Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!ames!ncar!noao!asuvax!mcdphx!teroach.phx.mcd.mot.com!stan
From: stan@teroach.phx.mcd.mot.com (Stan Fisher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: 2090A.. what a bummer.
Keywords: 2090A SCSI Hard Disk
Message-ID: <11041@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com>
Date: 8 Jun 89 23:33:10 GMT
Sender: listen@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com
Reply-To: stan@teroach.phx.mcd.mot.com (Stan Fisher)
Distribution: na
Organization: Motorola Microcomputer Division, Tempe, Az.
Lines: 39


YO Commodore, are you listening?? RSVP? 

  I've just switched over to a nice fast (16ms) 158Mb SCSI drive on my
2090a. Really screams (diskperfs max on reads of over 720k/sec.)
  Couple of problems though, like the Seagates (though not quite as bad)
the drive takes about a 1/2 second too long to initialize/spin up and the
2090a times out and wants a Workbench floppy inserted.  This naturally 
requires me to reboot (soft) and all comes up fine.  
  Also, now that I'll be needing to back up much more data, a streamer
would be REAL nice, right?  Not on the 2090's though, I'm told it can't 
never happen.
  Also, I moved the little LED wires over to the pair of stake pins for
SCSI LED on the 2090a, and it just barely lights the thing, is that normal?

  I understand (have been told) that CBM is going to do a 2091 half card
that fixes all the sh*ty things wrong or missing with the 2090's.  So here
comes the point of all this rambling....

**Medium Heat FLAME ON***

Is CBM going to have firmware/PAL/driver changes for the 2090a that'll make
it work right?  It would seem REAL feasable to fix some of this crap on the
2090a!  I'm gonna be real pissed if I have to do Yet ANOTHER controller
upgrade just to get the things that should have been on the first 2090s!
I already dumped my 2090 for a 2090A, will I have to do that again?
How hard can it be to get the 2090A to wait longer for a READY from the
damn drive?? boot from FFS?? support SCSI tape?? eliminate DMA contention
in 16 color highres overscan??  

**Flame to simmer**

I know what some would say...  "buy a hardframe".  Not a bad idea.. that
fixes all but the streamer support, at least for now, and Microbotics says
that'll be addressed "in the future".


  Stan Fisher - stan@teroach.phx.mcd.mot.com - asuvax!mcdphx!teroach!stan
  Motorola Microcomputer Division, Tempe, Arizona -        (602) 438-3228