CompuServe Messages

Richard, I can't help with the first two parts of your question, but SCSI-2 is a new SCSI protocol that may be still in draft form. It was supposed to have been approved recently, but I haven't heard the results for sure. Devices are available now that conform to this new spec, including HDDs of up to 3GB capacities. Benefits are increased speed/thruput, support for more devices and better compatibility, the latter being SCSI-1's nightmare, especially if you really want to take advantage of multiple devices on the SCSI chain. Some subsets of SCSI-2 include Fast SCSI, Wide SCSI and Fast/Wide SCSI, the latter offering a 16/32 bit data path and up to 20/40MB/sec transfer — at a price, as in mucho dineros. For comparison, SCSI-1 and vanilla SCSI-2 are 8-bit, 5MB/sec. And, just to make you uncertain, SCSI-3 is looming on the horizon with longer cable lengths and more devices per chain. There's a good article in the 6/29/93 issue of PC Magazine that goes into a lot more detail if you're interested. It's probably available for download (GO COMPDB, I think, or thru Ziffnet).