| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 580.1 | Good news | HYSTER::DEARBORN | Trouvez Mieux | Tue Jun 30 1987 10:00 | 10 |
| If you think the drive is fast now...wait until Workbench 1.3 comes
out. They are optimizing it for hard drives to speed them up from
4-6 times over 1.2.
What did you do, sell the Porsche and buy a Yugo for the family?
;^)
Randy
|
| 580.2 | Porsche, Hard Disk, what next? | LEDS::HAGER | Clyde Bruffee Hager | Tue Jun 30 1987 10:55 | 30 |
| > Well, I bought a 20 MB SupraDrive yesterday. I got it at the Software
> Shop in Worcester for $795. (Yes, I know Abel is cheaper, but if
> it croaks, I just return it by hand to Moe).
Congrats! I'm still going through the decision-making process, as are
many others out there I'm sure. Are you sure Moe will handle any and all
problems for you? I meant to ask him as that definitely is a factor.
I was just in there last week and almost bought that same drive!
> I haven't yet explored the utilities disk to study the backup plan,
> if there is one.
Just finished reading the hard disk review in the latest AmigaWorld last night.
Apparently, you must do your own backups and in pieces unless some third party
has a backup utility which would be real nice.
> What is realy nice is to have a huge C directory on the HD. The
> first thing the Startup-sequence does is mount the drive, then assign
> sys: dh0: and sys:c to dh0:c. This way, you can execute 99% of
> the startup-sequence from the HD,cutting boot times down to almost
> nothing.
One big drawback about this unit that the article stressed was its inability
to auto-configure. What do you think you've lost due to this, just the risk
of future incompatibility or what?
> I have not partitioned the drive into smaller drives, although there
> are utilities provided to create dh0: thru dh4:.
Another point they mentioned was the difficulty in increasing the size of a
partition should you wish to later on. Apparently you have to back-up the
entire disk, reformat it, and rebuild the partitions!
Enjoy! Clyde
|
| 580.3 | ... | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Tue Jun 30 1987 11:33 | 21 |
| re: .1
Randy, after buying a whole house, $800 is spare change. Now that
I am house poor, I might as well enjoy staying in.
Re: .2
There is a SupraMount command on the boot disk. I see no disadvantage
to using this over BindDrivers. My Starboard still auto-configures
nicely.
As far as Moe is concerned, he is a businessman tried and true.
I suspect he'll try to blow me off if I have any problems, just
like any other dealer would. But I've heard that Supra is pretty
good about turning around problem drives in a few weeks or so.
BTW, Moe's official price is $855, but I tweaked him down to $795.
He writhed in agony over the difference, but finally agreed to it.
I don't know if he'll give the same deal to anyone else. Maybe
if a bunch tried for a group buy??
|
| 580.4 | Back it up | RSTS32::HAYES | | Tue Jun 30 1987 11:51 | 8 |
| I do not know first-hand, but have heard a rumor that there is a
nice backup utility on one of the Fish disks, written by Mr. Fish
himself. Rumor has it the utility will perform incremental or
full backups of selected directories (files, too?) or the full
disk. I believe the utility is called BRU. Anybody used this
thing?
John
|
| 580.5 | Supra Update | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Sat Jul 04 1987 01:26 | 36 |
| Well, After a week of using this hard disk doo-hickey, I wonder
how I ever got along without it. This Amiga now feels like a fine
tuned race car.
Some interesting developments...
I called Supra and asked them about a backup utility; they are porting
a nice backup program from the Atari to the Amiga, no release date.
A downloaded and tried 'BRU', Fred Fishs' BackUP and Restore program.
The documentation is quite Unix-like and intimidating, but I struggled
thru it. The program warns that it is Alpha only, and you shouldn't
be using it to backup any valuable data. So without hesitation,
I tried it on all my valuable data.
The program made a valiant attempt to do something or other, then Guru
City. I noticed with horror that the red access light on the Supra had
stayed on. Great, I thought, reaching for the pile of 20 floppys that
were needed to build the disk.
I rebooted, and the Supra seemed puzzled for a few seconds. It
then proceeded to whiz and chirp, and after about two minutes, had
completely repaired itself!
By the way, I don't think the lack of Auto-Config impacts anything
that I can detect... CLImate modifies it's selector boxes to reflect
the addition of the hard disk, so the system definately knows its
there.
I wholeheartedly recommend this unit, but for now, be prepared
to wing it through the disk backups.
Ed-he's-really-broke-now-Acciardi
|
| 580.6 | Just got a SupraDrive 7/14 | VIDEO::LEIBOW | | Wed Jul 15 1987 09:57 | 24 |
| Well, My computer is up and running again. I posted earlier under
Cooked Amiga. The problem was an 8520 chip. Anyhow,
I just bought a 20MB SupraDrive. I am very concerned with the
documentation that comes with it. It has just about 1 page of useful
information. It did not say anything about:
* The Clock battery - Do I need to leave my drive on for more
then 24 hours to let it charge up the first time? Is it even a
NiCad?
* Backups - Since there are no utilities for full and incremental
backups, will diskcopy work? Is there some easy way to use one
command to get all 20MB onto floppies?
* What is the DB25 female connector on the back of the drive
for?
* How many devices can I add to the controller board (Pass through?
* How do I add the extra ram to the controller? Where can I
get it? Will it auto configure? Does it comply with the zorro
standard? (Is zorro really a standard?)
