#Tosh 3401 & Adap 1542
14 messages in this thread
Dave,
Does Adaptec offer any support on CI$? I have never seen any reference to
that. I hang around the Netware forums where disk systems are constantly
discussed, and I have never seen a message from anyone at Adaptec, nor have
I seen any mention of an Adaptec forum. From what I can tell, Adaptec
provides little, if any, support to customers. In the past they have
refused me any help at all, instead insisting that I must go to one of their
distrubutors. Unfortunately, the distributors have often been unable to
provide solutions for any but the simplest problems.
It is possible this may have changed at least somewhat. I noticed an 800
number on a piece of literature that came with my new 1542C. I haven't
called it, so don't know what may be available. I hope Adaptec has or will
change their policies. Their products seem to be generally good.
I'm still just drooling over the juke boxes. <g>
-=Rob=-
Rob,
Thanks for your input on Adaptec support. It's tough to think an outfit is
well thought of if their support is shoddy. But then, if no one *ever* has
trouble with their stuff, no one would ever find out about the support.
I hope you wind up with a juke box some day. I think this CD ROM stuff is
about to, or is already exploding, and Pioneer will have plenty of competition
soon, driving the price down.
Regards,
Dave McKeen
Dave,
Support is becoming more important to me every day. If you want an example
of how things SHOULD be, go visit the Practical Peripherals forum (GO
PPIFORUM) PPI provides the best support I have ever seen for any product,
both here on CI$ and by phone. I buy and recommend only their modems,
largely because of this. PPI modems are just slightly more expensive than
the bottom-line products, and the little extra money is VERY well spent,
both for high-quality products and outstanding service. Whenever I find
that kind of quality and service, that vendor will get my dollars every
time.
I'm keeping my eye on the multi-CD products. Before long, we're going to
really need such stuff. I already have 2-3 I would like to have access to
all the time.
-=Rob=-
Rob,
I agree about the importance of support. I was aware of PPI's support before I
bought my PM14400FXSA, over which I'm 'speaking' now! (Notice the clarity of
the text.) <g> I like it so well I talked them into getting me one at work.
Now the trade magazines are talking about software publishers 'unbundling'
support. I suppose if that happened hardware vendors would do it, too. BIG
mistake, I think.
I'm sure that if you use CD ROMs you would want to have access to multiple ones
without messing with handling the disks, even if they are in their own caddies.
I suppose I'll wind up with the subject combo, then an affordable juke box will
appear!
Dave McKeen
Dave,
It's pretty hard to tell what will happen with support. Pressures to lower
prices are so great that vendors may be forced to so something to maintain
price competetion and still provide support. What I read is that prices for
common business productivity applications may permanently fall to around
$100. That doesn't leave much room for high-cost support operations. Only
time will tell.
Since I don't have a "compelling" business reason to have a multi-CDROM
drive (I'm still working on that <g>) I may end up adding one at a time to a
SCSI chain. If I can eventually get them for $200 or so, that wouldn't hurt
so badly as $1,000+ for the 6-disk changer. I'm working on it.
-=Rob=-
P.S. Your text is AMAZINGLY clear <bg>
Rob,
You hit two dead ringers. I know this is getting off the thread subject (my
mind is subject to Treadus Wanderus), but if Toshiba and Adaptec are listening,
it won't be wasted.
I was thinging of the prediction of <$100 business software packages when I
mentioned the unbundling of support. But unless Congress repeals the
anti-trust laws, the companies that offer the best all-around product,
including support, will win. Time will tell, indeed, and it will be
interesting to see it unfold… if it does.
Ringer #2: I saw an ad in the classified section of the April 19 issue of
Infoworld that was headed, "CD-ROM Mini Tower." All it was was an expansion
chassis with four, 5 1/4" half height bays and presumably a power supply,
loaded with four CD-ROM drives. For $2495! Just what you were thinking,
right? Of course you and would go out to the parts house and get the case and
the power supply, then add the drives as needed. And they wouldn't all have to
be super gee-whiz models. I'll be looking in Computer Shopper for the case.
I was looking for a place to stick a big Maxtor hard drive, and that mini tower
could be just what I need. That would leave me room for two CD-ROM drives.
Then I could add… Well, it could go on and on!
Cheers,
Dave McKeen
Dave,
You got the picture about the CD-ROM tower. I'm keeping my eyes open for a
good deal on an external drive cabinet. I've found a couple, but they want
too much money for them so far. No reason such a box with power supply
should cost over $200, it should be less. It's no big deal to set up a SCSI
daisy chain from the main system box.
