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Re: Turbo IDE Card
Bruce,
the flyer is a bit outdated. Among other things, the Turbo IDE works
with _all_ Vulcan HDs now, full IDE compatibility is no longer a must.
I'll post the latest flyer I have ... although that may be outdated
by now, too :)
========= cut ===================
Turbo IDE Card Description
=======================================================================
Version 1.2 / April '93
- pricing updated
- shipping charges changed
- address changes in the future
=======================================================================
Version 1.1 / 2.11.92
- shipping charges changed
- some more hard drive speed tests (Vulcan included)
- account # for payment
=======================================================================
Version 1.0 / September 92
=======================================================================
This is a description of the Turbo IDE Card as it recently was published
on a flyer at KansasFest 1992. Some additional information included.
Copyright 1992 ///SHH Systeme, Joachim Lange.
Feel free to distribute this text as you like as long as it remains
unchanged (the checksum is 8D@!;/SAR_:'`[\-~=JS/S).
Questions, comments and suggestions welcome.
The Turbo IDE Card is no vaporware, many people have seen this card on
KansasFest '92, including the guys from AE, QC, ECON, Interplay,
DreamWorld, Procyon, LRO, AllTech, TMS ...
.... and it's available, now!
=======================================================================
///SHH Systeme "We make IDE Hard Drives RAMFast !!"
"We make Vulcan Hard Drives RAMFast !!"
///SHH SYSTEME
Dipl. Ing. Joachim Lange
Bergstrasse 95
82131 Stockdorf
Germany
++49-89-8577040
GEnie: J.LANGE7
=======================================================================
Introducing:
///Turbo IDE Card
==================
- The Turbo IDE Card is a High-Speed DMA Hard Disk Controller for the
Apple IIGS and Apple IIe.
- Allows the use of the inexpensive and popular IDE hard drives with
Apple II computers.
- Fully PRODOS and GS/OS compatible.
- Uses High-Speed DMA in Apple IIGS and Apple IIe.
- Offers highest data transfer rate:
Acesses are as low as 0.7 msec/block for linear reads (using
ProSel-16, Statistics on Disc Access). Many large-capacity drives offer
even higher speed.
- Speed test: A real-world GS/OS-verify delivers 600 to 800 KBytes/sec.
- Up to 300 KBytes/sec data transfer rate under PRODOS 8 (the Apple
High-Speed SCSI card has 50 KBytes/sec in DMA mode).
- Boots a minimum GS/OS System in nine seconds, with accelerator in six
seconds.
- Boots PRODOS 8 in less than one second.
- Wastes no time for self-initialitation compared to standard SCSI
interfaces! Gives a very short warm-up time.
- High-speed GS/OS driver with GS/OS-caching support included (Note:
RAMFast SCSI controllers do not support GS/OS caching!).
- Fully compatible with all DMA-capable hardware such as: ZIP GS,
Transwarp GS, PC Transporter, RAM Cards from Apple, Applied Engineering,
CV-Tech, Harris, Q-Labs etc.
- The Turbo IDE Card supports 8 (eight) MBytes of expansion RAM on the
IIGS.
- Supports two hard drives up to 256 MBytes capacity each (up to 4 GByte
if desired).
- Up to eight partitions on one drive, 16 partitions on two drives, 32
MBytes per partition (up to 256 MBytes per partition if used with
Macintosh HFS FSTs).
- Can boot from any partition (press OA-1 ... OA-9, OA-A ... OA-G or
set up default value with configuration program).
- The DMA feature can be disabled by software to be compatible with
non-DMA-capable hardware as the ZIP Chip, the Original Transwarp and
some IIGS memory expansion cards.
- Under PRODOS 8, the upper partitions (3...8) can be mapped into other
slots. So you can get access to all partitions even under PRODOS 8.
Mapping can easily be disabled for use with PRODOS 2.01. *No* patch
software required. No ROM upgrade required.
Easy installation:
- Automatic installation procedure with auto-recognition of the hard
drive's geometry and with auto-partitioning.
- All types of IDE hard disk drives can be used. There are no
restrictions in the number of sectors per track, number of heads or
number of cylinders. The Turbo IDE Card Software supports any
combination of numbers that may exist.
