Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!blake!bissiri
From: bissiri@blake.acs.washington.edu (Moja Fritzah)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: HELP IDENTIFYING SEAGATE 296N WITH REV. 7 ROM
Message-ID: <3296@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Date: 18 Aug 89 15:50:51 GMT
References: <2520@orion.cf.uci.edu>
Reply-To: bissiri@blake.acs.washington.edu (Moja Fritzah)
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 27

In article <2520@orion.cf.uci.edu> jtang@orion.cf.uci.edu (   James   ) writes:
>Say if I go to a computer story and ask for Seagate 296N drive, how would I
>know/identify if it has the rev 7 ROM????

Most dealers don't know about the different ROM versions for the
Seagate 296N drive.  If the dealer is putting the kit together for you,
ask him to let you see the drive before they stick it in the case.
There should be a ROM number printed on the side of the drive.  Also,
the original packing/box should have the ROM number printed on one side.
Thirdly, the packing slip from the manufacturer gives the drive's specs.

Don't get your hopes up, most of the ROM 7 277N's and 296N's vanished
about 8-10 months ago.  Seagate promised to do yet another revision,
but i have yet to hear about its existence.  

Note that many folks with the ROM 8 296N are quite happy with
2:1 interleave and about 400+k data transfer rate.  After all, most
things coming off your drive are relatively small.  Unless you have
disk intensive operations going all the time, you may be satisfied with
ROM 8's.

I eventually returned my 296N and bought a Quantum 80S.  It moves
data about 675k/sec and has a seek rate of 11/19ms (11ms when using
its 64k cache).  The Supra blast.prg gave me 18 pics/sec.

-kevin
bissiri@blake.acs.washington.edu