Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!ames!oliveb!sun!pepper!cmcmanis
From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Microbotics StarDrive Question
Message-ID: <44829@sun.uucp>
Date: 9 Mar 88 20:47:09 GMT
References: <8803050032.AA28641@jade.berkeley.edu>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 34

In article <8803050032.AA28641@jade.berkeley.edu> (Fred Senese) writes:
>
>   I'm going to try to connect a Miniscribe 8438F 30 meg hard drive and
> Adaptec 4070A SCSI controller to my Amiga 1000 via the Microbotics
> StarDrive SCSI interface.  Including a 38 watt power supply, case, muffin
> tin fan and cabling, this will give me 30 Megs (or 47 Megs with RLL?)
> for $600 (prices from the March issue of Computer Shopper.   )

The 8438F is, I believe, the 8425F certified for RLL. You get 30 Meg with
and RLL controller like the Adaptec above, and 20 Meg a straight ST506
controller. There is a slight problem in telling the Adaptec what kind
of drive it is talking to, but I suspect Microbotics has a solution for
that. 

>   My questions:
>      Anybody have Miniscribe's tech support number?

1-800-356-5333

>      Is there some tragic flaw with this setup?

Initializing the Adaptec board, I don't know how they handle that. 

>      Any experiences with the Stardrive that you can share?

It is fast and cheap. There is a small problem with cables. It comes with
a Mac compatible 25 pin connector that has to be converted to a 50 pin
connector for the SCSI interface board. With the FFS it should really
fly.


--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.