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From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att,unix-pc.general
Subject: Re: More on SCSI for Unix PC
Message-ID: <16762@cup.portal.com>
Date: 6 Apr 89 08:15:03 GMT
References: <5187@bnrmtv.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 47

Re: Mike Thompson's quest for "local" assistance for 3B1 SCSI ...

I reside in the Los Altos area, have the UNIX PC reference manual, "sort of"
chair the UNIX PC SIG of the local AT&T Computer Users' Group, our group has
all the docs from AT&T, members of the group (from PacBell) are experts
writing SCSI device drivers, I have a manufacturing plant that produces
special computers of my own design, I have PC board layout services available
and have software (for Amiga and PC), I've interfaced just about every SCSI
device available (except an optical scanner) to the SCSI bus, my lab computers
operate with over 1GB HD on their SCSI busses, and I have the entire SCSI-2
specs on disk (downloaded from the ANSI X3T9.2 SCSI BBS).  I also have a copy
of the AT&T memo concerning writing loadable device drivers for the UNIXPC
(but it's a copy of a copy of a copy and difficult to read).

Now, any other questions?   :-)

Join the Users' Group and we can possibly make the SCSI board for the UNIX PC
a group project.  I still need to call IDT and determine precisely what their
position is and inquire whether they want to sell the manufacturing rights to
their (already designed and manufactured) SCSI board to us; from what I last
heard, their (IDT's) only problem was that they didn't have any expertise
writing SCSI drivers.

If someone who lives near IDT can call them on our behalf and post their
comments, we can work from there.

My interest in putting SCSI on the 3B1 is very great; I picked up some Maxtor
380MB drives in anticipation of IDT's SCSI board last year, and so far have
relegated these drives to backing up the RP06 and RP07 drives on my VAX and
DEC-2060 (these drives are actually faster than the RA81, RP06 and RP07, and
are only 5-1/4" full-height units).

And just IMAGINE the possibilities of SCSI-networked 3B1s!  With shared laser
printers, page scanners, tape drives, etc.

The UNIXPC is enjoying a resurgent interest.  Just last week I received a
phone call from a software vendor in Sunnyvale who is buying 8,000 *NEW* UNIXPCs
upon which to sell his application; he called enquiring as to where he might
get a PASCAL compiler, and I referred him to LPI in Massachussets.

In any event ...

The Users' Group, South Bay Chapter, meets the 3rd Wednesday of each month at
the AT&T West Coast Facility in Sunnyvale; I'll be posting considerable
information about this in the VERY near future.  The next meeting is April 19.

Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]