Xref: utzoo comp.unix.microport:774 comp.unix.xenix:2382 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!mit-eddie!bbn!rochester!ritcv!cci632!ccicpg!turnkey!jack From: jack@turnkey.TCC.COM (Jack F. Vogel) Newsgroups: comp.unix.microport,comp.unix.xenix Subject: Re: Microport Support for RLL Message-ID: <211@turnkey.TCC.COM> Date: 4 Jun 88 17:32:46 GMT References: <327@bdt.UUCP> <4274@killer.UUCP> <184@cbw1.UUCP> Reply-To: jack@turnkey.TCC.COM (Jack F. Vogel) Organization: Turnkey Computer Consultants, Costa Mesa, CA Lines: 60 In article <184@cbw1.UUCP> brian@cbw1.UMD.EDU (Brian Cuthie) writes: >In article <4274@killer.UUCP> mikeh@killer.UUCP (Michael Hammond) writes: >> [ Stuff about not getting a boot prompt with new driver deleted ] > >AH !! The problem, that you are facing, is that the RLL drive has more than >17 sectors per track and the ROM BIOS doesn't know that. > >It seems that the First stage bootstrap depends on the ROM BIOS routines to >read the partion table and then to read the Second stage bootstrap from the >first track of the active partition. As far as I know Microport relys on the ROM not only during boot but during actual operation as well, at least this was what I've heard. [ Stuff about hacking and burning a new ROM deleted ] This may not be happy news if you have already puchased an RLL controller but for those of you who have not there is a much better solution than custom burning the BIOS. Adaptec's RLL contoller, called ACB-2372 has its own BIOS that it will map into the drive table area, thus eliminating the need for fiddling with a rom burner. This ability is geared toward DOS users ( under SCO you don't really need it, we have it disabled ) but it sounds as though it might be just the thing for uport users as well. For those interested, we are running the 2372 controller with two Micropolis drives, a 1335 and I believe a 1330, under SCO 2.2.1. We disable the onboard bios and format with WD's 2.1 release format program (it does RLL and I think even ESDI). Interleave is 1 - 1. Given the nature of SCO's hdinit program you don't even need to worry about cmos, we just leave the old 17sec. entries in place. The Core test reports a throughput of 759K bytes/sec, performance under Xenix is great although I have no hard comparative data to present at the moment. I highly recommend this route as an economical alternative to going to full ESDI. If anyone out there is adventursome enough to give this hardware a test with Microport and can report on the results I would be very interested to hear your findings. Oh, by the way, the Adaptec line of controllers are available through Hamilton-Avnet. Single quantity on the 2372 was $145. Best of luck, -- Jack F. Vogel Turnkey Computer Consultants, Costa Mesa, CA UUCP: ...{nosc|uunet}!turnkey!jack Internet: jack@turnkey.TCC.COM