Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!uwmcsd1!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!hammen
From: hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Robert Joseph Hammen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Rodime disk drives and A/UX
Message-ID: <6742@uwmcsd1.UUCP>
Date: 6 Sep 88 06:54:10 GMT
References: <5511@ut-emx.UUCP> <653@stech.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@uwmcsd1.UUCP
Reply-To: hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Robert Hammen)
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Lines: 65

In article <653@stech.UUCP> sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) writes:
>I can highly recommend Jasmine drives. They are fast, reliable, and
>extremely reasonably priced. You won't find discounts on them, simply
>because the list price isn't inflated. For example, I recently paid
>$1249 for a 100 meg external drive.
...
>The software that comes with the Jasmine drives is excellent, though
>I had to trash the public domain staff when I repartionned (there wasn't
>enough room on my internal hard drive to save the entire 8 or 9 meg of
>stuff that was on the Jasmine drive). I used Jasmine's "driveware" to
>manage the partions; it's easy to use. I'm also thrilled that the
>Symantic Utilities are included.

I have a Jasmine InnerDrive 140 for my Mac II and have been generally
pleased with the speed and reliability of the hardware (it's a Rodime
mechanism, like most of the drives that Jasmine is now using). The
manuals that come with the drive are pretty good, and the demo software
and utilities (Redux and SUM) are pretty good. However, I have had nothing
but problems with Jasmine's DriveWare. I got version 1.02 with my drive, 
and version 1.06 from another InnerDrive I purchased for work (and had to
return later on). First of all, I kept on getting mysterious crashes
(mostly ID=01 and ID=25) in otherwise stable applications and DA's (Acta,
PageMaker 3.0, and VersaTerm - this is all with System 4.2, Finder 6.0, 
and Suitcase and the SUM inits present). Secondly, any attempt to run
Apple's Disk First Aid software resulted in an instant crash. Finally, any
attempt to run Adobe Illustrator 88 (I have version 1.6, but I know 1.7 is
out) would also result in an instant crash. Naturally, I was a bit concerned
about this, and called Jasmine tech support. My problems with Disk First Aid
were known, but not documented. "Apple doesn't support our method of disk
partitioning." The Illustrator problem was also documented, and Jasmine blamed
the folks at Adobe for the problem. They were surprised that I was having any
other problems. So, thinking that perhaps the disk was corrupted, I reformatted
it with the 1.06 software (I'd already tried updating the driver before, with
no improvement). It still didn't help. I was frustrated that I could use the
same applications on an external Direct Drive 80, but if I copied the contents
of that disk to the Mac II and then ran from that disk, BOOM!!!

On the verge of sending the drive back (I'd already done so with the drive I
had ordered for work - since we're a desktop publishing service bureau, we
can't afford not to run Illustrator), I formatted the drive with the CMS
SCSI software for >100MB drives (it's available on GEnie, and the version that's
up there works with System 6.0). It now works perfectly, although the DiskTimer
II numbers aren't as good with the CMS utility as with the Jasmine stuff (
(the results were something like 28 reads, 28 writes, 7 access with driveware a
and 28:80:8 for the CMS utility). I have no idea of the legality of what I've
done, and take no responsibility if you do this and lose data. DO THIS AT YOUR
OWN RISK! One of these days I should contact CMS...

(interesting sidenote: Nuvo Labs, who write SCSI drivers for many different
companies including CMS, is suing Jasmine. It appears that Mr. Arthur Britto,
who used to work for Nuvo Labs, now works for Jasmine, and Nuvo is claiming
that he took proprietary information with him to Jasmine, information used in
their DriveWare software).

I've also heard that LaCie's Silver Lining SCSI driver software works with the
Jasmine drives, and can be purchased to use with other drives. I'm investigating
this option; if anyone has good/bad comments on their driver software, contact
me at one of the addresses below.

Robert

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/ Robert Hammen		Web Tech, Inc.		hammen@csd4.milw.wisc.edu /
/ Delphi: HAMMEN	GEnie: R.Hammen		CI$: 70701,2104		  /
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