I'm getting set to try out Windows NT when it hits the street, and will
have to get more disk capacity. I'm now using Stacker, which won't work
with NT. What I plan is to get a 340-500 MB SCSI disk to start the new
setup. I understand there is a nice 400MB being sold by Gateway, so I'm
looking around for one of those.
Take a look at Michael Miller's column in PC Magazine May 11, 1993, about
the $99 software phenomenon. I think he says it pretty well. "Looks like
the $495 software package may be gone for good."
See ya,
-=Rob=-
Rob,
If you see an expernal case you like, please let me know.
I was interested in NT, but I guess I'll be watching things develop for it and
see how it comes along. Maybe I'll wind up with Windows 4.0 a year from now.
I'll look for Michael Miller's column.
Regards,
Dave McKeen
Dave,
I hope to find an economical external drive cabinet soon. When I do I'll
pass the information along to you. I'm in Houston, so if I find something
local, it won't be too far from you.
To me there is one great hope for NT. It has been developed under the
guidance of one Dave Cutler. That may not ring any bells with most PC
people, but he has one great qualification. He is the architect of Digital
Equipment's VMS operating system. Many people consider VMS to be the finest
computer OS ever written (including my brother, who uses it every day). Now
Cutler has had a chance to do it a second time, from the beginning, and fix
anything he thinks was wrong the first time.
If NT turns out anywhere near as good as its advance billing, we may enjoy
true hardware independence. You could choose to run on a machine based on
the DEC Alpha chip, say maybe 200 MIPS, or how about a multi-processor box
with four 486DX2-66 chips. Those are likely to cost under $200 by the end
of this year. I'll bet 4 66Mhz 486's will be faster by far than one Pentium
for the same $. The possibilities are amazing. Hold on to your hat! <g>
-=Rob=-
Rob,
Stop… STOP! You've got me foaming at the mouth with the talk of all the
potential MIPS! I'm really afraid the gummint will ruin our economy, so I hope
the goodies come along before it happens.
I've heard of Dave Cutler, but haven't followed him closely. I read where the
chief VMS designer went to Microsoft, but didn't remember it was Dave. I
forget when he got to Redmond, but I thought it was well after OS/2 was
defined. Then Microsoft got the development of OS/3 or Portable OS/2, which is
what I thought was renamed to Windows NT. I thought Dave came in around the
time the OS was renamed to NT, but my chronology could be way off.
I use applications running on VMS every day at work, and have used DCL a
little. A full library on that OS uses up a good sized wall of bookcases. I
saw a demo of NT at a Microsoft symposium in Dallas a while ago and recognized
some of the features you'd expect to see in a grown-up operating system. I
don't even *know*, but I get the feeling that Windows 4 is a subset of NT that
may not have some of the manegement functions in it.
Let me know if you settle on an external cabinet. Finding one from a Texas
supplier will give me the opportunity to pay state tax! <g>
Dave McKeen
Dave,
Have I got a deal for you <mips>. Saw in the paper last weekend. You too
can own your own Cray supercomputer. Seems Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
retired one recently. Sold it at auction for $10,000. One problem though.
Costs $35,000 per month to operate it. They retired it because they could
do the tasks with Silicon Graphics workstations, each of which costs about
the same as that one-month operating cost! <g> The Cray cost $19,000,000
(tax dollars) in the late 70's.
If you want to buy, just let me know. <bg>
-=Rob=-
Dave:
If you are thinking about NT then you might want to try OS/2 2.1 which will be
out shortly. IBM offers a money back guarantee so you don't have much to lose.
It runs all my DOS and WIndows apps without any problems.
NT on the other hand has only "poor or mediorce support for 16 bit Windows and
DOS applications in their March beta" according to the April 12 issue of PC
Week.
.. Ron 24-Apr-93 22:12
Ron,
Thanks for the tip!
Dave McKeen
Ron,
Are you actually running OS/2 2.1? I tried hard for weeks to get 2.0 to
work, but it never did. It apparently just was never going to work with my
hardware.
Does IBM now have drivers for popular hardware? I have a SoundBlaster
(clone) and Colorado Memory QFA700 tape drive, which I never was able to get
drivers for.
I am interested to hear from someone who is actually using OS/2.
-=Rob=-