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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:AMIGA NOTES
Notice:Join us in the *NEW* conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:HYDRA::MOORE
Created:Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:5378
Total number of notes:38326

865.0. "Flavours of Bridges & Drives." by WALLAC::MACKELPRANG (Who R U) Fri Oct 30 1987 18:02


	I have been thinking about the BridgeCard and disk dirve options
	available with the A2000, and I have a few questions that hopefully
	some of you can answer:

	1] The 'Standard' Commodore hard disk controller card is compatible
	with ST-506 drives.  Which drives are these?  Would the ST-238R drive
	from Seagate work with it?  I have found a place where I can get them
	for about $250.  That is a pretty good price for 30 Megs!!

	2] Will the BridgeCard work with a 3.5" IBM drive?  Looking at an
	Amiga 2000, the best drive configuration I can think of is to have
	1 Amiga 3.5" drive, 1 IBM 3.5" drive, and the 5.25" slot for a hard
	disk.  If the CBM disk controller won't work with the ST-238R, It
	would fit very well in the 5.25" slot.

	If any of you have a BridgeCard with a hard drive I would very much
	like to hear about your experiences with them as replies to this note.

	Thinks for any help in advance.

	Mark.
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
865.1BAGELS::BRANNONDave BrannonFri Oct 30 1987 18:575
    I don't have a bridgecard, but the A2000 harddisk configuration with
    it i've seen most often is a 3.5" 20 Meg harddisk, 3.5" disk, 5.25"
    floppy.  Guess there is not enough pc software on 3.5" media yet.
    
    -dave
865.2I'm glad I got themCESARE::ZABOTMarco Zabot-Adv.Tech.mgr-Turin ACTMon Nov 02 1987 08:3721
    I have the XT-bridge and tried different hard-disks ( 20M-30M-40M).
    They were from different vendors but all were running
    pretty well.
    You may easyly ( also if the procedure requires a lot of restarts
    of the system) configure your HD to be splitted between XT and Amiga.
    My final choice has been to create one active partition for the
    XT side and TWO partitions for Amiga: JH0: ( 2-3mB ) for the 'system'
    ( commands, libraries etc..0 and JH1: (20-30MB) for data and
    application programs.
    With this choice I reduce the spanning of the system stuff to only
    a small number of tracks and I can do different saves of the two
    'units'.
    One thing to remember is that while MS-DOS can bypass bad tracks
    the same is not true for Amiga-dos. For this reason is
    better to assign ms-dos partition to area with possible defective
    tracks. ( Some time your low-level formatting takes care of it,
    in such a case it's indifferent how you set up your volumes).
    BTW, all HDs were/are IBM compatible units. Two were internal, one
    (40mB) is external ( with its own power supply). 
    Need more specific info ??
865.3ELWOOD::PETERSMon Nov 02 1987 10:1715
    
    
    	1) ST-506 compatible means that the disk has a buss that was
    FIRST used on the ST-506 drive. All DEC RD5x drives are ST-506
    compatible. If a drive is NOT ST-506 compatible then the interface
    is specified ( SCSI ect. ).
    	The ST-238R is ST-506 compatible BUT the "R" means a RLL
    compatible controller is required. The Amiga controller is not
    a RLL controller. The bottom line is that the drive will work but
    the Amiga will see only 20MB.
    
    
    		Steve Peters
    		Storage Systems
865.4rdxx on amiga?CIMNET::KYZIVATPaul KyzivatMon Nov 02 1987 18:0113
    Re: .-1

    Excuse me if this is obvious, but I know nothing of the various disk
    drive interfacing standards.  Now that there are hard disk controllers
    commonly available which support ST-506, is anything else needed to get
    RDxx disks working on the Amiga?  Or is a dec-specific driver required?
    Has this been done?

    The smaller RDxx disks are rapidly becoming scrap as far as dec is
    concerned, and so might be easily acquired for little or no money.
    That would be attractive.

	Paul
865.5ELWOOD::PETERSTue Nov 03 1987 10:0919
    
    
    	ST-506 is ST-506 all of them are the same. DEC buys standard
    drives. So any controller that will control ST-506 drives will
    work directly with DEC RDxx drives ( no special drivers ).
    
    	Now to make it complex. Some cheap drive controllers
    ( like DEC RQDX1/RQDX2 ) can support only smaller ( 8 head or
    less drives ). The RD53 is 8 heads but a RD54 is 16 heads. So
    if you have a RD54 check on the controller.
    
    	One last point is there are drive select jumpers on the bottom
    of the drive. You may need to change them. The jumpers are different
    for each drive type. Also if you have more than one drive there
    are termination resistors ( a DIP pack ) that will need to be removed.
    
    
    		Steve Peters
865.6How do you get DEC equip. ????USFHSL::SPATOULASWed Nov 04 1987 10:0811
    
    I am a new DEC employee and I have an AMI 1000 (paid high price
    for it too).  My question is in response on the idea of getting
    an DEC RDxx drive very cheap or for almost! nothing.  How do you
    go about it ??. Can anybody fill me in on the way you can buy DEC
    equip. or how do you find the scrap staff. 
    
    Thanks,
    
    ...gss...
865.7borrow itCIMNET::KYZIVATPaul KyzivatWed Nov 04 1987 18:2111
I don't know if there is any official way.  However, as individual groups start
to scrap old rainbows and pros it is likely to be possible to borrow the stuff
for home use on a property pass.  You are still obligated to return it, but can
probably keep it as long as you want.  (I think there are lots of VT52s and
VT100s in homes on an essentially permanent basis.)  Before long RD53s will be
considered too small to be useful on vaxen and will also start gathering dust in
corners.

I don't know if there is a way to buy old stuff at a reasonable price.

	Paul