Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!udel!mmdf From: talmage@lti.uucp (David Talmage) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: RE: A2000 DMA SCSI disk controllers: What's the final word? Message-ID: <16528@louie.udel.EDU> Date: 31 May 89 02:10:25 GMT Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU Lines: 68 Some time ago, I asked for the definitive answer on hard disk controllers. I wanted a SCSI DMA controller that autoboots from a FFS partition; that didn't slow down when doing disk i/o while Amy's working with 16-color high-res screens. After reading the A/C article on controllers and reading Bill Seymour's reply, I'm buying the Supra controller. My dealer is John Malloy at Soft Designs in Belmont, MA. Enclosed are summaries of the replies I received: jmpiazza@cs.Buffalo.EDU (Joseph M. Piazza)has a 2090A. He says he's satisfied with it. He's got 3 Megs of memory and so he doesn't expect to lose with 16-color high-resolution screens. Joe bought his 2090A from Go Amiga for $320. Joe also liked the Famous Salem Witch Museum, not as a controller, but as a tourist attraction ;-) About the time that my query hit comp.sys.amiga, Joseph Dawson posted some interesting allegations about C='s 2090/2090A not working with Miniscribe drives under certain conditions. > 1) The bug in the old chip set would only happen to people who do > a lot of hard disk access or multi-task the hard disk a lot. In a follow-up, Joseph said that Commodore Canada told him there is a new chip set that may fix the problem. There were a number of replies to his posting and all of them said they'd had no problems at all with that combination. I sense some doubt in the collective mind of comp.sys.amiga but please don't take this to mean that I think Joseph is a liar. I recall no further postings from Joseph. If anyone knows if the problem is a real one and/or has been correctly resolved by Commodore Canada, please post a follow-up so we all can know. billsey@agora.hf.intel.com (Bill Seymour) has a Supra controller. He says it autoboots from FFS, is DMA and not troubled by graphics or overscan. With a Quantum Pro 80S, he claims Diskperf reads of about 550K/sec. Bill got his controller for about $200. fc@lexicon.com (Frank Cunningham) told me about his GVP hardcard. He says it was easy to install and seems to be reliable. Ease of installation, performance, and an open 5-1/4-inch slot (for tape) were his requirements in a controller. Frank didn't say so, but I infer from his message that he is happy with the GVP hardcard. To summarize the summary, in three replies I found three satisfied owners of three different SCSI controllers. There were two postings about possible problems with C='s 2090/2090A and MiniScribe hard drives; and several postings to the contrary. Disclaimer: Any errors here are probably mine. Please tell me about them by e-mail. David Talmage ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ David W. Talmage, Systems Programmer ...!{buita,bbn}!lti!talmage Language Technology, Inc. talmage%lti.uucp@bu-it.bu.edu 27 Congress St., Salem, MA 01970 (508) 741-1507