Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!blake!dlarson
From: dlarson@blake.acs.washington.edu (Dale Larson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: X11, Ethernet, Shared Hard Disks
Message-ID: <3518@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Date: 7 Sep 89 17:19:09 GMT
References: <22987@louie.udel.EDU> <848@boing.UUCP> <277@nap1.cds.wpafb.af.mil>
Reply-To: dlarson@blake.acs.washington.edu (Dale Larson)
Organization: The Evergreen State College,  WA
Lines: 47

In article <277@nap1.cds.wpafb.af.mil> Vern Staats writes:
>
>  C-Ltd *claims* that their Kronos SCSI controller will allow multiple 
>Amigas to share a harddrive.  Each computer can have its own partition
>with its very own startup-sequence, and I believe there can be shared 
>partitions too.  Has anyone out there in netland actually tried this?
>It sounds like a pretty good controller (Well, at least according to 
>C-Ltd :-)

I replied via email to the original posting, but since there seems to
be general interest:  Yes, the shared harddrive stuff is doable with 
the CLtd. controllers.  There are drawbacks, but they are survivable.
The system I set-up in a law-office I work in as systems manager shares
one harddrive between 2 2000s and a 500.  

We have had few problems with the CLtd. hardware in the 11 months this
has been running.  We have had problems with CLtd. support.  Their shipping
department is FUBAR.  Well, heck, I'll just tell the story:

The system started with only two machines.  When I added the third (january)
I needed to remove the terminating resistors from the middle controller on
the bus.  The manual instructed me to call customer support for this.  
They told me that the resistors weren't socketed - that I had to cut them
off of the board!!!  (I asked "with scisors?")  They were VERY unclear
with what needed to be removed, and they could not clarify.  When I 
followed there instructions, the thing no longer worked.  When I called
back, the person I had talked to said that I shouldn't ask him about it, 
because he wasn't the one who knew about shared harddrives!!!  Once I 
figured out that the board needed repair, he agreed to have it done the
same day and ship it back to me the way I shipped it to them.  I told them
it would go out FedEx.  

I wasted 5 hours on a Saturday waiting for the package which he said had
been shipped FedEx on Friday.  When I called to complain on Monday, he
said it went out UPS Red.  Ten minutes later, I got a call from a kind
gentleman in New Jersey (I am in Washington State) saying that he had 
recieved my controller!!!

In spite of this horror story, there are situations for which I could 
recomend CLtd controllers.  And surely, with the war on drugs in full 
force, their shipping department should no longer be so stoned.


-- 
	    A lack of prior planning on the part of any programmer 
		       always constitutes an emergency.
	
           Digital Teddy Bear      dlarson@blake.acs.washington.edu