Re: TWGS

[gregt+@CMU.EDU (Gregory Ross Thompson)]

Brenden.Gilbert@ofa123.fidonet.org writes:
>      RamFASTs are so problem prone and DONT work with everything.  It's 
> being constantly updated and that's WHY I am NOT buying one.  It might make
> your systems go FAST but I don't want to continually update Rev.C, Rev D, Rev 
> E etc paying 100$ or so every time..  here with the Apple II High Speed SCSI, 
> EVERYTHING works with it.  Even third-party stuff.  ZIPs work with it.  TWGS's 
> should work with it since AE followed APple's guidelines.  ANY SCSI device
> SHOULD work.  RamFAST was last updated because it couldnt read in flopticals.. 
> how sad.
>  
>     I've been to people's houses who have RamFASTs and I can tell you they're 
> only maybe .5 percent faster than my APple II HS SCSI Card..  I'm not
> justifying purchasing one right now just to make it that much faster. And ZIPs 
> are better than TWGS's, IMHO.

  Wow.  Well, I agree that Zips are better than TWGSs...  Now, about
this RFs only being .5 second faster than Apple DMA cards.  No.  I had
an Apple, now I have an RF.  MUCH faster.  ProDOS 8 accesses are
absolutely instantaneous.  Writes are unnoticable.  Reads are damn
fast.  If the person who you saw had one, they must have had a TWGS in
their system.  Since the TWGS DOESN'T follow Apple's DMA guidlines,
the RF doesn't DMA if there's one in the system.

  Now, about the updates.  If you had a Rev C RF, there's no real need
to upgrade.  There's no added functionality, except for the option to
boost the cache size.  The Rev D. consumes less power, but doesn't
work in //e's (noise problems).

  The floptical thing: Roy Benett (spelling?) in Australia wrote a
driver for the Insite flopticals for Apple's card.  CVTech released a
new ROM to handle the Insite mechanisms.  With either card, you have
to upgrade somehow to use the drive.

  Can the Apple card do backups to tape drives in the background,
still giving you access to the volume being backed up?  No.  Can you
remap the volumes to any slot or drive with an Apple card?  No.  Can
you write protect volumes?  No.  Can you format just about any drive
EASILY with Apple's (easily meaning no messing around with software not
recognizing the drive [I had it happen, Seth had it happen, I'm sure
other people did])?  No.  Can the Apple card DMA to ANY RAM card out
there?  No.  Can it DMA to all 8 megs?  No.  Can you boot off of any
partition with Apple's card?  No.

  Well, those are just a few reasons why the RF is better than Apple's
card.  I had Apple's.  Now I have an RF.  I'm pleased with it's
performance, and I feel that it was worth the money.  I don't think
I'm the only satisfied customer, and I don't think that I'm the only
convert.

		-Greg