Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!pacbell!att-ih!alberta!ubc-cs!fornax!bby-bc!john
From: john@bby-bc.UUCP (john)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport
Subject: Re: Controller/driver combo... will it work?
Message-ID: <257@bby-bc.UUCP>
Date: 9 Mar 88 10:14:40 GMT
References: <3575@killer.UUCP> <4144@ihlpl.ATT.COM>
Organization: Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Lines: 29
Keywords: Microport
Summary: why not?

> > What's nifty neat about this is that with the OMTI RLL controller, I
> > can effectively get 60 megs out of my 40 meg drive.
> > 
> > My question is:  will this work under Mport unix?
> 
> Nope. I learned it the hard way, and ended up having to return an
> RLL drive and controller.  Microport said they don't support RLL and don't
> have any plans to in the near future.  The drivers count on the
> hard disk having 17 sectors per cylinder, and the RLL concept uses
> 26 per.

I don't understand the problem here (I'm not disputing the correctness
of your claim re microport).  It can't be *that* hard to make the system
work with 26 sectors/track instead of 17.  My understanding of the RLL
and ERLL controllers is that from the software's view of the hardware
they are basically identical to the normal (mfm?) AT controller (aside
from being able to accept larger sector numbers in the appropriate
register).  If this is wrong can someone explain it?  If it's right
then how hard could it be for microport to make an RLL supporting
kernel available?

If microport doesn't plan to do something about it it is very dissapointing.
It raises the price of a system considerably - I need to double the disk
storage on my system (from 105 -> 210 mb) to really be able to work
comfortably. If RLL/ERLL was supported I could do so for an additional
$200-$400 but as it stands now I will have to spend more like $1200 to
achieve the same end.  As far as I'm concerned this basically raises the
price of Microport unix by another $800 or so (up to SCO levels but they
also seem to support a much wider variety of peripherals).