Oh well, thanks for listening to my questions. Otherwise, A real
fine piece of equipment.
Mike Leibow
|
| 580.7 | ... | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Thu Jul 16 1987 00:30 | 33 |
|
Re: .6
You must use a backup utility, or backup the disk to floppy directory
by directory. As I mentioned in a previous reply here, I tried
BRU, but had not much luck with it. I have another backup utility
called 'Backup' (clever name, huh?) that works pretty well. It
doesn't perform any compression or incremental, just does a total
image dump to floppy. I can upload it here if you like.
There is a commercial product called 'HardHat' marketed by WestCom
Industries, in LA It is advertised in Amazing Computing, vol 2
no 6, page 53. It sells for $69.95, and claims to support wildcarding,
full/incremental/datestamp/etc type backups. The phone number is
(213) 851-4868. I haven't looked into this yet. $69.95 seems a
bit steep to pay for something that should have been provided with
the drive. As i mentioned here earlier, Supra is porting their
ST program to the Amiga.
As far as adding devices to the controller, Dave Haynie and others
at CBM have recommended that no more than two devices be used together
on the expansion buss. The Amiga power supply is limited, and you
can develope timing problems with lots of add-ons on the buss.
A big discussion went on a while back about fully buffered expansion
cages versus pass-thru boards. The consensus was that the expansion
slot was actually meant to support a buffered cage with it's own
power supply, and people were taking lots of liberties with unbuffered
cards.
Why not call Supra directly with the other questions and post the
answers here. I agree that the documentation is scant. I still
don't know if the drivepowers the controller, or how many drives
can be added, etc...
|
| 580.8 | Supra Update | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Fri Jul 17 1987 17:35 | 49 |
| Curiosity got the better of me, so I called Supra with several
questions. I spoke with a very knowledgable fellow named Mark,
and gleaned the following info:
* The SCSI adaptor is powered from the drive unit, not the Amiga.
However, they do fully pass the buss, so any add-ons, such as
my StarBoard, will draw current from the Amiga power supply.
* The 1-meg ram board has been shipping for two weeks now, so dealers
should have/be getting it. The 2-meg board is about a month
away. They have done a 4-meg design using 1 MBit DRAMS, but
due to continued high prices on these chips, they are holding
off on production. They felt that the Amiga standard was heading
towards 2.5 megs total, largely due to the phenomenal popularity
of the StarBoard.
* Supra is designing an adaptor for the Amiga 500. No release
date. These guys want to sell a lot of drives to the Amiga
community. Personally, I don't think the HD market for the 500
will be enormous, but I'm usually wrong about most things. Amazing
Computing reports that CBM of West Germany has ordered 110,000
500's, and they're selling like wildfire, far surpassing early
Atari ST sales. (Their words, not mine)
* Supra has tested their HD with beta versions of Tim King's new
hard disk driver, and they're measuring throughputs of up to
200 kBytes/sec. Current throughput is 20-25 KBytes/sec on a good
day with a strong tailwind.
Final versions are expected to be even faster. Is this as
fast as the PS/2 Model 60+ or the MAC ][ NuBuss???
* The battery in the clock module is spec'ed at 5 years. This
is approximately infinity in the life of a computer.
* Damn, I forgot to ask what the 50-pin D connector on the back
was for... More proof that drugs can damage your brain cells.
Anyway, the future looks pretty bright to me. Can't wait for the
new drivers to hit the streets. I wonder if its simply a new
harddisk.device patch for 1.2 or if we have to wait for 1.3? Anyone
know fer sure? I thought that the file handler portion of AmigaDOS
(the boring shit that MetaComco did) had to be totally re-written??
|
| 580.9 | extra connector | NAC::VISSER | | Mon Jul 20 1987 13:46 | 6 |
| re: .8
I believe the 50 pin connector is an SCSI standard port; SCSI allows
daisy chaining of eight devices, that is, six more after your Amiga
adapter and first HD. SCSI Plus, from Ampro I think decodes the
eight device select lines to allow a total of sixty-four devices.
|
| 580.10 | Questions | Z::TENNY | Dave Tenny | DTN 225-6089 | Mon Jul 20 1987 16:15 | 21 |
|
Supra questions:
(1) Do the supra drives have a fan? The review in Amazing COmputing
indicated that their test model didn't have one, and became quite
hot; but that someone from Supra said that fans would soon be
available. What are people's experiences with their Supra drives?
(2) What is the phone number for supra?
(3) General question for hard disk owners,
how much space is consumed by your basic disk setup.
(Workbench stuff, a few of your favorite tools, compilers etc.)
I.E. how much space is left AFTER you install your tools,
but before you really start generating data/programs?
I'm wondering if a 30 meg drive is something to consider.
(4) Can more than one supra drive be chained to the first?
Thanks,
Dave
|
| 580.11 | | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Mon Jul 20 1987 23:15 | 38 |
| The 20 meg Supra does not have a fan. I run mine almost continuously,
and it becomes warm to the touch, but nothing like hot. Then, I
have my Amiga set up in a basement room, where the ambient never
goes above 70 degrees or so. If the ambient goes up to 85 or 90,
then you might get into trouble.
Supra's address/phone number is ...