- Hard disk cable included (most other controllers need an extra cable).
- Made in Germany.
- Industry Standard High Quality.
- One year warranty.
- Free software updates (Utilities and ROM) available via GEnie.
Vulcan & Vulcan Gold Controller Replacement:
============================================
--> Now your Vulcan can be RAMFast!! <--
Disappointed about the Vulcan Gold upgrade? Still a (golden) slow poke?
What about a Vulcan Platinum? Here it is !!
The Turbo IDE Card is the ultimate Speedup Kit for Vulcan Hard Drives.
It
--> doubles the speed of the <--
--> fastest Vulcan Gold configuration <--
Indeed, using the Turbo IDE Card, your Vulcan Hard Drive can be
RAMFast without ever buying a RamFAST SCSI Card. Once again, your Vulcan
Hard Drive can be as fast or faster than a SCSI drive connected to a
RamFAST SCSI Card!! The Turbo IDE Card is fully pin-compatible with
Vulcan hard drives. A Vulcan user can easily switch over to the Turbo
IDE Card and has the option of upgrading his system with a second hard
drive (external). He even could replace his old, low capacity drive in
the Vulcan case with an up-to-date, 120 MB or 200 MB drive and really
save a lot of money. Any 3.5 inch IDE drive will fit in the Vulcan case
with no problems.
Note: In InCider 7/92, p. 40, you can get some speed test results for
Vulcan Gold, ZipDrive, ECON PEGASUS and TMS SHADOW. Well, just have a
look at the "Linear Read" and "GS/OS Verify"... These are the numbers
that really count!
Super fast!!
Here are some test results for the Turbo IDE Card with various hard
drives (Apple IIGS at 2.8 MHz, GS/OS System 6.0, using ProSel-16,
Statistics on Disc Access, Linear Read):
Seagate ST125A: 1.00 msec/block
Seagate ST157A: 1.00 msec/block
Seagate ST3102A: 0.80 msec/block
Seagate ST3120A: 0.80 msec/block
Seagate ST3144A: 0.80 msec/block
Seagate ST3243A: 0.75 msec/block
Seagate ST3283A: 0.75 msec/block
Conner CP 2024: 1.1 msec/block (2xxx Series: Notebook drives 2.5")
Conner CP 2044: 1.1 msec/block
Conner CP 2064: 1.0 msec/block
Conner CP 2084: 1.0 msec/block
Conner CP 2124: 0.9 msec/block
Conner CP 3000: 1.1 msec/block (same drive in Vulcan Gold 40)
Conner CP 3044: 1.1 msec/block
Conner CP 30084: 0.88 msec/block
Conner CP 3104: 0.90 msec/block
Conner CP 30104: 0.78 msec/block
Conner CP 30174: 0.70 msec/block
Conner CP 3204: 0.75 msec/block
Conner CP 30204: 0.62 msec/block
Conner CP 30254: 0.62 msec/block
NEC D3735: 0.90 msec/block
NEC D3765: 0.80 msec/block
!!! >>>>> And now, the measurement of the ultra-fast <<<<< !!!
Vulcan 40: 4.70 msec/block (4.7, wow!!!)
We do recommend Conner IDE Drives (although we do not get money for
this note). They are reliable, fast, quiet, inexpensive and they are the
leader in low power consumption.
///Turbo IDE Card - Technical Details
======================================
- The built-in DMA sequencer transfers 512 bytes of data in one burst.
One block of 512 bytes is transferred in 512 microseconds without any
overhead. This is the maximum I/O speed available in Apple II computers.
The Turbo IDE Card has no need for an extra 10 MHz processor to make
hard drives RamFAST.
- The Turbo IDE Card was developed according to Apple's Interface Card
Design and DMA Design Guidelines.
- The Turbo IDE Card firmware supports the PRODOS 8 and the SmartPort
protocol (standard & extended calls) and is well speed-optimized. As a
result, the boot time for launching GS/OS is only two seconds more when
the GS/OS driver is not installed.
- As mentioned before, the Turbo IDE Card software supports any number
of sectors per track, number of heads and number of cylinders. At this
time, the math routines are limited to reasonable 256 MBytes per drive
(we can change that limitation). The fast math routines are working
universally in the range of the values allowed in the IDE task file
(17...254 sectors, 2...16 heads and up to 65535 cylinders). Most IDE
drives are limited to 50...60 sectors, 16 heads and 1024 cylinders.
