From: jhwhit01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
Subject: WHT Products and Asgard AMS/AEMS
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 01:20:13 GMT
Organization: University of Louisville

In article <009640CD.96392840@GOMEZ.PHYS.VIRGINIA.EDU>, cohen@GOMEZ.phys.virginia.edu writes:
> Why is there no MFM host adapter?  One can buy 8-bit MFM hard (& floppy)
> controllers for the IBM PC for next to nothing now, and it would be great
> if we could use those instead of a flaky Myarc HFDC.  And, as far as I understand,
> it is much easier to implelement than the SCSI.
  
An MFM controller for the TI would cost nearly as much as the SCSI host adaptor
does.  The MYARC HFDC is an MFM controller.  There are two very good reasons
why cards for the TI cost more than those for the PC:  (1) supporting a market
that continues to shrink necessitates recouping development costs quickly and
with few sales of product; (2) there are few competing products to drive the
prices down -- an effect of reason (1).  MFM, IDE, and SCSI drives cost about
the same per megabyte NEW.  SCSI hard drives come in much higher capacities
than the others.  Unlike MFM and IDE cards, the SCSI host adaptor will be
able to use CD ROM technology.  Right now, MFM hard drives are getting harder
to find NEW, and I've heard that most, if not all, manufacturers are getting
out of the MFM drive business.  IDE and SCSI are the two emerging technologies,
and SCSI is a living standard that has evolved into SCSI-2 with SCSI-3 on the
way.  The WHT SCSI card follows "SCSI-1" specifications, and several used and
reconditioned SCSI hard drives are on the market at prices rivaling those of
used and reconditioned MFM hard drives.  
> 
> Would somebody tell us the difference (from the end-user point of view) between
> the 4A Memex and the Asgard AMS/AEMS?  Would it be possible to design
> software that would run concurrently on both?  Otherwise it's going to be
> a mess...   I suppose we all understand that the last thing we need now is a
> further division of the shrinking user base into further segments that
> cannot exchange data and files with each other, so it would be best if Asgard,
> WHT and OPA could coordinate their efforts in such a direction.  What is the
> current situation?
  
Describing the differences between the 4A Memex and AMS/AEMS cards would take
quite a lot of room.  The 4A Memex will support up to 16 Meg per card when it
is released.  The AMS/AEMS supports 128K or 512K right now.  The 4A Memex will
have a DSR on it that does memory-management, RAMdisk, and other functions.
It can also powerup in RAMBO mode, and is thus compatible with OPA's RAMBO
modification to the Horizon RAMdisk which is included on the Horizon 4000
boards.  The AMS/AEMS is not compatible with any other memory card out there,
and can only coexist in the same P-box with the Horizon or 4A Memex.  The 4A
Memex can coexist in the P-box with any other memory card available, though
full functionality will be available only when it is used by itself or with
Horizon/RAMBO cards.  The AMS/AEMS does not have a DSR, which means that the
memory-management functions will have to be done by the application software.
> 
> Last but not least, I am amazed (and glad) that all this effort is still going
> on.  I would have kept my TI-99/4A anyway, and it is really nice that you,
> and others like you, are willing to put time and effort to further develop it.
> Same goes to the Asgard team.
> 
  
I am glad you appreciate the efforts.  One thing which keeps development going
at such a slow pace is the risk of a product failing to sale sufficiently to
continue development.  Earlier hardware manufacturers made substandard products
for a relatively much larger market.  Note that not all products made were
bad, and I don't mean to imply that they were.   It is just that now that
many TI users are salivating over the new gadgets available for other computer
users, the expectations have risen.
 
If there were some Telnet site where comp.sys.ti users could gather for a
conference, I could probably get Don O'Neil (WHT) to visit to discuss the
products.
  
Jeff White    jhwhit01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ti