1133 Commercial Way
Albany, OR 97321
(503) 967-9075 orders
(503) 967-908 tech support
Also, I found out that the Supra model tested by AMAZING COMPUTING
and AmigaWorld had a rev 0 harddisk driver. They are now shipping
a faster driver. The revision number is indicated on the driver
file on the boot disk.
I still like the little bugger. I've got mine about half full,
and it doesn't seem to be slowing down at all. I've got a c directory
with about 50 files, a utilities directory with a dozen more, and
entire directories for DPaint, DMusic (with over 100 instruments),
Aegis Draw, BASIC, Maxiplan/VIP and assorted files, and
telecommunications programs.
The only time I ever reboot is to play games that steal the machine.
Supra seems very helpful over the phone. I was hesitant to buy
a drive from a non-Amiga specific firm (as opposed to C. Ltd) but
I understand that Supra has shipped zillions of these drives for
the Mac and ST, so I figure they'll be around for a while yet.
Also, its the only drive that doesn't require an extra desk to rest
on. This thing is tiny, smaller than a 1010 external floppy.
All in all, very satisfied so far. If the thing starts to crash
or die, I'll let out a yell that will be heard all the way to Oregon.
|
| 580.12 | Stupid Question, but | HAZEL::MELLITZ | | Tue Jul 21 1987 09:23 | 9 |
| > The only time I ever reboot is to play games that steal the machine.
Since I don't own a hard disk, what it the procedure for running
a game or SW that steals the machine. Or may be I don't understand
exactly how a hard disk is booted. To boot from the hard disk
do you only use kickstart? OR: Do you have subsequently insert
a disk at the "insert workbench" picture? Does this disk inturn
boot the hard disk?
|
| 580.13 | | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Tue Jul 21 1987 10:47 | 51 |
| You're on the right track, but...
First, the HD must be running to even Kickstart the Amiga, unless
you disconnect the SCSI cable to the drive. (I had a minor panic
in the process of figuring this out. The Amiga will not Kick at
all unless the HD is either powered up, or disconnected)
After performing a normal Kickstart, you insert a SupraBoot disk,
which is an ordinary Workbench disk. My startup-sequence goes
something like...
SupraMount >-- mounts the drive in lieu of Mount
df0:c/assign sys: dh0: >-- sets the HD as the system disk
df0:c/assign c: sys:c >-- assigns c: dir to the HD
sys:c/defdisk dh0: >-- performs all logical assigns to the HD
(This replaces six seperate assignments)
sys:c/copy disk.info to ram: quiet >--builds ramdisk with cute icon
sys:c/copy sys:c/CLImate#? to ram: quiet >-- I like CLImate in RAM:
sys:c/ConMan >-- VMS like console-handler
sys:c/FastFonts Siesta 8 >-- the sexiest font I've ever seen
sys:c/SetLace >-- sets 640 x 200 interlace mode
sys:c/LoadWb
sys:c/Endcli >nil:
As you can see, the only time the boot disk is accessed is to mount
the Supra, and assign it as the system disk. The rest of the startup
sequence is executed from the HD. This sequence boots in under
30 seconds. Incidently, the SupraMount command looks just like
a Mountlist, so I don't know why this drive won't autoconfigure
with the BindDrivers command. I may try this someday.
Under AmigaDOS 1.2, you cannot boot directly from any HD. The HD
must be mounted with a WorkBench disk, from DF0:. This situation
will be remedied in 1.3
If I want to boot a plain vanilla Workbench disk, I must run the
HD, but it will not be 'mounted' and recognized by the system.
Likewise, games will execute their normal startup without ever
recognizing the HD, even though it's connected and spinning.
I would have preferred to be able to run the machine without having
to run the drive, but in reality, the fewer times you turn a hard
disk on and off, the better off you are. Every time the heads come
to rest on the media, you run the risk of creating a particle of
debris. This debris is a time bomb waiting to cause a head crash.
By the way, this drive has done wonders to help cut down my smoking
near the Amiga. I now step out for a butt.
|
| 580.14 | Thanks! | Z::TENNY | Dave Tenny | DTN 225-6089 | Tue Jul 21 1987 11:20 | 2 |
| re: .11
Thanks.
|
| 580.15 | re v1.3 HD support | KIRK::KYZIVAT | Paul Kyzivat | Tue Jul 21 1987 13:31 | 15 |
| Re: .13
Not that I want to encourage you to smoke or anything, but why should the Supra
change your habits? It is a sealed winchester isn't it? I wouldn't think smoke
would affect it - might actually be worse on the floppies.
Re: Kickstart 1.3 hard disk support
To be able to boot directly off a hard disk there will need to be a driver in
Kickstart. It seems like that is going to limit which drives will work that
way. Will this only work with the Commadore hard disk controller, or are they
releasing specs to other suppliers? Before I spring for a hard disk I would
like to know that I will be able to boot from it when 1.3 arrives.
Paul
|
| 580.16 | I like my Supra | VIDEO::LEIBOW | | Fri Jul 24 1987 01:13 | 21 |
| Please Please Please don't yell at me if this doesn't work all of
the time, but for curiosities sake, I tried using the Mount command
with my Supra. It Worked.
Mount dh0: was enough to get my supra going. However, I have never
tried the Mount command from a cold start (Just turning the machine
on). I have only done it from a warm start. This leads me to think
that the Supra will work with 1.3.
I have had mine for a week and am very happy with it. I had a
read/write error when I got to 33%, but it might have been from
shipping or the extremely large fan the blows air through the upstairs
rooms of our house. I backup up the supra and then reformated it.
