Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!rutgers!iuvax!pur-ee!ea.ecn.purdue.edu!cyliax
From: cyliax@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Ingo Cyliax)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: ST hard disk prices..:-(
Message-ID: <2392@ea.ecn.purdue.edu>
Date: 1 Apr 88 15:08:38 GMT
References: <409@ole.UUCP> <11830001@hpldola.HP.COM>
Reply-To: cyliax@ea.ecn.purdue.edu.UUCP (Ingo Cyliax)
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Lines: 64

In article <11830001@hpldola.HP.COM> ritchie@hpldola.HP.COM (Dave Ritchie) writes:
>
>  cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) writes: 
>>But wait a minute, let's see what we have
>>	20Meg Drive	$250
>>	BMS Controller	$250 (all PC drives are ST506)
>>	Power Supply	 $25
>>        Case		 $25 (or buy a PC clone case with supply for $40)
>>	Cable/Connectors $15 (you crimp them together)
>>		============
>>	    Total	$565. Holy Shit Batman I'm saving a measly $35!   
>>
>>No, the answer to the original question which was "Why are PC drives so much
>>cheaper" is that all you get when you get a PC drive is the mechanism. You
>>don't get a power supply and a box and a special controller. Atari drive 
>>suppliers have to supply a complete system. A better comparison is with
>>Macintosh drives, which also have to supply a case and supply etc.
>>
>
>  A friend of mine in Boulder lashed together a drive (5MByte)
>using a ST-506 that he picked up a hamfest for $20 (using a XEBEC 1410
>HD controller), but he knew what he was doing. In many cases, it wouldn't
>pay for Joe User to roll his own... The Atari drive is too cheap by 

I have done it two different ways. The first harddisk system I build went
like this:
	home build DMA-->SASI interface		free (build from scratch parts)
	10Mb disk				$125 (about two years ago)	
	Shugart 1610-3 (XEBEC 1410 compat)	$75
	Power supply				$39
	Case					$15
	Software was written by me		free
					Total: ~254

The second one went like this:
	BMS interface				$125 (includes software)
	Adaptec Scsi controller			$80  (Same as BMS, but cheaper)
	10Mb disk				$125
	Power Supply				$39
	Case					$15
					Total: ~384

The difference is that I wrote the software and build the interface
for about $130. Now I like my interface, it's faster and could support
more than one Harddisk controller,but it's not standard(i.e. the registers
are all different). On the other hand, BMS's software is alot nicer than 
mine.

I guess my point is that I spend alot more than $130 worth of my time
to build the interface and write the software to make it work, but I
learned alot about the Atari in doing so. So there is always a trade-off
on how much experience is worth to you.

I think a good solution is to buy the BMS interface and software ($125)
and get the other stuff elsewhere and put it together yourself. It only
takes about one evening to assemble all the parts. The BMS interface has
pretty good instructions, and they have very nice/helpful people when
you call them about questions. If you don't want to muck with it though,
get a complete drive.

-- 
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