Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!SFAUSTIN.BITNET!Z4648252 From: Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET (Z4648252) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: ATTENTION SPECTRE 128 OWNERS with fast SCSI drives Message-ID: <890926.11092003.048625@SFA.CP6> Date: 26 Sep 89 17:09:21 GMT Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 41 As David Small said, some fast SCSI drives will require the slow SCSI option to be selected. Otherwise, one is liable to get read/write errors, etc. With the slow SCSI option, the problems are cleared and the performance is not that much slower but it is slower than an ATari SH 204!. However, if a Spectre 128er is in a university environment where other systems abound and the 128er is constantly under examination by real MACers, then SLOW becomes the S word. He will want to push his emulator 'to the envelope' without crashes and errors. I'm using the SeaGate 296n. Yeah, I've been reading all the talk about interweave problems and ROM bugs, but even at 2:1 interweave, the mechanism is still fast. It is so fast, that slow SCSI option has to be selected. For my system, that slows things down so much, across the board, that my hard drive I/O results in access slower than my creaking SH 204 hard drive!!! Ok, there is a solution. Very easy, in fact. Note that I don't have the GCR.... By getting rid of SoundMaster and Magic Beep, one can have a toggle that will slow down the emulator. Yep, it is the sound toggle, the ESCape key. Select 11 for the sample rate, as David says. You get rid of SoundMaster and Magic Beep because they hang and give uncontrollable results when the sound option is selected. What happens now is that we get David's 'OOGAH' beep. Fortunately, there is NOTHING in the system now that will cause the system to remain slow once a beep occurs, as it would if we left SoundMaster on. Also, and fortunately, via the aforementioned ESCape key toggling, we can now slow the emulator down. This means that large files, which are a minority anyway, will transfer and boot up. For a test, I attempted to transfer FullWrite (awesome program [!!]) to another partition while in fast SCSI. Nope, it choked. No problem, press the ESCape key. Yep, it transferred just fine. In fact, one can tap the ESCape key a second after the transfer occurs and return to fast SCSI mode for a faster transfer. Excel caused crashes in fast SCSI. Tap the ESCape key. Yep, it boots up just fine. After it loads, just tap the ESCape key again to return to fast SCSI. No problem. Just experiment with your large files and you too can keep your fast SCSI option across the board. No more of this creaking-running- slower-than-an-SH 204 while using a 296n. Larry Rymal: |East Texas Atari 68NNNers|