The bad sector was gone after that.
My room averages about 80 degrees and I don't turn my drive off.
I don't think my drive gets much warmer then the that. It feels
like a water bed with the heater stuck at 80 or so. Not uncomfortable
to the touch, but I wouldn't want to sleep with it.
:-> MIke
|
| 580.17 | Another Supra owner | Z::TENNY | Dave Tenny | DTN 225-6089 | Sat Aug 01 1987 12:59 | 41 |
|
Yippee!
I'm now a 20 hour owner of a Supra 30meg drive.
It's taking forever to weed out usefull utilities,
but so far so good. I still have to figure out an acceptable
method of backing up the drive. Anyone out there found
a good solution yet?
Anyway, here is my early review:
Total cost was $923 from ABEL supply, 2-day UPS shipping.
The drive came with a nice booklet telling me the things I
needed to know. The 30meg drives have a fan, it's not
too obtrusive, nothing compared to a uVAX.
I partitioned the drive into a 10 meg DH0: for all tools
and mostly readonly utilities. DH1: is 19 megs (I lost one
somewhere! The original dh0: was 30 megs.) Disk verification
(or whatever goes on during startup, after loadwb) now takes
about 30 seconds. This is somewhat annoying, but is probably
one of the things which will be corrected when the new 1.3 drivers
are out.
The card interface to the bus is not so hot. It is not tall enough
to reach the table, and by itself looks like it will fall off the
machine! I have a COMSPEC 2 meg memory card plugged into it, and
it isn't a perfect fit, but works. Furthermore, the comspec card
is serving to hold up the supra card, so the arrangement is
quasi stable, and I'm sure will be fine as long as I don't
try to move anything. I may call supra about this.
Overall, this seems like it will be a good configuration.
But ask me again in 6 months for a time-tested customer satisfaction
reply. If anything goes wrong, you'll hear the scream. But so far,
so good. Now if only I could get the f&*king DPAINT to run on
the disk in some EASY way. One things for sure, I'm through
buying EA software. The best games (etc.) for me have been FREE!
(a.k.a. HACK and friends).
Dave
|
| 580.18 | ... | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Sat Aug 01 1987 19:41 | 20 |
| Dave, if you're still using DPaint I, I suggest you upgrade to DPaint
II. I run mine off the hard drive with no trouble whatsoever.
DPaint ][ is so much better than DPaint I that the upgrade is worth
the effort anyway. (Yes, I reluctantly shelled out extra for the
non-CP'ed version).
The only annoyance I have with some programs that save a file with
an icon is there is no way to alter the default tool of the saved
project icon. In other words, I store DPaint files in a drawer
with the following path:
DH0:Dpaint/Hi-res
In order to load the drawing by directly clicking on the icon, I
must change the default tool pathname in the .info file to
:DPaint/DPaint. However, DPaint insists on saving the default tool
path as DPaint:DPaint. This assumes that I have a SYS: disk called
'DPaint'. Sure, I can always do the shift-click selection method,
but it would be nice if one could alter the default tool path.
|
| 580.19 | Try using a logical name | TLE::RMEYERS | Randy Meyers | Sun Aug 02 1987 02:38 | 12 |
| Re: .18
>However, DPaint insists on saving the default tool path as DPaint:DPaint.
>This assumes that I have a SYS: disk called 'DPaint'. Sure, I can always
>do the shift-click selection method, but it would be nice if one could
>alter the default tool path.
Or you could always put in your Startup-Sequence:
Assign DPaint: DH0:Paint-programs
Or whatever.
|
| 580.20 | | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Sun Aug 02 1987 10:07 | 3 |
| Thanks Randy, I hadn't thought of that.
Are there any limits on how many logical assignments one can make?
|
| 580.21 | Lots of Defines | VIDEO::LEIBOW | | Sun Aug 02 1987 16:08 | 4 |
| I have made many logical assignments since I started putting stuff
on my hard disk. I have about 30 Assigns in my Startup-Sequence.
Mike
|
| 580.22 | Just the usual limitation | TLE::RMEYERS | Randy Meyers | Sun Aug 02 1987 19:42 | 7 |
| Re: .20
> Are there any limits on how many logical assignments one can make?
Yes, memory. Each assignment takes 80 bytes. So on a 2.5 meg Amiga
you can have about 33000 logical device assignments. MetaComCo did
do some things right.
|
| 580.23 | Damn crippled computer! | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Sun Aug 02 1987 20:01 | 2 |
| Well, 33000 assignments are my limit, eh? Guess it's time to upgrade
to 9 Megs...
|
| 580.24 | Rubber Feet | DICKNS::MACDONALD | WA1OMM Listening 224.28 | Mon Aug 03 1987 08:57 | 7 |
| re: .17
Might try some stick-on rubber feet. They come in various sizes
(width and height). I believe you'll find that You-Do-It Electronics
in Needham has a wide assortment.
Paul
|
| 580.25 | Supra = OpenLibrary("rubber.feet", 30) ; | Z::TENNY | Dave Tenny | DTN 225-6089 | Mon Aug 03 1987 10:30 | 5 |
| re: .24
Good Idea!
Thanks,
Dave
|
| 580.26 | Supra overheat | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Mon Aug 24 1987 09:42 | 35 |
| I thought I'd post an interesting experience I had over the weekend
with the Supradrive.
