Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!super!udel!gatech!uflorida!mailrus!ames!oliveb!amdahl!kim From: kim@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Early experience with 2090A controller Keywords: sure doesn't smell like a rose Message-ID: Date: 12 Oct 88 21:37:22 GMT Article-I.D.: amdahl.c0.6va0CVf1010TxC9. Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Lines: 110 [ "All sweet things have one thing in common ... a tendency to make you sick." ] [ --Soolin ] Attached are the initial experiences one of my co-workers has had with the recently released A2090A hard disk controller. I have edited some of Dave's "more critical remarks" [ items in brackets ]. Suffice it to say that he is less than happy with the product, and more than a little bit upset. I'm also concerned, as I have been planning on getting a 2090A, but now I'm not so sure. Any comments from CATS, or any other early owners of the 2090A would be appreciated. /kim > * TOPIC: AMIGA - "Amdahl AMIGA Users Forum" > --> Item 247 from DZL20 on 10/11/88 at 17:33:38 > > Hard Disk News > > I bought a 40 meg Seagate ST251 to connect to my new 2090A disk > controller last weekend and had a number of problems installing > the drive. [Most of the problems can be attributed to inadequate > documentation, and to what appears to be faulty software.] > > Part of the installation process involves running a "Prep" program > to record startup information on the first two cylinders of the > disk. This information is read by the device driver when you > make execute "binddrivers" and make it resident. > > You must Prep the disk before you can format it otherwise > the device driver doesn't know that the device exists. It is only > necessary to do this once at install time. > > There are a number of things you have to do before you can get Prep > to work which are not mentioned in the documentation. If you > don't do them the system will either crash, hang, or make your disk > assume unnatural positions. > > 1. Don't run interlaced Workbench. > 2. Make sure your Workbench has enough room on it for the driver, > its icon, the mountlist, and Prep. > 3. Turn off C00000 memory using nofastmem. (This one I couldn't > believe. I should expect Commodore software to work on a stock > Amiga 2000). DON'T DO FASTMEMFIRST! > 4. Check your mountlist entry carefully. The one generated by the > Install program doesn't seem to work. In particular, the > "Reserved" field should have a value of 2. Also, verify that the > number of heads and blocks per track for your disk is correct. > 5. If all else fails, try using the original Workbench disk (the > one that came with the machine). > > After I got it to work, Prep took only about 1-2 seconds to initialize > the disk. Format was another 25 minutes or so (for 40 megs). > > Does anyone know if the fast file system is implemented at the device > driver level or at the DOS level? The disk access is much faster than > I expected so I'm wondering if I already have it. > > The controller board came with two ROMs to be installed with > Kickstart 1.3 to add autobooting. The documentation said that > Seagate SCSI drives cannot autoboot because of the long latency > in initialization. > > Anyway, 40 Meg HD + 2.5 Meg RAM = Nice! > > Dave Lakritz > > > > * TOPIC: AMIGA - "Amdahl AMIGA Users Forum" > --> Item 248 from DZL20 on 10/12/88 at 11:58:26 > > Disk Controller news continued > > After only 2 days of operation, my new Seagate disk started getting > massive numbers of r/w errors. DOS couldn't even validate it, and the > whole thing became corrupted. > > The problem was not the disk, but the 2090A controller. It seems that > the board has thermal problems, and if I plug it in next to my ASDG > memory board, it wrecks havoc, even with the cover off. The only reliable > mode of operation I've found so far is to separate the two boards as > much as possible, leave the case open, and aim a humongous and noisy > fan at the controller. > > [ statement of opinion about the reliability of Commodore h/w and s/w ] > > Kim, if possible, please post my last two messages on Usenet. Thanks. > > Dave Lakritz One personal comment ... my ASDG 8MI board, populated with 6 Megs, runs very cool. Perhaps Dave's 2090A has a marginal component. If so, it would seem that CBM's Manufacturing QA procedures should have caught it. There *is* a burn-in cycle, isn't there? [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ] -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,uunet,oliveb,ames}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 BIX: kdevaughn GEnie: K.DEVAUGHN CIS: 76535,25