Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    I'd go for a 251N; that is a good deal as far as I'm concerned.
     Consider that a SCSI to ST-506 card is $100, and that the reliability
    should be better on the 225N since they're married for life.  To
    me its like getting the 251 (ST-506) for $349.
    
    Regards,
    
    John

How are these drives packaged?  Can they be mounted in a 2000?  If so, are any
additional mechanical or electrical parts (other than a controller) required?

Is there a better controller than the A2090 available for the 2000 yet?  I have
been waiting for something guaranteed to support HD boot.  I heard something
about Supra having one, but haven't seen anything definite.

	Paul

Re: .1

But if you have the Commodore disk controller, you don't need a scuzzy
to ST506 conversion card.  A few of the other Amiga disk controller
manufacturers are also selling dual scuzzy/ST506 controllers.  Are you
still sure that the slow, expensive scuzzy disk is such a good deal?

I do see an advantage in scuzzy in that I think that it will outlive
ST506.  The new IBM PS machines have jumped on the scuzzy bandwagon
(or so I have been told).  This may imply that if you by a scuzzy
disk today, you may find it easier to move it to whatever computer
will be replacing the Amiga a few years down the road....

I have had a hard time making up my mind on this issue.  If price
performance is the same (or even just close), I'd go scuzzy.  But
an ST506 drive that is 31% faster and also cheaper makes me want
to go ST506.

Beats me.


Re: .2

I would expect that the only additional part you might need is a cable
to connect the controller to the disk.  The Commodore controller doesn't
include a cable.  There's a chance that the disk might not either.  I've
read it is not to hard to get a cable from most mail order places.

Several third party manufactures are selling, or planning to sell
Real Soon Now, disk controllers for the 2000.  Several of them are
claiming to be slightly faster that the Commodore board.  (Then
there is ASGD and their intelligent disk controller that will
be much faster, and much more expensive, than everybody else's controller
if ASDG ever finishes the board.)

To my knowledge, no one, including Commodore has come out with a
controller that supports autoboot as it has been spec'ed by
Commodore.  I believe that C Limited has an autoboot drive, but
they are breaking the rules on how it is done.  That makes me
nervous.

The last Amiga developer's newsletter was full of articles on
making an autoboot device  (an autoboot device could even be
a ram board with a recoverable ram disk if the manufacturer
wanted to go to the trouble of supporting it!).  I expect that
sometime in the next six months everyone will be adding autoboot
to their disk controllers.

Note that autoboot requires 1.3 of Kickstart.  In fact, if you
don't have 1.3 of Kickstart, an autoboot device will crash
the Amiga during startup.  The developer's newsletter will contained
all sorts of dire warnings against anyone foolish enough to make
an autoboot board and NOT put a jumper on it to disable autoboot.

I am not sure that not having autoboot is such a big deal.  It only
takes a few commands to transfer the boot process to the hard disk.
The only inconvenience is sticking the floppy in the drive.

    Has Microbotics released their SCZZY controller yet for the Starboard
    II?

    
    I called microbotics a few weeks before christmas and was told they
    were working some bugs out of the software and it would come out
    in Jan 88.  I don't want to shell out the bucks for a hard drive
    right now, but I'd be interested in hearing if someone wants to
    get an update.  The number is 214-437-5330.  The latest amigaworld,
    video issue, has several ads which mention the starboard scsi card.
    Apparently it also has a battery-clock.  The ads list it for $129.
    
    regards,
    
    steve mcafee

re.: < Note 1128.3 by TLE::RMEYERS "Randy Meyers" >
    
    
   "I do see an advantage in scuzzy in that I think that it will outlive
ST506.  The new IBM PS machines have jumped on the scuzzy bandwagon
(or so I have been told).  This may imply that if you by a scuzzy
disk today, you may find it easier to move it to whatever computer
will be replacing the Amiga a few years down the road...."

Yes, exactly.  
    
 Reliability:
       
    Remember that ST-506 drives are two drives per controller,
    with (n+1) cables for n drives.  Cables are trouble.
    
    On SCSI drives the data separator and other raw data access components
    are with the (particular) drive forever;  I've had problems with
    tunable ST-506 controllers going out of tune, and matching them
    to two different drives.  
    
    I consider SCSI drives as being much more robust than the older
    ST-506s because of the system design.  
    
Speed:
    
    What is really a faster system?  I'd like to know the time from
    command write to data on the computer buss for both;  I have a gut
    feeling the SCSI will win.
    
Simplicity and long-term cost:
    
    Consider the fact that SCSI allows seven devices plus the controller
    per slot; these can be HDs, floppies (at least one vendor now), LAN 
    controllers (two SCSI-Ethernet vendors that I know of), scanners,
    data acquisition, or anything the can be accessed as if it were
    memory.  Ampro's SCSI Plus (usually no hardware change) allows 256
    SCSI devices by encoding IDs rather than X-ORing them.  And all
    of this stuff can go at 1.5Mbytes/sec asynchronous mode, or optionally
    4Mbytes/sec synchronously.  
    
Other benefits:
    
    The SCSI protocol allows device to device transfers with-out host
    intervention; now compare backup speed to a ST-506 system.  And
    if you have two computers and one SCSI drive you could probably
    connect them all together.  Never happen with ST-506.
    
    John