Re: Vulcan Upgrade Info

["Paul Grammens" <grammens@svn.net>]

"Andrew Webber" <andrew.webber2@btinternet.com> wrote
>
> This maybe a stupid question, but what is a the difference between a
> Vulcan and a Vulcan Gold?
>

The Gold has a larger hard disk, 100 megs. It's also painted "gold".
Most Vulcans are black, and either 20 or 40 megs.  Each has a different
EPROM. A Vulcan 20 only supports 20 meg drives, the 40 supports 20's or
40's, and the Gold supports 100's or smaller. The limitations are actually
on the CHS parameters, not the drive size per se, so relatively few 40 meg
drives will work with the Vulcan 40. It only supports 4 heads and a limited
number of cylinders, such that 2 head 40 meg drives won't work because the
cylinder count is out of range.

The interface card seems to be the same, other than the EPROM, so changing
your EPROM to the Gold allows the use of larger drives, and more
importantly, a wider variety of IDE drives. Sadly, a lot of Vulcans were
junked because the crappy 20 and 40 meg drives died, and compatible drives
were hard to find.  Oh yeah, the newer, higher capacity drives are also
smaller and take less power. Those old WD drives get really hot.
-Paul