From: cohen@GOMEZ.phys.virginia.edu
Subject: RE: SCSI & Accelerator
Reply-To: cohen@GOMEZ.phys.virginia.edu
Organization: Dept. of Physics, University of Virginia
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 20:23:42 GMT

In article <9212160012.AA01248@worf.arc.nasa.gov.arc.nasa.gov>, oneil@worf.arc.nasa.gov.arc.nasa.gov (Don O'Neil) writes:
>
I can answer any questions you have in regards to it. The price of
>the WHT SCSI is $170, and is currently available for sale through Bud Mills
>Services or WHT.
>Not all SCSI peripherals are expensive. You can purchase USED 20 MB hard drives
>(SCSI of course) for $80-$100, well within the reach of most TIers, and new
>52 MB units only run $200.

That makes an investment of about $250-$400 for a 20-52 MB of HD storage;
Since the speed of data retrieval is very high, wouldn't that put the RAMDisk
enterprise out of business?  Who ould need a 180K, 256K, or even 1 MB RAM Disk
with a 20 MB HD?
Oh, I think there is another factor-these prices are probably for bare drives.
I suppose the drives will need an enclosure with power supply
and a cooling fan, right?  That is another $100 or so, probably.
Is the device, which already has a price, ready to use NOW?  How many HD's will
it support, and is there a backup option of some sort (other than floppies
or the TI program recorder  :-)?
>
>As for the accelerator, it's dead. Due to complications in TI's console design
>it was not feasable for the average user to install the device. It required
>over 30 lines to be installed, traces to be cut and the like. The cost was TOO
>high, and the returns TOO low. We have discontinued the Accelerator and        
>returned all checks sent to us. We are NOT giving up on the idea of a faster

Given all the complications, did you nevertheless get a working accelerated
console?  I mean, for somebody like you who does not mind high-level butchery
of a console or two, has it been possible to get an accelerated console
working?

>Most likely these will be in a standalone configuration and not in a       
>upgrade to the current console. We cannot release any information about this
>product at this time.

All this is wonderful.  It is nice that there are individuals willing to
undertake this (especially since the 99/4A is the only home computer without
a reliable HD; Atari, Commodore, Radio Shack users all have HD available for
their machines.
Do you have an estimate of how many you would sell?
A few random ramblings and thoughts:
My own main worry about those things has always been the loss of data in
case of hardware breaks.  While IBM folks can always find some place to go
if their controller dies, or even data retrieval services for dead HD's,
we are left in the dark if something happens, with practically no 99'ers
within a walking distance.  If something happens to such an exotic piece
of hardware, it would be practically impossible to find a similarly-configured
system in a reasonable amount of time.
This scenario is not altogether a personal paranoia.  The trouble people
had (and still have) with MYARC taking months and YEARS to fix the HFDC
should teach us all an important lesson.
I am not claiming that this is a reason NOT to buy the new hardware, but things
are getting so exotic that somebody should think about a solution to the
problem (perhaps an international TI UG for data recovery :-)
>
>TI writer works great with the HP Laser Jet series. I own a LJ IIP+ and use it
>to print out all my stuff from TI Writer. The commands are nearly identical

Can you use the same parallel cable for the Laser?  Do TI-Writer TL, @,&, ^
etc. commands work or did you need to change your document files?

>
>Don O'Neil
>Owner- WHT
>

Joseph
Owner- TI-99/4A  :-)