Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!rutgers!apple!phil From: phil@Apple.COM (Phil Ronzone) Newsgroups: comp.unix.aux Subject: Re: Non-Apple HDs for A/UX Keywords: Any known problems? Message-ID: <17357@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 19 Sep 88 17:03:47 GMT References: <1897@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU> Reply-To: phil@apple.com.UUCP (Phil Ronzone) Organization: Apple Computer A/UX Group Lines: 47 In article <1897@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU> pez@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Daniel J Pezely) writes: > > > I heard that A/UX was "designed" to be used on a Apple HD or >whatever drive is in there (it's a Quantum, isn't it?). By "designed" >I mean that disk responce time on other drives will be less than optimal and >also that there could be other problems. Could anyone shed some light on >this and hopefully say that it is all nonsence? Yes, it is nonsense. The A/UX SCSI Manager/Driver was explicitly designed to support any "reasonable" SCSI disk drive. The catch is twofold: 1). What is "reasonable"? We were pragmatic, and tried as many of the third party drives as we could get our hands on. This was a pretty informal process. We ended up with Quantum, Seagate, CDC, and Micropolis drives, plus several that used a DPT "SCSI caching" controller. We have gotten reports that Toshiba and Hitachi and other drives work from third parties & contractors. 2). It IS the A/UX Manager/Driver. Since A/UX boots via the Mac OS, if you wish to boot off your non-Apple drive, you must have the drive's vendor provide the Mac OS bootstrap software and (often) the Mac OS disk partitioning software. So even if A/UX handles the drive, at times there is no Mac OS driver software to boot off of it. Apple wants to promote as general a SCSI Manager/Driver as reasonably can be done. We don't sell 160MB, 320MB and so on disk drives (yet :-) ). And those sizes are very popular in the UNIX world. I would ask that any success/horror stories be emailed or AppleLinked to me. If there are enough replies, I can post a summary. But we will also take into account the stories for future improvements etc. on the A/UX SCSI Manager/Driver. SUMMARY: Naw, we didn't do mean things to slow down or sabotage non-Apple disk drives. They supported they same as Apple drives. But do doublecheck your interleave and other such factors if your drive appears slow. +------------------------+-----------------------+----------------------------+ | Philip K. Ronzone | A/UX System Architect | APPLELINK: RONZONE1 | | Apple Computer +-----------------------+----------------------------+ | Mail Stop 27AJ | "Forgive him Caesar, for he is a barbarian, and | | 10500 N. DeAnza Blvd. | thinks the features of his release are the ways | | Cupertino CA 95014 | of nature." | +------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+ |{amdahl,decwrl,sun,voder,nsc,mtxinu,dual,unisoft}!apple!phil | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+