I'd been running the drive non-stop for several days. On Saturday,
it became quite warm in the room where my Amiga lives. I felt the
drive sheet metal, and it was getting quite hot to the touch.
Later in the day, I dropped in again, and the drive was making periodic
squealing noises, about once every minute, with the noise lasting
about 10 seconds. Great, I thought; probably had a head crash.
I removed the cover to the drive box (not the drive itself!) while
it was still running, and the drive assembly was too hot to even
touch. The stepper motor was also red hot. I put a screwdriver
tip against the drive HDA, and put the other end in my ear. When
the squeal came, I felt that it was symptomatic of the spindle bearings
losing preload. (I've worked on drives enough to identify most
mechanical failure modes).
So I powered everything down and let it all cool off. I repowered
it, and everything seemed fine. Then I ran down to the local Radio
Shack and picked up a small (< 2 watt) brushless DC fan. The Supra
sheet metal actually has provision for a small internal fan in the
back, and they were kind enough to even bring a +12 line to the
fan region. I guess their higher performance models (30 & 60) probably
require a fan. I am now of the opinion that the 20 meg does too.
The Radio Shack fan I bought does not actually fit inside of the sheet
metal box, but I velcro-ed it to the rear. I plan on going over to
Active Electronics today to pick up the actual (smaller) fan used,
then I'll return the radio Shack model.
Anyway, now the drive sheet metal remains totally ice cold. I think
if anyone feels excessive heat within their Supra, they should consider
this simple insurance policy.
|
| 580.27 | supra story | Z::TENNY | Dave Tenny | DTN 225-6089 | Tue Aug 25 1987 16:57 | 15 |
|
To worry or not to worry, very strange in either case.
Last night I was deleting a file from the workbench on my Supra
(using DISCARD menu option).
Something in got zapped, any my screen had junk on it.
Intuition didn't even know it was dead, no guru. I warm-booted.
The start-up sequence got half way through, to where it needed
stuff from the supra drive, and I had to wait for an immediate
disk validation/reconstruction. It appears to have worked;
and everything seemed ok. But the supra clock was set to 03-jan-00.
What do you suppose would cause such a wierd crash, and Supra clock
reset?
|
| 580.28 | | VIDEO::LEIBOW | | Tue Aug 25 1987 17:37 | 13 |
| RE: .27
You are lucky that your clock reset to a real time. My machine
had some flaky hardware in it for a while and my machine would reboot
itself from time to time. Sometimes the Supra Clock would have
a non real date in it. The SetClock program that comes with the
Supra would not work. It would hang the system whenever it was
used.
I ended up solving this problem by opening the controller card and
trying to remove the battery. It is glued in their somehow, so
shorting it out was the next best thing.
--Mike
|
| 580.29 | ... | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Tue Aug 25 1987 23:40 | 12 |
| Just for the record, I ordered the genuine fan that mounts inside
of the Supra sheetmetal box. It is a Torin Beta SL 12 volt brushless
DC fan. Part number is A31390-10. It draws less than 1 watt, and provides
7 cfm of air. Installation took about 60 seconds. The Supra box
is already pre-drilled and slotted for it. They must include it
with their larger drives.
I ordered it from Marshall Industries in Burlington MA (617) 658-0810
Price was $27. Not bad for a life insurance policy for an $800
drive. This thing now runs ice cold day and night. I expect the
power supply will last quite a bit longer now.
|
| 580.30 | | VIDEO::LEIBOW | | Wed Aug 26 1987 03:27 | 8 |
| RE: .29
Thanks, Guess what I am gonna do as soon as my warrantee is up.
It's hard to believe a tiny little bit of air can make a drive cool
down so much.
-Mike
|
| 580.31 | A funny thing happened... | VIDEO::LEIBOW | | Mon Sep 14 1987 12:07 | 15 |
| A funny thing happened this morning:
After my usual morning game playing and stuff on the computer this
morning, I started to take my system down. I typed the park command
and instead of hearing the drive motor slow down, it started to
speed up. My brain was thinking, "Phasor on overload, hit the dirt,"
but my reflexes told my arm to fly out as if I were pitching a baseball
at the off switch.
All in all though, it was quite interesting. The audible tone that
the motor produced was almost on octave higher then normal.
There seems to have been no damage.
--Mike
|
| 580.32 | Supra 4x4 20mb | LABC::GRAY | | Fri Sep 18 1987 18:38 | 43 |
|
I just joined the ranks of happy Supra 4x4 20mb drive owners...
Mine didn't come with a SCSI expansion port on the back (for more
drives), so I called up Supra (in Oregon) and complained. They
are sending me an "adaptor cable" which goes on the drive to solve
the problem.
RE: .28
I am having the same clock problems...guess it's time to find a
screw driver. I'll try shorting the battery on it to reset it.
I am having a problem with the device driver software: I do a DIR
or LIST of a directory on the disk and it gives me my listing in
an infine loop, restarting at the first file in the directory after
it has displayed the last entry in the directory... this goes for
ever and ever until a ^C. I told Supra... they are sending me a
complimentary copy of the latest driver software.
RE: .?
I couldn't find any "knock-out" for a fan to go.. could be that
my unit is so early that they hadn't discovered they get "REAL"
warm yet! I may put one in myself later.
I talked to "Mark" in Technical Support at Supra... he had this
to say about the new driver and throughput...
