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From: atwell@utah-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: HD Controllers (Berekeley MicroSystems)
Message-ID: <4033@utah-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22-Nov-86 05:50:40 EST
Article-I.D.: utah-cs.4033
Posted: Sat Nov 22 05:50:40 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Nov-86 02:26:29 EST
References: <492@SouthBank.UUCP> <691@imagen.UUCP>
Reply-To: atwell@utah-cs.UUCP (Bart L. Atwell)
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Lines: 40
Summary: Tell me more

In article <691@imagen.UUCP> turner@imagen.UUCP (D'arc Angel) writes:

>About a month ago I went up to Berekely MicroSystems to buy one of their hard
>disk controllers and adaptor boards, I have been happy as a clam with them 
>since. First what are they; 
>
>	the controller board is a standard Adaptec 4000 hard disk controller
>	the price BMS asked was in line with the street price (~ $115)
>
>	(this is the exciting part) the adaptor board converts the atari DMA
>	format to SCSI (~ $135)
>
>so whats so exciting ? 2 things; 1) the controller board has a real time clock
>builtin with battery backup builtin and 2) GET THIS the new release of the HDX
>program (which i am still waiting for (you listening chris ???)) supports 2
>count them 2 hard disks per controller. to the best of my knowledge neither
>Supra nor atari can do that, in fact i believe that you need the mythical 
>octaplex to support more than 1 HD.

This sounds pretty good, but I have a couple of other questions:

	1.  How does such a board interface to the ST?  Does it fit
internally or plug into the DMA port and stick out the back?

	2.  What is the approximate cost?  Do you have to have both of the
above boards or are they combined?  Also, what are some good HDs that can
be used with an SCSI interface, such that the total cost of the board and
general SCSI drive would cost about the same as an Atari or Supra drive?

	3.  Since Atari markets a disk drive that plugs into the DMA port
and will hopefully fix the HD support in TOS soon (no more 40 folder, I hope),
will future software releases somehow not work with SCSI.  (Maybe this is
a naive question)

From what I've seen in Byte, there are a lot of HDs for the IBM that cost a
lot less than the $600+ currently charged for some type of drive for the
ST.  I hope this board can offer a few more options.

-Bart
atwell@utah-cs