- Support for Universal Translation Mode: The installation program will
set the hard disk(s) to any Translation Mode at user's request. This is
very useful for fine-tuning.
- Support for special multiple read/write mode.
- The Turbo IDE Card will support upcoming tape streamers for the IDE
interface.
- RamFAST SCSI Cards do not support GS/OS caching! Turbo IDE Cards do!
Yes, there is still a big advantage compared with a hard-caching SCSI
card. When copying a large quantity of files to a hard disk partition,
the Turbo IDE Card (supporting GS/OS caching) is very, very fast. A
caching SCSI card, which does not support GS/OS caching, "looses" the
directory and index blocks in its cache because the cache is never large
enough to hold all data, or the directory contents in the SCSI cache is
overwritten by the actual data (cache splitting required). So the SCSI
card has to re-read some directory blocks from hard disk again and again
whenever they are requested by GS/OS. This results in a remarkable
slow-down in overall speed because of the many seeks that have to be
done. You can hear the noise of the SCSI drive working hard when it is
moving its read/write heads permanently. The problem of loosing
directory blocks in the cache is mainly annoying when a hard disk
partition gets filled up more and more. A nearly empty partition never
shows this problem.
By contrast, GS/OS playing with the Turbo IDE Card, has most directory
and index blocks available in the GS/OS cache at any time without the
need of hard drive accesses.
- Why is the Turbo IDE Card really fast? Because it has no cache!
Indeed, a hard-caching controller has to transfer data twice which may
result in a considerable overhead. On a read request, the data first has
to be read into the cache and then transferred to the destination
memory. There is no way to get around the cache.
The Turbo IDE Card transfers data directly from the hard disk to the
destination, as fast as it can be done on Apple II computers.
Ordering Information
=====================
This is no vaporware! The Turbo IDE Card is immediately available! And
we are shipping immediately!
The Turbo IDE Card carries a one year limited warranty against defects
in materials and workmanship. Software and ROM updates (if needed) will
be available on GEnie BBS.
The Turbo IDE Card package consists of
- the controller card
- the IDE cable
- the installation disk with GS/OS caching driver
- the manual (english)
The current (April '93) single-order price is
US $149 plus $24 for shipping and handling (to the US)
DM 240 plus DM 38 for shipping and handling (within Europe)
Shipping is via standard air mail. (if you think the shipping charge is
too high, just call any US mail order house and ask what they charge for
international air mail shipping). Discounts are as follows:
USA Europe
---------------- -------------------
Quantity price each s/h price each s/h
2 $149 $26 DM 240 DM 38
3 $145 $28 DM 230 DM 41
5 $139 $34 DM 222 DM 50
10 $135 $43 DM 213 DM 62
All orders from overseas must be prepaid in US currency or Deutsche
Mark. All orders from Europe must be prepaid in Deutsche Mark. Cash
(bills), certified checks (accepted by a german bank) and international
remittances accepted. Sorry, no credit cards accepted.
IMPORTANT: If payment is by check or money order, an additional fee of
US $10 or 16 Deutsche Mark is required for each order. We have to pay
this amount to get the cash for the check. For european orders we
recommend paying by EuroCheck because no addtional fee is required for
EuroChecks.
As the Dollar exchange rates are changing from day to day, the pricing
may not be stable for a long time. Try to get latest US$ pricing for the
Turbo IDE Card on GEnie.
Remittances send to:
Citybank Privatkunden AG Duesseldorf, Germany
Account No. 5 045 090 092
5 045 090 092
Joachim Lange, Schoenstrasse 80a, 8000 Muenchen 90
In your order please specify computer (IIe or IIGS).
Dealer inquiries welcome. We are offering manufacturing licenses. Ask
for details.
SHH Systeme, 4/93 "We make IDE Hard Drives RAMFast !!"
"We make Vulcan Hard Drives RAMFast !!"
=======================================================================
-- End of Turbo IDE description --
--
===========================================================================
I live with amnesia, dancing with the ! Soenke Behrens
shadows of my memory. ! Tumblinger 54/205
! 80337 Muenchen