The Supra hardware is capable of 500k bps throughput. (He noted
their Atari ST version which has some sort of snap-on module
to do 1:1 RL mapping has a throughput of 750k bps. Their A2k
version which does DMA is 10-15% faster than the A1k.)
The latest and greatest Supra driver is capable of 25k bps
effective throughput ...primarily because of AmigaDOS V1.2.
He indicated that Tim King (as was noted earlier), the head of
the AmigaDOS project at CBM, has prepared a new version of the
FileSystem to support 50k-150k effective throughput. This will
be beta in about two weeks. It will ship in 2 months (production)
if the beta goes well.
-Tom
|
| 580.33 | hard drive vs external floppy | MEMORY::BERKSON | What's that in the road - a head? | Wed Sep 30 1987 10:07 | 6 |
| Once you have a hard drive, do you still use your second floppy
drive? Or would selling the external floppy drive be a good way
to recoup some of the cost of the hard disk? Also, do you think
that 20MB may turn out not to be enough? Thanks.
mitch
|
| 580.34 | | Z::TENNY | Dave Tenny - VAX LISP Development | Wed Sep 30 1987 10:24 | 18 |
| re: .33
I still use my external drive for the rare occasions
(very rare) when I have to use the DISKCOPY command;
and (more useful) for backups. In particular,
it's nice to have the second drive when one is in use.
I bought a 30M drive, anticipating some amount of development.
I partitioned it into 10 and 20M sections, and the 10M section
is where I keep all my workbench stuff, demos, games, and executables.
It is now 90% full, but I have *lots* of junk which doesn't need to be
there. (Leo's latest hack is 1/2 meg...)
Anyway, if you aren't going to need lots of space for development,
a 20M disk is plenty. On the other hand, since a 30M supra disk is only
$200 more (from ABEL), a little "safety margin" couldn't hurt.
Dave
|
| 580.35 | "SupraDrive Failure Inspires Killing Rampage!" | WHICH::WISNER | Paul Wisner | Sat Oct 03 1987 20:08 | 14 |
| I was doing a long C compile. Somewhere in the middle of the
compilation I realized I had made a mistake. So I rebooted. I
must have rebooted while it was reading from the Supra because the
busy light stayed on! When the Amiga tried to reboot it got stuck
in the startup-sequence, I guess at the SupraMount command. I
turned everything off and tried again. Now it still gets stopped
at the SupraMount command, the busy light blinks rapidly.
It's Saturday so I can't call Supra until monday. Damn!
Is there any hope of saving the data on the disk? Or should I attempt
to reformat?
|
| 580.36 | wait a while.. | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Sun Oct 04 1987 00:41 | 6 |
| Don't panic until you've given the drive a good 10 minutes or so
to revalidate itself. SCSI devices apparently have a way of rebuiling
themselves.
|
| 580.37 | Leave it alone and AmigaDOS will fix it | TLE::RMEYERS | Randy Meyers | Sun Oct 04 1987 02:04 | 47 |
| Re: .35, .36
To fix your disk, just boot your system and leave it alone. AmigaDOS is
trying to rebuild the disk, but that takes time. Give it the time, and it
will recover everything. Give it awhile (I would wait at least an hour.)
When every a disk device is mounted, AmigaDOS checks the disk to see if
it is in a consistent state. It does this by running the mini-validator.
If the mini-validator determines that the disk is messed up, AmigaDOS
runs the big validator to walk the entire disk and create a consistent
allocation bitmap.
On a floppy, this process only takes a minute or two. I have heard of
times of 30 minutes for hard disks.
Disk recovery is a feature of AmigaDOS. AmigaDOS will fix a screwed
up bitmap for any type of AmigaDOS disk, be it 3.5 inch, 5.24 inch,
scuzzy, or ST-506.
People complain so much about the warts on AmigaDOS's filesystem that
they don't give it enough credit. It is pretty bulletproof: it quickly
catches bad reads, it contains enough redundant information to recover
after the disk has been corrupted, and it has no limits on number
of files or directories.
I remember reading a review of the Sidecar in one of the Amiga magazines.
The review complained that the designers of the Sidecar must have screwed
up the hardware design because if you crashed the machine while the
Sidecar's hard disk was being written, the disk would be corrupted. They
knew that this must be a sign of some hardware problem because if you
did the same thing to a hard disk attached to the Amiga, the disk would
heal itself. Of course, there was no problem with the hardware. The
problem was just that MS/DOS (who owned the Sidecar's hard disk) lacked
AmigaDOS's ability to repair the disk.
On a similar subject, many years ago, I attended the first DECworld. As
I was roaming around the exhibits, I was surprised to come across one of
the recently announced Lisas from Apple. The Lisa, if you remember, was
Apple's first attempt to do the Macintosh. It had the same type of
windowing desktop user interface (although it also had the another neat
feature called multitasking!). The Lisa was at DECworld to be compared
against DEC's own PCs: the DECmate, the Rainbow, and the Pro. At least
when I was there, people were ignoring the DEC PCs and playing around with
the Lisa. The DECperson stationed at the booth was trying to come up with bad
points about the Lisa. About the only substantial one was that "If you
unplug it while it is updating the hard disk, the hard disk will be corrupt
when you turn the system back on."
|
| 580.38 | Lisa...DiskValadator | LABC::GRAY | | Sun Oct 04 1987 02:37 | 11 |
| The creator of the Lisa product for Apple left Apple and formed
Electronic Arts with $5m in VC from one of the original Apple backers.
