support UUCP: uunet!umich!vela!sycom!rkushner (We are not satanic, just NUTS!) If Americans only cared about their Government as much as their SPORTS!!