Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!uokmax!servalan!epmooch!ben From: ben@epmooch.UUCP (Rev. Ben A. Mesander) Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi Subject: Re: Future Domain TMC 885 SCSI Controller Message-ID: Date: 26 Apr 91 17:54:24 GMT References: <8861@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> Lines: 37 >In article <8861@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> meyera@iris.ucdavis.edu (Alan T. Meyer) writes: >I was wondering if anyone out there owns the TMC 885 controller for two reasons. Surely someone owns one. You don't have to wonder :-) [...] >Second, does it take a long time for your computer to boot? Mine takes about >ten extra seconds because of the controller. It kinda gets tiresome. So Id >like to know if Future Domain has a bios upgrade to solve this problem.. How often do you reboot anyway? 10 seconds?? Sheesh. Seriously, I used a TMC 885 controller for a while. We thought the name "Future Domain" was pretty funny, because it was a bit slow to drive our Wren's with. "When are you going to get the data from the drive?" "Oh, in the Future... Domain." We went to different controllers. Seriously, though, is there now a speedier version? The TMC 885, as I remember, had few of the compatability problems we ran into with some of the other SCSI controllers on the market. BTW, I don't care if it takes an extra ten seconds to boot my machine... From my knowledge of SCSI, I would guess the delay is there because the interface waits a while before it looks for SCSI devices on the bus. Some SCSI drives take quite a while to come ready upon powerup, and if you look for them right away, you may not find them. Otherwise, you run into problems like the Mac had with early Wren VII's with 1 meg of buffer space - the Wren is still doing a powerup RAM test on its buffer to decide if it's sick or not, and the Mac is looking for things that will answer on the SCSI bus. >alan meyer -- | ben@epmooch.UUCP (Ben Mesander) | "Cash is more important than | | ben%servalan.UUCP@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu | your mother." - Al Shugart, | | !chinet!uokmax!servalan!epmooch!ben | CEO, Seagate Technologies |