In any case, I know how disk-validator works, my problem is that
the Supra 4x4 controller just "checks-out" and hangs my system every
hour or so... it has something to do with multi-tasking, as this
problem only occurs during multi-threaded access to the drive..
Supra wrote their own HD driver, so I assume the problem is with
interlocking and mutual exclusion in their stuff ...if it is software
at all... it could be hardware...
|
| 580.39 | maybe there is a God after all | WHAT::WISNER | Paul Wisner | Sun Oct 04 1987 14:50 | 16 |
| re: .36,.37
Thanks for the advice, I was about to reformat it, but I though
to log in and see if anyone had anything to say. I would have never
tried that because I thought the Supra was beating itself to death
trying to get started. I'll try it right now and report back.
re: .36
Don't you also have a Supra & a Starboard? I have a question.
I had the Supra board attached directly to the Amiga and the Starboard
attached to that. It works perfectly. But I can't run the Starboards
diagnostics. They don't recognize the Starboard! (The message
is something like "Expansion RAM is not a StarBoard" or something.)
At the Software shop they told me to set it up this way, but'm going
to try it the other way. But first thing first.
|
| 580.40 | faith restored | ISTG::WISNER | Paul Wisner | Sun Oct 04 1987 15:25 | 18 |
|
I started up my system with the Supra attached *after* the Starboard.
The Amiga DF0: light stayed on at the SupraMount command in
startup-sequence, I tried it with the Supra disconnected and got
the same results, so I conclude that the Amiga can't see the Supra
if it's connected after the Starboard.
Finally I hooked it all up with the Supra first, then the StarBoard.
The Supra's busy light blinked rapidly. I went up stairs and told
my familly not to worry, it's going to fix itself, they didn't
seem impressed. (except Dad said "That's scary").
I came back down and it was all fixed!!! This seems like a good
day to make a backup. I take back *some* of the nasty things I've
said about AmigaDOS.
|
| 580.41 | ... | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Sun Oct 04 1987 19:42 | 20 |
| I recently ran the Starboard diagnostics to check for a bad ram
chip in the Upper Deck. I read the 'ReadMe' file that came on the
Starboard setup disk, and it explicitly stated that the Starboard
must be the only buss attachment for the diagnostics to work properly.
No problem, just disconnected the Supra and everything went well.
Glad to hear that your drive fixed itself. Kind of amazing, isn't
it?
This story reminds me of a posting that ex-Atari employee Alex Leavens
once put on UseNet. He was visiting Jerry Pournelle, and Jerry
had placed a trashed Workbench disk into an Amiga he was testing.
Jerry didn't know that the WB disk was trashed; all he knew was
that it wouldn't boot. The drive sat there and 'GRONKED' away for
15 minutes or so. Alex Leavens and Jerry were having a good old
laugh at what a slagheap the Amiga was. They were totally oblivious
to the fact that a fairly remarkable process was going on; Jerry
duly reported in Byte that it frequently takes 15 minutes to
boot an Amiga.
|
| 580.42 | reset, reset, reset | Z::TENNY | Dave Tenny - VAX LISP Development | Mon Oct 05 1987 10:39 | 10 |
|
Another thing to keep in mind with SCSI devices.
Sometime I don't think my disk gets powered up correctly
(some initialization fails in the driver or firmware).
So I'll try to read something, and the disk will gronk but no results.
Whenever this happens, I power down the CPU and the Drive (in that order,
since Supra recommends the reverse order for powerup), then power things back
on. The problems always go away. I read somewhere that SCSI devices frequently
can have problems corrected by re-powering. Or is it all a bunch of malarky?
|
| 580.43 | ... | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Mon Oct 05 1987 10:54 | 7 |
| Hmmm... I always power down the drive FIRST, then the CPU. Guess
I'm afraid that killing the CPU while the drive is running might
send a bolt of lightning or something through the buss.
I've never had any problems yet using this sequence. I have tried
powerering the CPU up first, then the drive, but the machine won't
even Kickstart under those conditions.
|
| 580.44 | Supras and Heat | VIDEO::LEIBOW | | Thu Oct 08 1987 05:54 | 14 |
| Still haven't bought my fan yet... Here's what I do:
On one of them Hot Summer days, or one of them days when I forget
which way is clockwise and I turn the thermostat to 96 instead of
60, and my Supra starts to heat up.... I get a small foil pan,
and fill it with a dozen ice cubes. Then, I add a little bit of
cold water to let the "coolness conduct." Then I carefully place
the pan on top of the drive being carefull not to put it on upside
down by mistake.
Neat part is listening to the ice fizzle and pop and make weird
noises as the drive heats up the water. :->
Maybe I'll get that fan someday...
|
| 580.45 | | LEDS::ACCIARDI | | Thu Oct 08 1987 09:29 | 4 |
| Speaking of Supras, CMO has an ad in Amigawhirled for the 30 meg
Supra for $859. Thats $4 more than what the Software Shop sells
the 20 meg model for. An extra 10 megs for $4 is pretty enticing.
|
| 580.46 | Just my opinion | NAC::VISSER | | Thu Oct 08 1987 16:31 | 6 |
| CMO (Computer Mail Order) STINKS! I had a bad experience with them
a couple of years ago, when they didn't have the merchandise in
stock, charged my card, and wouldn't let me cancel the order; I
mean, they hadn't even shipped it yet! BUMS!
re.: .44 aren't you worried about thermal shock?
|
| 580.47 | | VIDEO::LEIBOW | | Thu Oct 08 1987 17:50 | 1 |
| Thermal shock?
|
| 580.48 | Disk Errors | WHYVAX::KRUGER | | Thu Oct 08 1987 18:58 | 14 |
| re .46
Thermal shock? It just keeps the drive from becoming hot and bothered.
