Re: ACOS/BBS

[allister@netcom.com (Allister Fiend)]

I had a regular old Apple SCSI card, and had a ROM put on it that allowed 
partitions up to 256 Megs.  As soon as I get a card, I'm going to get a 
copy of this ROM.  I used to use it way back back and it worked like a 
charm! 

-Jaime

David Empson (dempson@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz) wrote:
: In article <41r4tn$gdi@news.rain.org>, Steve Mentzer <stevenm@rain.org> wrote:
: > 
: >  [ACOS]

: Sorry - can't help there.

: >  Also, Is it possible to connect SCSI drives to a IIgs these days?

: That is a bit of a loaded question.  It has _always_ been possible to
: connect a SCSI hard drive to the IIgs.  The original Apple SCSI card
: was released at about the same time as the IIgs.

: So, I don't quite know whether you mean "is it YET possible" or "is it
: STILL possible".

: In either case, the answer in yes.  It is getting harder to find the
: SCSI cards - you can still buy a RamFast from Sequential Systems, but
: Apple have stopped making their original and High Speed SCSI cards.
: There may be some stocks of the High Speed card lurking out there
: somewhere (Quality Computers was still advertising it somewhat
: recently), and resellers such as Alltech Electronics and Shreve
: Systems may have either card in stock.

: You may be able to pick up either of these cards second hand, e.g.
: through the comp.sys.apple2.marketplace group.

: There are other third-party SCSI cards, but their software support is
: pretty poor.

: The RamFast is the best option for ranges of devices supported and
: speed.  The Apple High-Speed SCSI card (the one I have) is supported
: by Apple's system software, and is the most "standard" SCSI
: implementation of the three (except for termination power).

: The original Apple SCSI card is much slower than either of the other
: cards, and has very limited device support.


: Given the SCSI card, all you need is an external SCSI hard drive.
: Nearly all SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 hard drives will work fine with a RamFast
: or with an Apple HS SCSI card.

: > If so, what are the limitations on partition size, etc? 

: The ProDOS file system is limited to 32 megabytes per partition.
: ProDOS-8 only works with this file system, so it is stuck with this
: limit.

: GS/OS requires a ProDOS partition for the boot volume, but current
: versions can also use the Macintosh HFS file system, which supports
: volume sizes up to 2 gigabytes.  There are reports that the IIgs
: implementation of HFS is rather flakey when dealing with large
: volumes, but 128 megabytes or thereabouts should be safe.  I've had no
: trouble with the 100-ish MB partition on my hard drive.

: The main disadvantage of an HFS partition is that files on it are not
: accessible from ProDOS-8.  HFS is also noticeably slower than ProDOS
: when writing files - it seems to take forever to update the directory
: information (or work out what it needs to do), but the actual data
: transfer is usually much faster than with ProDOS, because the data can
: usually be written in a contiguous block without having to preprocess
: the data.


: A popular choice seems to be selecting a convenient number of 32
: megabyte ProDOS partitions, then splitting the rest of the disk up
: into one or a few HFS partitions.

: I have four ProDOS partitions and one HFS partition on my 240 MB hard
: drive.  I have system software and applications on the first, data
: files on the second, random stuff (mainly comms) on the third, and PC
: Transporter and GNO stuff on the fourth.  The HFS partition has comms
: archives and a copy of the data from a developer's CD-ROM.


: With the RamFast, all the software needed is built into the ROM on the
: card.

: The Apple cards use device drivers supplied with the IIgs system
: software.  Partitioning and utility functions are handled by programs
: included with the system software, or by the software supplied with
: the card (which is very rudimentary) for the IIe.
: -- 
: David Empson
: dempson@actrix.gen.nz
: Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand