C-Ltd upgrade message
4 messages in this thread
I have a question – why would I want autobooting? I currently have the C Ltd
controller and a 65 meg drive. Booting from floppy with a full WB 1.3 type
startup-sequence plus some other stuff takes less than 40 seconds from
power-on. After I reformat the drive to get better than 154k (diskperf) reads,
I expect to do even better. Local people with autoboot say it takes about 20
seconds just to see the workbench screen pop up. By then I'm well into my s-s.
So why would I want to spend money for the autoboot capability plus the 1.3
ROMS? Thanks for any replies.
Ok, point by point. I assume you're using scsidos 3.0 and ffs correctly on
what sounds like an adaptec 40?0 controller with the C-Ltd host adaptor. Or if
you're not yet using both ffs and 3.0 maybe the omti.
So, if you went to the new board, you may, depending some factors, get 2 – 3
times the speed in terms of diskperf (other work should do pretty well) in
actual IO work, you will eliminate most of the floppy grinding (it still must
check df0 to see if you have a bootable floppy inserted), and in a given amount
of time, limited mainly by the Amiga's ability to run the programs involved. I
do many things on bootup, including making favorite commands resident, many
assigns, path adds, startup virusx, screenx, gomf2.2 and assorted other things.
Yes, there is time for the booting to take place, and I don't know how much,
though they tell me that much of it depends on the drive – the board waits for
the drive to be ready before trying to boot from it. Note that certain (I
believe Seagate) drives cannot autoboot on one particular scsi board because it
doesn't wait for them.
So, if getting much better disk speed is worth $100 for the board (and $30-60
for the 1.3 rom) then go for it. I expect to have one of the first of the new
boards (first run) in a few weeks.
Ron
I am using 3.0 with I don't know what controller in the C-Ltd adaptor. I was
aware of the speed increase and will buy the new board for that reason. My
question was about autobooting. I use FastDisk on my boot disks so there is no
floppy grinding. So, if my boot time is quick enough, there is no reason to
get the 1.3 Kickstart ROMs. Is this right?
A few more questions – can Seagate drives autoboot with the C-Ltd adaptor, or
does that depend on the controller I have?
And finally, do you know if I can upgrade my controller directly through C-Ltd
or do I have to go through the place I bought it from ? (Pioneer)
Thanks.
I don't know what fastdisk is, so I can't comment on that. I do know that I
don't want to have to use a floppy to boot except for special disks. As for
the roms, if you want any of the autoboot capabilities including rebooting from
rad you need the rom.
Ed has told me that the board will sense that a drive is ready, and that drives
like the Seagate which are slower then some to be available should have no
problems with this new board. Assuming that the controller itself is able to
sense the availability of the drive. I would suggest calling them and
describing your setup (or leaving a message to C-Ltd in the vendor forum) so
they can tell you whether your controller is a problem. Note also that some
people have replaced certain older controllers in a separate trade up program
for faster/more reliable models. Check with C-Ltd about how to do the trade in
– I believe its thru them directly.
Ron