Kind of analogous to a cold shower.
I am encountering major problems with my Supra 20M. I have been
getting more and more read/write errors. I will reformat tonight
and pray it works. If not, back to Abel it goes -- less than 14
days, and already I don't know how I could live without it. Does
anyone think it could be the heat? I could understand if the motor
couldn't take the heat, but the disk surface should be fine, right?
Bewildered,
dov
|
| 580.49 | environmental | NAC::VISSER | | Thu Oct 08 1987 19:00 | 6 |
| thermal shock: rapid temperature change.
Could happen that components of the drive change shape (contract)
at different rates, causing damaging mechanical tolerance changes.
Thermal shock testing is a part of most military component/assembly
qualification requirements.
|
| 580.50 | heat=erase | NAC::VISSER | | Thu Oct 08 1987 19:07 | 3 |
| re.: .48 The heat certainly could damage the media, at least
erase it. This is why military stuff uses "antique" plated wire
memories to this day.
|
| 580.51 | | NAC::VISSER | | Thu Oct 08 1987 19:12 | 6 |
| just recalled, as a matter of fact, heat is how the bits are flipped
in the Kerr effect read/write optical disks, as the one Sony is
developing. Place the media in a magnetic field (your motor, for
example) and apply enough heat and the magnetic elements will allign
themselves with the field.
|
| 580.52 | Get a fan. | LEDS3::ACCIARDI | | Fri Oct 09 1987 00:35 | 28 |
| Re: Supra cooling...
After using my Supra for a month or so, I became absolutely convinced
that it simply cannot take the heat. When I open the sheet metal
case on a particularly hot day, the drive HDA casting and stepper
motor were hot enough to sear flesh. This is not good.
I believe that what probably happens is that the media gets hot enough
to grow radially beyond acceptable track mis-registration tolerances.
Remember, this little MiniScribe drive uses an open-loop stepper motor
positioner, not a dedicated servo surface or a full imbedded servo.
It really is insanely cheap and simple to install the correct fan into
the drive case. The cooling slots are already present in the back
panel, as are the mounting holes. Why Supra doesn't include this $27
(retail) item is simply beyond me. My drive now runs ice cold day and
night, and the noise level is unchanged. All it takes is a whisper of
air to make a drastic improvement.
See the previous note(s) for instructions on how to get one of these
fans.
Re: The Kerr Effect
I doubt if the media is de-magnetizing. I've measured stray flux
from several brushless DC spindle motors, and it's usually only
a few Gauss above ambient in the data region of the disk.
|
| 580.53 | | NAC::VISSER | | Fri Oct 09 1987 11:18 | 4 |
| re .52 I agree Ed, just sowing some banter seed, as also with
the thermal shock comment I made; I don't think the ice will really
hurt, but I second your suggestion to install the fan.
Regards, John
|
| 580.54 | air flow | VIDEO::LEIBOW | Michael Leibow | Tue Jun 28 1988 21:41 | 11 |
| Well,
I am back in the New Hard Drive Owner category. Supra just sent
me a brand new 20Mb drive after a whole year of back-and-forth problems
with the old one.
Question: Should the fan blow the air into or out of the drive.
The drive they just sent me blows the air out of the drive.
--Mike
|
| 580.55 | It's common practice | LEDS::ACCIARDI | I Blit, therefore I am... | Wed Jun 29 1988 09:39 | 14 |
| It's common practice to suck cool into an enclosure rather than
blow it in. This is done for a few reasons...
* The fan's own generated heat isn't added to the enclosure.
* This arrangement creates a negative pressure in the enclosure.
Therefore, air can only flow INTO the box through any leakes.
If I used the fan to blow air into the box, this would create
a positive pressure. If I had a major leak upstream of any hot
spots, the air might exhaust before it passed over the hot
components.
Ed.
|
| 580.56 | ? | STING::VISSER | | Wed Jun 29 1988 13:10 | 2 |
| Ed, I don't follow the seconf point. Wouldn't this be true for
either pos. or neg. pressure? John
|
| 580.57 | uh.. | LEDS::ACCIARDI | I Blit, therefore I am... | Wed Jun 29 1988 14:20 | 8 |
| Actually, you are right John. Depending on where the hot spot is,
you could leak air out, bypassing the hot spot, with either
configuration.
A good cooling system takes into consideratin where the hot spot
is, and places the fan downstream.
Ed.
|
| 580.58 | Supra driver version | AITG::WISNER | Paul Wisner :optimize '((speed 3) (safety 0)) | Wed Aug 31 1988 22:02 | 7 |
| A note for SupraDrive owners.
The latest version of the software is v4.3. I thought I had a hardware
problem (caused by a power surge) so I called Supra. It turned
out the version I had couldn't reformat the disk because of the
bad data that was already on it. I had version v1.1! The new version
solved the problem.
|